Chicago Cubs: Uh oh, potential for Kris Bryant to opt-out?

As a new dad, Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant is not feeling particularly safe playing baseball this season. Is he going to opt-out?

Everything from how Major League Baseball has handled the negotiations for resuming play to, most recently, the delay in COVID-19 test results has been a complete disaster. And while the Chicago Cubs have returned to Wrigley Field to ramp up activities ahead of play resuming on July 24, third baseman Kris Bryant isn’t feeling too keen on the idea of playing baseball amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I wanted to play this year,” said Bryant. “Because I thought it would be safe. Honestly, I don’t really feel that.”

The Cubs media spoke with manager David Ross and Bryant on a Zoom call on Monday, with testing being the bulk of the conversation. Bryant was tested nearly a week ago and wasn’t tested again until Sunday, indicating that he knows that there will be hiccups, but you can’t have hiccups with this.

I’m sorry, but you cannot go that long between testing players, especially with several teams experiencing significant delays getting the test results back. The Astros, Cardinals, Nationals, and Padres were among the teams that had players tested on Friday, but as of Monday morning, they still had not received the results.

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Right now, it seems wreckless the way MLB is handling this, especially given how much of a priority the league and MLBPA seemed to make testing protocols before even looking at the economics of the return-to-play plan.

However, with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent statement that there was never going to be more than 60 games played this year – and thus making it apparent that the negotiations were a waste of time – it’s difficult to believe anything they say.

We’ve already seen several big names opt-out of the 2020 season, at the expense of their service time and salary, most notably David Price, Ian Desmond, Nick Markakis, and Ryan Zimmerman.

Angels’ star Mike Trout has been on the fence about playing, and if he were to opt-out, MLB would have to take a long, hard look whether this season was really worth the risk.

As for Bryant, he is a new dad, and I would undoubtedly understand if he decides not to further risk the health of himself or his family. Let’s just hope MLB can get their act together in order to make the players as safe as possible by the end of the month.