Giants' Buster Posey Opts Out of 2020 Season

The Giants will play this summer without star catcher Buster Posey, who opted out of the 2020 season Friday.

Posey said he and his wife Kristen are adopting identical twin girls. The twins were born prematurely and stable but will be in the neonatal intensive care unit for some time. Posey said he probably would have chosen to play in 2020 if the twins were not born prematurely, according to The Athletic's Andrew Baggarly. The couple already has two young children.

"After weighing it for a long time, talking to doctors, I just feel like in the current state that we are right now and these babies being as fragile as they are for the next four months, at minimum, this ultimately wasn't that difficult a decision for me," Posey said.

The six-time All-Star's announcement comes after he missed three team workouts this week and manager Gabe Kapler said he was dealing with a "personal issue." Many speculated Posey would sit out the season after he expressed "reservation" about playing amid the coronavirus pandemic and told reporters, "I think I want to see kind of how things progress here over the next couple of weeks."

San Francisco released a statement saying the club supports Posey.

"The Giants fully support Buster's decision," the team said. "Buster is an integral part of our team and will be sorely missed, but we look forward to having him back in 2021."

Posey becomes the latest MLB star to opt-out of the season after Dodgers starter David Price and Braves reliever Felix Hernandez announced last weekend their decisions to not play in 2020. He joins a growing group of players who have chosen to sit out, which includes Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Leake and Ian Desmond, among others. Under the MLBPA's agreement with the league, MLB players have the ability to opt-out due to their concerns over COVID-19.

MLB released the results of its latest round of COVID-19 tests Friday. The league said 58 players and six staff members tested positive for COVID-19. Of the 3,748 samples tested, 1.8% came back positive. A player or staff member has tested positive on 27 of 30 teams. 

Players were tested for COVID-19 over the last week as they return to their home parks in the lead up to the start of the 2019-20 season. But some have expressed frustration about the reliability of MLB's tests. The accuracy of some tests came into question following unreliable results, while other teams had significant delays in receiving their test results.

Posey, 33, was set to play his 12th season with the Giants this summer. Last year, he hit .257 with 38 RBIs. The Giants finished 2019 in third place in the National League West at 77–85.