The latest model to lay out some version of a potential Major League Baseball season in 2020 appears to be an improvement over the first one we saw.

But it is still fraught with specific problems, unavoidable pitfalls and significant overarching questions about health during the coronavirus pandemic.

Please don’t read this piece as a dismissive hatchet job. As they attempt to scrape together some semblance of a calendar, I thank baseball’s executives for attempting to be creative, inventive and flexible.

Those aren’t traits normally associated with baseball’s decision-making process. This situation calls for those qualities, and they are trying really hard.

According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, teams would be split between Florida and Arizona within their current spring training facilities.

In other words, the 15-team Florida Grapefruit League and the 15-team Arizona Cactus League would essentially become the American and National Leagues for one season.

The Pirates’ division — called the “North” — would also feature the New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers. All five of those teams are in the western part of the state, with the Pirates being the most southern location of the bunch in Bradenton.

As Nightingale describes, “Even with the realignment, (MLB) could still play 12 games apiece against their new divisional opponents and six games apiece against the other teams in the state … There could still be division winners and wild-card winners, perhaps adding two more wild-card teams to each league, or a postseason tournament with all 30 teams.

The winner of the Cactus League in Arizona would play the winner of the Grapefruit League in Florida for the World Series championship, utilizing the domed stadiums in late November.”

All that sounds much better to me than the entirely Arizona-based “league in a bubble” idea which was leaked last week.

The logistics and living arrangements for the players, umpires, league executives and media seem much more manageable. Television broadcast windows would be far more palatable for viewers in the Eastern Time Zone. Fewer doubleheaders would have to be baked into the schedule. Training rooms would be individualized per team.

Also, what’s easier? Each team maniacally sanitizing its own facility around its own team’s schedule?

Or one league-managed staff trying to do that multiple times per day at the various locations around Arizona? All day, every day. Throughout the season.

I’ll vote option A.

Most importantly, I see no reference in Nightingale’s piece to the silly, cosmetic, “hey look at how much we care about social distancing” measures that leaked out of the first proposal.

You know what I’m referencing. The phony “optics” of making baseball appear that it cares about the “six foot rule.” Hence, making players sit in the empty stands, but a catcher squatting behind a batter is OK. Banning mound visits, but first base coaches still have jobs. No umpires behind the catchers, but tag plays still exist.

Thankfully, that kind of virtue signaling seems to be omitted from this plan.

Unfortunately, these debates over inconsistent social distancing standards and sanitization of the facilities speak to deeper concerns for both plans.

For instance, what appears to be uncertain is if — or for how long — games will be played without fans in the stands. Granted, the chances of spreading the disease are cut drastically by keeping a few thousand people out of the seats. Yet we’ll still see between 100 and 200 people in the stadiums, at minimum, to play the games: players, umpires, equipment guys, video operators, medical personnel, essential stadium employees, security and the television broadcast crews.

Coronavirus doesn’t know the difference between 200 and 5,000. And if players start passing the disease among themselves, the fan discussion is moot anyway.

The other issue in Florida is that with a wider swath of geography to cover, as opposed to the centralization around Phoenix in the original plan, greater risk for infection occurs when you go to more densely populated regions. The Yankees play in Hillsborough County (Tampa). The Pirates play in Manatee County (Bradenton). Based on this map at the time of this post, there were 790 reported covid-19 cases in Hillsborough County, just 250 in Manatee.

If the players aren’t going to be totally insulated, there is a greater risk of infection whenever teams travel to the larger destinations.

Not to mention the height of hurricane season in Florida affecting 15 teams now instead of just two (Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays), if this plan extends into August.

Also, where do the minor leagues play?

Trust me. I lean far more to the side of the argument that says we can’t stay inside forever and there’s no such thing as zero risk until a cure is found. So I’m all about getting sports back to normal.

Maybe not now on April 14. But by Memorial Day? Mid-June? The Fourth of July? If it’s not safe by then, this planet is going to have much bigger problems than if baseball restarts. And if the NFL is proceeding as planned to have training camps open in July — which I think they should until otherwise directed — then baseball should be on that path, too.

That’s why I’m more inclined to argue in favor of shelving these extreme location plans and prepare to open up in late June or July back in regular season home facilities, with or without fans.

If that can’t be done in every city, make concessions. If the Yankees and Mets and Phillies have to keep playing in Florida, so be it. If the Seattle Mariners have to play in Arizona. Oh well.

Wait it out, MLB. Train in Florida and Arizona for a short time. As soon as possible, come north. Squeeze in as much of a season as you can. Go back down south or west for the playoffs if you have to do so if weather dictates.

I praise baseball’s attempt to think outside of the box. Unfortunately, I feel like we are all boxed in.

Literally and figuratively.

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