One key element of the current collective bargaining talks is whether there will be any change to the number of players who can be carried on a roster. Negotiations are entering their final phases with the current agreement set to expire on the first of December.
There has reportedly already been consideration of going from 25 to 26 players on the active roster. (Here’s our story from two weeks back; the reporting came via Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.) And that concept is still under discussion even as the time nears for the league and the MLB player’s association to wrap up talks, per Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.
There’s little question that the 26th man would be a boon to the player’s union, though MLBTR contributor Ryan Spilborghs has argued that it would be beneficial for teams as well. Balancing the cost of thirty new MLB salaries, sources tell Rosenthal, could come in part from new limitations on the size of the active roster in September.
Currently, of course, organizations can utilize anyone on their 40-man roster during the month of September, as Spilborghs also recently discussed. The new rule under consideration might limit clubs to 28 players for any given game during the final full month of the season, with additional provisions allowing that group to be modified — but not every single day.
It’s easy to see the merit in paring back the strange rule that significantly changes the game beginning on September 1. There likely wouldn’t be much of an impact on the transactional world, and it’s hard to imagine any fans taking issue. Adding a 26th man for the full season, though, might shake things up a bit. It would potentially reduce the exposure of players to serious injury, make it easier for clubs to employ specialized players at the major league level, and make the Rule 5 draft a more feasible means of snaring young talent.
So if you’re going to increase the active roster, why not expand the 40 man? An extra minor leaguers gets a bump in salary, and the club can protect one or more minor leaguers from the rule 5 or MiLB free agency. Expanding to 26 and not expanding the 40 man would lead to more DFA’s and people getting cut/moved on waivers.
You have a valid point.
I’m happy enough that player health is valued, that I’ll delay the 41 Man roster until later. Then, again, I’m not as annoyed by DFAs as some people.
Bring on the six-man rotations.
And teams drafting that extra starter or three every draft to have six man rotations in the Midwest and SALLY Leagues.
It work for the Cubs
It will probably mean an added reliever rather than an added starter. It will mean 14 man pitching staffs and many more games all year being played like they ar in September with 5-6 relievers used in a game.
Very astute observation, it’s a shame that MLB does not listen to those.
Another example would be adding more playoff teams – and therefore meaningful games in September (when previously there was fewer, and ergo, more eliminated teams wanting to see prospects) but then not changing the expanded rosters month to the one where the games now mean the least because of that, to April.
It’s like they forget why they made up these rules in the first place and don’t ever understand that changing the outcome of one thing affects so many varied, different, other outcomes for other parts of the game.
Baseball. A game of six different seasons, none quite like the other.
They went decades without really tinkering with the game but as soon as Selig came in he changed so much about the game and never fixed anything that was broken, and none of any it makes any sense, so the structure of the game barely looks logical anymore.
Aaaand, the Cubs will go with a six-man rotation.
So the length of schedule probally won’t be changing? At first I was totally against changing it because it would pretty much ruin every stat and record from before now, but I’m starting to be more for the shortening.
It would be nice, but losing the home gates…..
If anything I want a 28 man roster; 168* games and the balanced schedule; no divisions; a shorter playoffs (1 vs 4, 2 vs 3); (then, because of the balanced schedule we will know who is for real and we won’t be subject to a couple teams who just so happen to play 40 games against 2 really bad teams, who then get bounced 3-0 in the first round vs a team who had a harder schedule) go back to the ASG just being a showcase; and let whoever wins the most regular season games get home field in the WS (and if its a tie, whoever has the better record vs .500+ teams).
And, oh, by the way, can someone make a website that shows the average of baseball-reference and fangraphs two different versions of the WAR stat? If they’re not going to agree with each other, it would make sense to show a combined total or the combined total divided by 2, if you want to keep the 0-10+ instead of 0-20+.
But I haven’t put any thought into this 🙂
*6H, 6A x 14 teams = 168
Nah
I agree that the schedules should be more balanced(definitely biased because the Mariners are going to have an impossible august next season), but I don’t think it is possible to balence it out. I think the only way that could balance out the schedule is completely eliminating inter league play, have each team in each league play the same teams the same amount of teams. If that doesn’t work you could change it too having the same schedule repeat every month, but that would probally just cause more problems. And anyways I can’t see inter league play being eliminated. But definitely agree with the asg and ws stuff you said.
I say get rid of all 14 expansion teams
MLB would be canceled if that happened, do you know how many fans they would lose, and more importantly to the owners or whoever in charge/MLB would lose massive amounts of money.
I don’t actually want to contract half the league… but two 8-team leagues has a certain mathematical beauty to it.
The point is you can’t really have a balanced schedule with so many teams. What MLB has done is increase the need for an unbalanced divisional schedule while reducing the significance of divisional play with two wild cards.
I love it!!! And no dh
How about adding an extra player on roster, and eliminating the DH. A concession to players union.
No way keep the DH and make it. Both leagues plus 26 sounds good and 42 man roster after July1st
Eliminate relievers too so pitchers have to throw 9 innings, sounds good.
Is there another sport in the world where people pay hundreds of dollars to watch a guy do a job he’s horrendous at? Nope. DH everywhere 2017.
US Men’s Soccer maybe. #Klinsmann
I’d love to get rid of the DH. Adds layers of strategy. Fans who “don’t like to watch a guy do a job he’s horrendous at” don’t understand trade-offs and opportunity costs. Why not go all the way and have an offense and a defense, if you’re going to minimize weaknesses? Just make MLB like football. That last part was sarcasm, because I know there’s always people who can’t tell.
I appreciate the strategy required to play National League ball, but if you think the league wants guys like David Ortiz to go jobless, you are crazy. The days of pitchers hitting will come to an end eventually. I imagine it is something that will take effect say 5 years after its implemented so teams can plan accordingly.
The MLBPA likes the DH because it adds one more high paid guy on the team, the league would probably prefer it goes away. Fewer teams had a full-time DH last season than in any season since it was instituted, only 5, and there will be even less next season. Teams value flexibility and players like Ortiz are the exception, not the rule. With 20 interleague games per year and more likely in the new CBA, I think the DH goes the way of the Dodo.
I don’t think the DH is ever going anywhere, as much as I wouldn’t miss it if it went.
I prefer NL ball, except, when the game hits the 12th inning, five guys have been double-switched out, and the RP has to hit for himself, since the bench is burnt.
Roster management much easier with AL rules.
I was looking forward to perhaps a shortened season by maybe 5/10 games but making the Division series 7 games
Ditto.
That won’t happen in our lifetimes because of TV contracts. The teams have multi-BILLION dollar, 20-25 year local TV contracts that call for 162 games. Unless all the owners are willing to pay to break all those TV contracts I don’t think it’s going to happen.
I’m not especially interested in shortening the season but I could live with it if we’d go to seven game division series.
I get how adding a player to the active roster would be popular with the MLBPA, but how does that jibe with shortening the game? For almost every team it will be a reliever and 14 man bullpens means that we will have that same type of game we see in September happening all year. Do you like games with 5-6 relievers seeing action every game? Maybe if they do this along with a rule that pitchers have to throw an inning unless they are injured.
If they didn’t take an eight minute break for every pitching change it wouldn’t be so bad.
If they’re serious about pace of play, give managers all of 2 seconds to commit to a challenge (no reviewing it upstairs first).
“Healthy scratch”ing a few players wouldn’t bug me but adding to the total number of players available in a certain game is a slippery slope I don’t want to go down… we’re going to end up with September style baseball all year.
You know I like the schedule the way it is. In all honesty the DH situation isn’t as big as a problem as people make it cause most teams make changes before the series anyway. Think they could handle rosters at 28 with a limit of only 15 pitchers limit to the roster. leave September call ups the way it is but for each series an active roster of 28 set on the first game of series . People are over thinking this too much
Exact numbers are negotiable but…
30-man active roster, 45-man secondary roster… but you can only dress 23 guys for a particular game.
More players raking in service time, more minor leaguers making good money. Flexibility for managing the roster through a grind of a season, but teams won’t have to charter a second jet just for the bullpen and a bunch of designated pinch runners.
Yea? Nay?
If the idiots running MLB had any brains at all, they would have a 29 man roster and allow 25 to be active for a game, thus having 4 “healthy scratches” similar to what the NHL does. This way a team would deactivate their 4 other starters and have both a deeper bullpen and bench. Keep this process all year and you would eliminate the shenanigans that occur in September when rosters expand. I realize this will never happen, but one can dream, right?
How does it work in the NHL for paying those “healthy scratches”? Do they still get paid as if they are active and playing? If so. the MLBPA would be all for that. not so sure about the owners adding 4 more players to the payroll.
23 man rosters, 20 active per game and all are paid NHL salaries as long as they are in the NHL.
I don’t understand why it has suddenly become a ‘strange’ rule to have rosters expand in the beginning of September, a time of year that roughly corresponds with the end of the minor league season. This suddenly ‘strange’ rule has allowed teams to get looks at their deserving minor leaguers on the big stage at a time when their own stage is no longer lit. Why did this become ‘strange’ this year? It’s perfectly reasonable. What’s next, are we going to call it ‘arbitrary’ as well?
Well I thought it was a crap rule that ruined pennant races way before it was cool
It’s more or less as arbitrary as any rule for a game, so I wouldn’t call it that. It’s strange in that you go from being limited to 25 guys in a given game to being able to use 40.
It has always been strange and something no other sport does. Baseball games also change in nature when teams can call up extra pitchers and position players. There are more pitching changes in September than any other month of the year. Games are several minutes longer on average. It’s nice to see the kids play, but it changes how games are played and that is a bad thing.
The NHL kind of has its own version of expanded rosters after the trade deadline each year. I’m forgetting the exact number but teams are allowed an injury replacement list post-trade deadline of I believe 3 or 5 players (pretty sure it’s 3) from their AHL affiliate. In essence, it adds 3 extra players to your roster and since the NHL does not mandate teams to have accurate injury reports, Team X can have so-and-so suddenly appear as having an “upper body injury” and use one of their call ups. Come playoff time, their is no restriction on how many players are in your roster but only 20 can dress per game.
What all of the sudden made it “weird” the past few years was how much the game has changed recently with the dominance and added use of 95 throwing relievers. Managers would love to burn through 5-6 relievers per game during April-Aug but it’s just not feasible.
Changes in bullpen usage have definitely brought the expanded rosters Rule to a critical mass but… it was always a bit bizarre.
Any chance we see a roster expansion for April instead of September? It would give teams the opportunity to maybe utilize a 6 man rotation while trying to ramp up their starters’ pitch counts.
Increasing by 1 player doesn’t do much at all. It should be 28 if it increases. And the playoffs should be up to 30 players. That way if someone is hurt during the game teams have that extra batter or pitcher ready to go.