Yankees’ Aaron Boone planning for on-time start of spring training despite reports of another delay

Despite reports that the season could be delayed because of the coronavirus continuing to rage across the country, Aaron Boone is optimistically expecting to start spring training on time in February.

“We have the reporting dates and that’s what we’re told ... to get ready for,” the Yankees manager said Tuesday on a conference call with reporters. “I think we’re all sitting here with the experience of 2020, and where we’re still at in our world, and you can draw our own conclusions. … I’m hopeful that [spring training] is on time and as we see these vaccines start to roll out that that’s a game changer in all this.”

“So, I’m preparing in my mind and approaching my conversations with staff and players that we are on time,” Boone added. “If we need to adjust that along the way we will.”

According to a report in USA Today, the owners and league want to push back the start of the 2021 baseball year, starting the regular season in May and potentially abbreviating it again. The report has owners claiming the reason is so that players can get the coronavirus vaccine, which was just rolled out this week, before spring training.

The union and players, who took significant salary cuts in the 2020 pandemic-shortened season, would like the regular-season to start on time and hope to report as scheduled in February and play a full season.

In a videoconference call with reporters on Tuesday, super-agent Scott Boras said questions about safety were answered in how the players got through 2020.

“That whole issue is about working conditions and, and that is something for the Players Association appropriately to deal with, and also manage and see what direction players want to take with that,” Boras said. “But the true truth is that in 2020 we had a lot of questions. I’m very disappointed that we didn’t play 100 games, at minimum, 120, in 2020 because we have the means to do it. And taking advantage of October, starting earlier, all these things could have been done. And, and I think it was a large mistake of the game because we had a season that is not a customary Major League season. We now know that we can play this game, and we can do it safely. And with the vaccine coming, even at a higher safety level. So the reality of it is it’s not a question of whether we can do it, because we’ve already done it, so that unknown is erased. So I don’t know how you use anything other than we’re going to support... the integrity of the game and provide a full season, knowing what we’ve learned in 2020. Because the questions have been answered, but we can do it effectively.”

The length of the season was a contentious point between the players and owners as they negotiated the protocols to carry out the 2020 season. Ultimately, Commissioner Rob Manfred dictated the 60-game season after the players had agreed to what ended up being about 33% of their salary in what became a very ugly and public negotiation.

While the owners cite health and safety of the players as their reason for a potential late and abbreviated season, ultimately a delay would be beneficial for them financially. This could be the first shots fired on yet another battle between players and owners.

The same day the first vaccine was administered, the United States crossed the grim milestone of 300,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Boone said that he has just viewed the news of the vaccine as a parent and citizen and has yet to begin to think about how that would affect his role as a manager. When and who gets the vaccine will be a hot topic in the coming weeks, particularly because nearly half of Americans are saying they have concerns about the vaccine.

“I haven’t thought actually about those conversations until you brought it up right now,” Boone said. “I’m kind of looking at it through my lens of being home with the family and stuff, and kind of going through the offseason and watching it unfold on the news ... through a hopeful lens,” Boone said. “We’re in a position as an industry to have that impact us positively. And I would expect if and when that is the case that we won’t have issues, but whatever conversations we have to have at that point, if there are issues, we’ll tackle that.”

The delay would not only allow the players and personnel to get vaccinated, it would also allow fans to get the vaccine. It would also allow the owners, who claimed to have lost about $2 billion last season because of COVID-19, to help defer the cost of spring training if they are able to open the gates to fans for exhibition games and then open the regular season with fans in the ballparks, an industry source explained.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said that most fans will not be vaccinated until the end of the summer and until then ballparks and stadiums will still be limited by public health officials.