SF Giants’ Buster Posey Opts out of 2020 Season Due to Health Concerns for Adopted Twins

San Francisco Giants pitcher Buster Posey and his wife, Kristen, finalized the adoption of twin baby girls this month. After the twins were born 8 weeks prematurely, Posey made the decision to opt out of the 2020 season over health concerns for his daughters.

Posey, 33, a six-time All-Star, 2012 NL MVP and three-time World Series champion, said if the twins had not been born early, he would not have made this decision. However, they will have to spend time in neonatal intensive care over the next few months and he felt this decision was the best for his family.

“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 told the AP. “From a baseball standpoint, it was a tough decision. From a family standpoint and feeling like I’m making a decision to protect our children, I think it was relatively easy.”

Posey, who would’ve brought home a salary of $8 million this season, joins a list of other prominent MLB players who have opted out of the 2020 season. Players who opted out include Dodgers pitcher David Price, Washington first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, Colorado’s Ian Desmond and Arizona pitcher Mike Leake.

Posey and his wife already have 8-year-old twin girls Lee and Addie and have been trying to adopt to expand their family for the past few years. After unsuccessful attempts, including adopting a baby boy only to have the birth parents change their mind, they successfully adopted newborn twins Ada and Livvi. The family is “overwhelmed with joy” over the adoption, Posey said.

President of baseball operations for the Giants, Farhan Zaidi, as well as team manager Gabe Kapler, say they support Posey in his decision.

“This is not a difficult one,” said Kapler. “I think that a lot of people around baseball will say family first. I think it’s important that we that we actually put that into action by throwing all of our support in making these decisions even easier for players because they know that they have to support the leadership in the organization.”

The MLB season started July 23.