MLB Releases Statement On Latest Report Claiming Plan To Return In May

Well, that didn't take long.

Late Monday night ESPN's Jeff Passan gave baseball fans a lot of hope that a baseball season would begin as early as June, with an abbreviated version of spring training beginning in mid-May. Obviously huge news that included a supposed plan to have all 30 MLB teams start the 2020 season by playing their games in Arizona, using the 10 spring training ballparks and Chase Field in Phoenix for an indefinite period of time.

You can read more details here.

But MLB has already released a statement, throwing some cold water on that report.

So yeah, maybe we all got too excited about that Passan report.

MLB refutes that there's any agreement with the MLBPA and denies there being some sort of support from federal officials. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, as everyone does want some return to normalcy as soon as possible, but there are several hurdles to overcome.

I don't think Passan or Ken Rosenthal are lying when they're writing that federal officials do support the league in coming back as soon as possible, but those people probably aren't going to say that publicly right now.

MLB is obviously talking about different options, but that statement makes it sound like the league isn't close to working out any of the actual details to begin a 2020 season.