Brewers' Brock Holt: 'I feel like if I didn’t play this year, my baseball career would be over'

One gets the feeling Milwaukee Brewers utility man Brock Holt would rather remain home than participate in the 60-game MLB season to be played amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Holt, who spent the past seven years with the Boston Red Sox, is on a one-year "prove it" deal with the Brewers that includes a club option for 2021, and the 32-year-old with a pregnant wife at home feared that opting out of a season unlike any other could doom his career.

“I’m not in a position to opt out of a season," Holt told media members during a Tuesday Zoom call, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I feel like if I didn’t play this year, my baseball career would be over. If I didn’t play, it would be hard for me to find a job next year.”

Holt added: “If I had a contract with enough years or enough money to sit out a year, not play and not have to worry about not having a job next year, I think opting out would have been an easier decision considering the situation me and my family are in right now. Based on the situation I’m in, it was never really an option."

Uncontrolled virus outbreaks around the United States resulted in some MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS players electing to stay with their families ahead of return-to-play formats scheduled to get underway later this month or in early August.

MLB Opening Day is set for July 23.