As Spring Training competition has been cancelled by Major League Baseball as well as the start of the regular season being pushed back at least two weeks to combat the spread of COVID-19, the Detroit Tigers are still putting a game plan together on what to do moving forward.
http://gty.im/1124999244
Speaking today to media members alongside skipper Ron Gardenhire, GM Al Avila outlined some of what the team will be doing in the next few days as they await further direction from MLB.
“Obviously Spring Training has been cancelled for now,” he began. “What we’re going to do – MLB is talking to the players union, and they’ll be coming up with a plan, a long term plan as we move forward.”
“Meanwhile for this weekend, basically what we’ll do is on Friday, players that need treatment and who are injured will get treatment and go home. The rest of the guys, we told them ‘optional’. If they want to come in and get a work out in on their own or, there will be staff here in case they want to get anything else in from a workout perspective. Individually, they can come, the clubhouse will be open for them to come and do.”
“Back on Sunday, again an optional day to come in and work out. The players who need to get treatment will come in….we told them to stay close by on their phones, they won’t be leaving Lakeland, they’ll be staying in their apartments and hotels and stay here for now. They’ll stay close to their phones because on a day to day basis, anything can change and we’ll be constant communication with them through the weekend. As we know more of what we’ll do and we get more direction from MLB and the union, moving forward to next week, at that point we’ll let them know.”
