Chris Woodward hasn't left the Phoenix metro area for Dallas-Fort Worth since becoming Texas Rangers manager, though he and the family are packing up for a move after the school year ends.
So, he was stationed at his home in Chandler last week when various outlets reported that Major League Baseball was contemplating holding its entire season at the spring sites in Arizona.
The idea is easy to poke holes through. Just consider the logistics of dropping 30 teams into one area and then restricting them to only their hotels and ballparks.
So is the new notion that Florida could host the season after Gov. Ron DeSantis declared sporting events essential business. Travel and weather issues are why teams prefer training in Arizona.
But the ideas are an indication to Woodward that MLB is leaving no stones unturned as it tries to start its 2020 season amid the coronavirus pandemic. His hope and belief is that Rangers players are taking their training seriously for whenever baseball does resume.
"I feel like right now we have a pretty good awareness of what guys are doing and how they're getting ready," Woodward said. "Some guys have better situations than others, but overall I feel pretty comfortable that guys are doing what they're supposed to do."
Willie Calhoun said that he hits a couple times a week with a small group of Rangers players that includes Joey Gallo and Danny Santana, the projected starting outfield. Woodward said that the projected members of the starting rotation continue to throw off a mound.
But the Rangers won't truly know how well players worked during the shutdown until baseball resumes, whenever that might be.
"We're trying to prepare, to keep these guys ready so if a call is made that, say, we have a month to get ready, it's not a massive task to try to get these guys ready to play," Woodward said. "That's the hard part because we don't know exactly when that's going to be."
The CDC has limited the size of public gatherings to no more than 10 people through May 11. The latest numbers indicate a flattening of the curve of COVID-19 cases, and President Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are hoping to reopen the economy on a staggered basis.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told the Fox Business Network that he wants baseball to be a part of the economic recovery, but also downplayed that baseball has a definite plan to start the season.
"We have a variety of contingency plans that we have talked about and worked on," he said. "'Plans' may be too strong a word. 'Ideas' may be a better word. All of them are designed to address limitations that may exist when businesses restart _ travel limitations, limitations on mass gatherings that may still exist.
"So from our perspective we don't have a plan, we have lots of ideas. What ideas come to fruition will depend on what the restrictions are, what the public health situation is. But we are intent on the idea of trying to make baseball part of the recovery _ the economic recovery _ and sort of a milestone on the return of normalcy."
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