Major League Baseball and the Players Association are currently in negotiations about a plan to start a modified 2020 season due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The two sides began talks after commissioner Rob Manfred held a Monday conference call with the
league's 30 owners, who approved a restart proposal that would have the 2020 regular season begin an abbreviated 82-game schedule in early July.
According to Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal, the league is planning to implement a
safety protocol in which all baseball personnel would be tested for coronavirus multiple times a week, with results available within about 24 hours. Diamond outlined more specifics of the plan, including that the league's proposal does not require quarantining players or automatically suspending play if a player tests positive.
MLB believes that it will be able to gain access to the tens of thousands of testing kits required for this plan without taking tests away from the frontline workers or hospitals, Diamond adds. This plan's safety measures are not as intensive as some of the other previously ideas the league had considered, like quarantining all required employees and players. More from Diamond: