Washington Nationals: Mike Rizzo takes a stance on baseball

Washington General Manager Mike Rizzo is optimistic there will be baseball this season, he just won’t elaborate on how that’s possible.

Rarely does Washington Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo swing and miss. Usually, he comes up on the winning end of trades and free agent signings (looking the other way on the Trevor Rosenthal debacle last season). I’m afraid he may come up empty on this prediction, however.

Rizzo told reporters via a conference call he believed there would be baseball in 2020 going on record as saying:

“I’m optimistic, as is the commissioner, that we’ll have baseball in 2020. I’m upbeat about that. The most important thing is to do it in the right way and the safest manner we can. But I believe that we will have baseball.”

I believe Rizzo chose his words very wisely here. He is optimistic there will baseball played this year. We are all optimistic there will be baseball played this year, what is the breaking news there? He chose not to say it was “realistic” there will be baseball played this year.

As the country slowly begins to open up in certain places, baseball has several hurdles to clear before they can put players back on the field.

The player’s union will have to approve any proposal and it seems the best the commissioner has come up with is playing games only in Arizona. The games would be hosted by minor league facilities and players would be stricken to hotels whenever they were not playing baseball.

Several top players including Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw have come out against this plan. There doesn’t seem to be a reliable plan in place yet. Today marks the one month point since when opening day should have taken place. Baseball higher ups have already said when a plan is in place teams and players will need at least three weeks of training before games that count can occur.

With every day that goes by, that is truly a game lost and can not be made up, no matter how many proposed double-headers are on the docket.

Mike Rizzo did the right thing for the baseball community of Washington. He expressed hope his city would be able to celebrate last year’s title, this year. He expressed hope they would get to defend their title this year. He expressed hope baseball fans could still hold onto something in 2020.

Where Rizzo remains optimistic, I remain skeptical.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.