© Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
All signs were pointing towards an announcement of this sort. On July 4, Buster Posey said he still hadn’t decided whether he’d participate in Major League Baseball’s 60-game restart, but was at training camp 2.0. On Friday, Posey said that he would opt out of the 2020 season, citing the adoption of identical, premature twin daughters, Ada and Libby.
“The twins were born prematurely,” Posey said. “Thank God, they are doing really well, but they’re going to have to be in the NICU for quite some time. After much discussion with my wife and doctors, a decision that I’ve wrestled with quite a bit since I knew that this adoption was on the table, I’ve decided to opt out of the 2020 baseball season.”
Posey said this was not the first time the family had tried to adopt, which he said has been increasingly difficult, citing one occasion where the other family changed their mind.
“We actually had the baby for a few days and the family changed their mind,” Posey said.
Posey said that the decision to opt out wasn’t actually that difficult, and said that he expected the children would be “fragile” for four months, citing that doctors told him newborns usually have weak immune systems for the first two months of life, and it’s a general rule of thumb to double that for premature children. The two were born 32 weeks into the pregnancy (eight months), Posey said.
“This ultimately wasn’t that difficult a decision,” Posey said. “For me, from a baseball standpoint, it was a tough decision. From a family standpoint and feeling like making a decision to protect children, our children, I think it was relatively easy.”
While he hasn’t spoken with the entirety of the team, Posey said he’s spoken to a few teammates, and discussed addressing the team with Kapler. He’s leaving that door open if they decide it’s appropriate.
If not for the timing and the fact that the children were born prematurely, Posey said, he probably would have played.
“I think that if these babies hadn’t been born right now and weren’t premature, I probably would be playing this season,” Posey said.
This came after two-straight days of practice absences. On Wednesday, Posey was absent, something Gabe Kapler attributed to being a personal matter. He was absent again on Thursday, with Farhan Zaidi saying on KNBR that Posey was still evaluating the situation, as were other players.
“I think he’s continuing to evaluate things on a day-to-day basis and frankly I think there’s a few guys in that boat,” Zaidi said. “Certainly guys with young families and certainly Buster’s in that boat. It’s something else to think about. I don’t want to get into other personal things that he may be thinking… but we’ll respect the decisions any of our players make.”
