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Rob Manfred Discusses Broadcasting Situation, ABS, Pitcher Health

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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred recently conducted an interview with Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times where he discussed a variety of topics that have made headlines around the league of late, including the league’s plans for the future of MLB broadcasting, the future of the automated ball-strike system that was tested during Spring Training this year, and the ongoing conversation around the league regarding the rise in pitcher injuries over the past few years.

Regarding the broadcasting situation, Manfred once again acknowledged that any overarching changes to the status quo for broadcasting around the league will likely need to wait until after the 2028 season, when MLB’s national TV deals with FOX and TBS expire. The same was true of ESPN, though both the network and MLB decided to opt out of the final three years of that agreement earlier this year, leaving ESPN to stop broadcasting MLB games following the 2025 campaign. It has long seemed likely that the commissioner’s office has its sights set on a more all-encompassing streaming package that MLB.tv currently offers, and Manfred reiterated his desire to “get out of the business of blackouts” going forward.

None of that is exactly new information, but one thing Manfred did note is that fans in Japan may see a change in how they access MLB games when the league’s broadcasting deals expire after 2028. Manfred suggested to Schmidt that while the league has previously sold its broadcasting rights in Japan to Japanese broadcasting companies, that may no longer be the case in 2029 and beyond. Instead, Manfred suggested that the league’s international broadcasting rights, including those for Japan, could be sold to an international streaming company.

“I think [Japan] is vitally important from a business perspective,” Manfred told Schmidt. “When you can say to a streaming company, “I have the ability to deliver an audience of 25 million people in Japan for a game,” they’re interested.”

That would be a major change in the status quo for fans in Japan but could also result in a substantial windfall for the league, allowing them to leverage the league’s rapidly growing fanbase in Japan financially in a more impactful way. Manfred said as much during the interview, suggesting to Schmidt that the value of those broadcasting rights in the streaming market is “way more significant” than the value the league would be able to extract by continuing to sell to traditional broadcasters in Japan.

It’s against that backdrop of upcoming potential streaming deals, both domestic and international, that the next round of collective bargaining between the league and the MLB Players Association will occur. The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire in December of 2026, and while that’s still more than 18 months away the possibility of another lockout after one disrupted the 2021-22 offseason during the most recent CBA negotiations has been widely discussed. Just last month, MLBPA chief Tony Clark indicated that the players’ association expects a lockout following the 2025 season, and recent discontent among fans regarding the disparity in spending between the league’s top teams and those at the bottom has teed up a potential fight over the club’s economic system.

The league has frequently pushed for a salary cap over the years, even as the MLBPA has always considered the idea a complete non-starter. While Manfred did not discuss the idea of a cap directly in his interview with Schmidt, he did make clear that he is “cognizant” of and “sympathetic” to fan frustrations regarding the disparity in spending among MLB clubs. He went on to note that teams that are outspent by the top teams can overcome that disparity, as seen in the past successes of smaller-market clubs like the Brewers and Guardians, though he suggested that the perception of inevitability surrounding top spenders like the Dodgers and Mets can impact ticket sales for smaller clubs.

“The outcome result is not perfectly correlated with the spending,” Manfred told Schmidt, “But the fact of the matter is the inability or the constant failure to spend affects the business in a way that’s bad for it.”

Manfred went on to agree “one hundred percent” with Schmidt when asked if the disparity in spending “is a massive problem” that the league needs to address. MLBTR readership clearly agrees, as a poll from MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes back in January found that two-thirds of respondents want a salary cap to be instituted in the next round of CBA negotiations, while just over half of respondents went as far as to suggest they would be willing to lose the entirety of the 2027 campaign if it meant that a salary cap would be put into place.

It should be noted that while a salary cap is the most often discussed way to reduce payroll disparity, it’s far from the only method. Many smaller market clubs do not spend in a way that’s commensurate with the revenue sharing dollars they receive. The MLBPA has filed grievances against the Pirates, Rays, Athletics, and Marlins in the past over just that issue, and the A’s needed to spend aggressively this winter in order to get in line and avoid an additional grievance. The Marlins, meanwhile, are risking a grievances by going into the 2025 season with a projected payroll of just under $70MM according to RosterResource, and that’s a figure that could drop further if a pricey veteran like Sandy Alcantara gets dealt at some point this season.

The possibility of a salary cap won’t be the only thing discussed during this next round of CBA negotiations, however, and Manfred’s comments to Schmidt could give the public a window into some other issues that could be discussed. Expansion has been covered in past agreements and remains something Manfred has an eye toward, as the commissioner told Schmidt that he hopes to have the cities selected by the time his final term as commissioner ends in 2029. Aside from that, a major topic of discussion in recent years has been how to mitigate pitcher injuries. As Manfred noted to Schmidt, the incentives for both players and teams as things stand are for both to pursue velocity and spin rate over effectiveness.

That analytics have shown premium stuff to be extremely valuable cannot be debated, and it’s true that teams have increasingly rewarded players with big strikeout numbers, high velocity, and impressive spin rates that all could correlate with an increased risk of injury. A notable point Manfred made in his interview with Schmidt, however, was that the guaranteed contracts offered in baseball skew player incentives away towards maximizing effectiveness rather than staying healthy.

“From a competitive perspective, it’s absolutely clear to young people that we pay for velocity and spin rate,” Manfred told Schmidt. “…So you get injured and they fix you up and you go right back and you do it again. Under our system, because it’s basically all guaranteed money, you get paid. So the incentives there that apply on the athlete are really misdirected. They actually encourage behavior that increases injuries.”

While Manfred did not outright suggest that the guaranteed nature of free agent contracts in MLB could be up for debate during this next round of CBA negotiations, that the commissioner brought it up when discussing the need to “alter incentives” for players and clubs in order to keep pitchers healthy is very notable. Some sports leagues such as the NFL allow contracts that aren’t fully guaranteed, meaning the club may not necessarily have to pay the player in event of injury, but that’s not the case in MLB and would of course need to be collectively bargained with the MLBPA. Much like a salary cap, that seems very likely to be a nonstarter with the union.

One other notable item that Manfred suggested more directly could be part of the next round of CBA negotiations is the automated ball-strike system. ABS was introduced to big league Spring Training games this year as a challenge system, which was mostly viewed as a success around the league. That’s led to plenty of interest in ABS being adopted in regular season games, and Manfred suggested to Schmidt that its arrival could come as soon as 2026. With that being said, Manfred noted he was “uncertain” of that because the union would have to approve it for the 2026 season and suggested that “it would not be shocking” if the union pushed for the specifics of ABS to be resolved during the next round of CBA negotiations after the 2026 season.

On the topic of ABS, Manfred noted that the Umpires’ union (with which the possible implementation of ABS has already been collectively bargained) actually preferred fully automated ball-strike calls as opposed the challenge system used in Spring Training. Manfred noted that players have expressed a preference for the challenge system, in part to protect players who have made a career out of elite pitch-framing abilities from having their skills devalued. It seems as though the league is satisfied with the compromise of a challenge system given that it’s what was used in Spring Training this year, but if either the players decide they’re against the challenge system or the league decides to push for full ABS that could theoretically become an issue discussed in the upcoming round of CBA negotiations even if the challenge system were to get implemented for the 2026 campaign.

Rays Owner Stu Sternberg Facing Pressure To Sell From Fellow Owners, Commissioner’s Office

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Rays owner Stu Sternberg is facing pressure to sell the club from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and “several” fellow owners, according to a report from Evan Drellich of The Athletic. On Thursday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that while no deal was close, a group of businesspeople local to the Tampa Bay area have started to put together ownership groups with their sights set on purchasing the team. Drellich’s report expands on that report, confirming that no sale is close but that “several groups” with ties to Florida have expressed interest in purchasing the club.

Drellich reports that those involved in one group include the family of San Francisco 49ners owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. and former Yankees minority owner Joe Molloy, with Tampa-area business man Dan Doyle Jr. involved in another group. Molloy subsequently confirmed to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that he’s leading a group with interest in purchasing the Rays, adding that his group would have interest in pursuing the stadium deal the Rays currently have in place with Pinellas County and the city of St. Petersburg. Notably, Molloy led the Yankees while George Steinbrenner was suspended during the 1990s, while Doyle previously expressed interest in purchasing the Rays back in 2023.

That deal, of course, has been publicly thrown into doubt by clashes between the Rays and the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners. The county delayed a vote in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton that the Rays claim held up the construction process and increased costs, and the club argues that it should not cover those costs on its own despite the deal stating that the Rays will handle any cost overruns. That deal is just weeks away from a key deadline on March 31, just after Opening Day, that requires Sternberg to meet certain obligations if the stadium deal is to proceed.

Given the hostile relationship between Sternberg and local officials, Drellich suggests that it could be difficult to revive the deal if Sternberg allows that March 31 deadline to pass without acting. It’s possible the deal could be revived in some form under new ownership, however, and that appears to be the impetus behind Manfred’s push for Sternberg to either work out the stadium issue or sell the club. Drellich emphasizes the MLB believes strongly in Florida as a viable market despite the lackluster financial showings of the Rays and Marlins since the franchises came into being during the 1990s, and the league seems unlikely to approve relocation out of Florida for Sternberg—or a hypothetical future Rays owner. If the stadium deal in St. Pete falls through, Drellich reports that MLB believes the Ybor City neighborhood in Tampa or perhaps even Orlando could be viable alternatives for the Rays.

As the commissioner’s office looks to pressure Sternberg, Drellich writes that the league could look to take away at least some of the Rays’ revenue sharing dollars, which he notes add up to around $60MM annually. That would be a major blow to the club’s finances, but it’s one that could not be exercised unilaterally by Manfred. Instead, alterations to revenue sharing would need to be collectively bargained during the next CBA negotiations. The current agreement runs through 2026, and when it expires Drellich suggests that Manfred and the league could seek a carve out in the CBA that applies specifically to the Rays that would cut the club off from its revenue sharing dollars if they failed to get a stadium deal done before a certain date. As Drellich points out, the league utilized a similar tactic to pressure A’s owner John Fisher into getting a binding stadium agreement into place by January 15, 2024.

Of course, any pressure tactic that needs to be collectively bargained wouldn’t necessarily have much of an immediate effect given that the end of the current CBA is nearly two years away. With that being said, Drellich does note that Manfred has some ways to financially pressure the Rays and Sternberg at his disposal in the more immediate future: the commissioner’s discretionary fund and supplemental discretionary fund. The distribution of those funds is not publicized, but Drellich notes that the Rays have been a beneficiary and that the payments from those funds are typically in the neighborhood of “several” million dollars, though not quite reaching tens of millions.

It’s unclear to what extent any losses in funding from the league, be they from the commissioner’s discretionary fund or eventual revenue sharing losses at some point in the future, would impact the Rays from a baseball perspective. The club already runs one of the league’s lowest payrolls with their $90MM projected payroll for 2025 ranking in the bottom five in the league per RosterResource. That’s exactly in line with last year’s payroll numbers, but slightly higher than where the club has lived in the past. It wouldn’t be a shock, then, if the losses in funding were passed on in at least some capacity to the baseball operations department.

Infielder Ha-Seong Kim’s $16MM player option is the only guaranteed contract on the Rays’ books beyond this season apart from the Wander Franco contract that is currently going unpaid, but the club does have a number of pricey club options on veterans like Yandy Diaz, Brandon Lowe, and Pete Fairbanks next season. If the club’s baseball operations budget tightens in response to financial pressure from the league, it’s possible the front office could look to move some of those players in the offseason or even at the trade deadline this year depending on the club’s position in the standings.

As Drellich notes, there’s little incentive for Sternberg to lower his asking price for the Rays in order to facilitate a sale. The Rays were estimated to be worth $1.25 billion according to franchise valuations by Forbes last year, and that value figures to have only gone up since then. Even if Manfred and the commissioner’s office begin putting financial pressure on Sternberg to sell, those financial losses would surely pale in comparison to the potential loss in value that would come with selling low on a franchise estimated to be worth more than a billion dollars.

Commissioner’s Office Considering Petition To Remove Pete Rose From Ineligible List

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MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition filed by the family of Pete Rose to have Rose posthumously reinstated from the ineligible list, according to a report from Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN. Rose passed away in September at the age of 83, and Van Natta notes that the petition was filed on January 8 following a conversation between Rose’s daughter Fawn, the family’s lawyer, and the commissioner’s office that took place on December 17.

The timing of the report is notable given that President Donald Trump commented on Rose late last night, suggesting that he would sign a posthumous pardon for Rose in the coming weeks. Qasim Nauman and Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times were among those who reported on Mr. Trump’s comments this morning. Such a pardon would have no bearing on Rose’s status within the game of baseball, and Nauman and Schmidt note that it would instead focus on a five-month sentence Rose served in federal prison back in 1990 after filing false income tax returns.

Tax issues, of course, are not the reason that Rose is currently on baseball’s permanently ineligible list. MLB announced late in the 1989 season that an investigation had revealed Rose had placed bets on baseball, including games his team was participating in, during his time as manager of the Reds. Subsequent reporting in the decades following Rose’s placement on the ineligible list indicated that Rose also placed bets during his time as a player. Rose never admitted to those allegations, though he did acknowledge that he had bet on baseball as a manager in 2004.

Rose only bet on his team to win, and there’s no evidence that he made an attempt to fix any MLB game. Even so, that’s a violation of MLB’s biggest rule and grounds for a lifetime ban, leading the league to place Rose on the permanently ineligible list. Not long after Rose’s ban, in 1991, the Hall of Fame announced a policy stating that anyone who was suspended from MLB for life was ineligible for induction. As such, Rose has never been on a Hall of Fame ballot, though there’s little question that a lifetime .303/.375/.409 hitter with the most career hits in MLB history and 79.5 bWAR would be a slam-dunk candidate for induction if looking exclusively at his numbers on the field.

Ever since Rose’s suspension, the hit king’s worthiness for a Hall of Fame induction has been a divisive topic among fans of the game. An icon of the game with hitting records that could very well prove virtually unbreakable and a staple of Reds history with three World Series championships under his belt, Rose was among the very best players of his era. He remains a controversial figure, however, particularly in an era where the Hall’s voters made the controversial decision not to elect other titans of the game such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens to Cooperstown in light of their association with the league’s performance-enhancing drug scandal and baseball has had to reckon with the increased presence of sports betting not only within United States culture, but also as a partner of MLB and its clubs.

The possibility that Rose could be posthumously reinstated from the ineligible list is the latest development in that debate, and could theoretically open the door for Rose to be considered for entry into Cooperstown. Representatives of the Hall of Fame have previously stated that players who are on the permanently ineligible list will not be considered for induction even after death, suggesting that Rose’s passing will have no bearing on the Hall’s willingness to consider him. Van Natta notes, however, that Manfred reportedly views placement on the permanently ineligible list as a punishment that ends upon the player’s death for “all practical purposes.” Formally removing Rose from the ineligible list, then, could open the door for the Hall to reconsider its stance on Rose’s eligibility.

Notably, Manfred himself has made clear in the past that the Hall of Fame’s decisions regarding Rose or any other player do not fall under his purview. As relayed by Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com at the time, “It is not part of [MLB’s] authority or responsibility here to make any determination concerning Mr. Rose’s eligibility as a candidate for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame… any debate over Mr. Rose’s eligibility for the Hall of Fame is one that must take place in a different forum.”

AL Central Notes: Warren, White Sox, Manfred, Caglianone

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The Tigers had interest in right-hander Will Warren during their trade talks with the Yankees this past summer, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports.  The two clubs reportedly had a provisional agreement involving Jack Flaherty relatively close to being completed before New York backed out due to concerns over Flaherty’s medical records, though it should be noted that Heyman didn’t directly say that Warren was part of whatever trade package the Yankees were prepared to send to Detroit.  Flaherty instead was dealt to the Dodgers for two position players, one of whom (Trey Sweeney) ended up playing an important role in the Tigers’ surprising late-season surge to a wild card berth.

Ironically, Warren ended up making his MLB debut on the trade deadline day of July 30, and he posted a 10.32 ERA over his first 22 2/3 innings in the big leagues.  He also had a 5.91 ERA over 109 2/3 innings at Triple-A, though his minor league numbers were a little skewed by a nightmarish four-start stretch in May.  Scouts and evaluators generally view Warren as a back-end starter or perhaps a long reliever at the MLB level, and while the Yankees naturally want to keep pitching depth on hand, Warren could be a relatively expendable prospect in terms of future trade possibilities (with Detroit or any other teams).

More from around the AL Central…

  • Jerry Reinsdorf’s apparent willingness to discuss selling the White Sox has led to increased speculation that the team could be moved to a new city, though MLB commissioner Rob Manfred downplayed that idea in a recent appearance on FS1’s “Breakfast Ball” show.  (Hat tip to Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.)  “Chicago is an anchor city for us.  I think that the White Sox are in a difficult situation. I think the location of the stadium is tough, but I have confidence that things are going to work out in Chicago and that we’re going to continue to have two teams in Chicago,” Manfred said.  This allusion to Reinsdorf’s desire to get a new ballpark built is another factor in the situation, and Van Schouwen hears that Reinsdorf “has grown increasingly skeptical” about the chances of civic and state officials signing off on a deal to built a new stadium for the White Sox within Chicago’s South Loop area.  Of course, some gamesmanship could be at play here, Reinsdorf’s past threats to move the Sox to St. Petersburg in the late 1980’s helped get Guaranteed Rate Field built in the first place.
  • Jac Caglianone’s power bat as a first baseman at the University of Florida helped make him the sixth overall pick of the 2024 draft, but the Royals prospect hasn’t given up on the idea of being a two-way player.  “I’m the type of person where I get super driven and I get fixated on things,” Caglianone told The Athletic’s Noah Furtado.  “So if I have the opportunity to do it, I’m going to jump on it.  I won’t really accept failure.  I’ll keep pushing at it until it clicks.”  A Tommy John surgery in 2021 got Caglianone more focused on hitting and perhaps directed him towards Florida instead of entering the 2021 draft as a high schooler, and while Caglianone still showed premium velocity as a college pitcher, control is the big concern.  The Royals have thus far used him only as a first baseman and DH during his brief pro career (in high-A ball and in the Arizona Fall League), but the club hasn’t entirely closed the door on Caglianone as a pitcher.  As K.C. director of player development Mitch Maier put it, Caglianone’s potential is “a rare opportunity that has to be thought through.”

Quick Hits: Nationals, Merrill, Athletics, Rays

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As the Padres and Nationals were negotiating the blockbuster Juan Soto trade in advance of the 2022 trade deadline, the Nats were able to obtain such top-tier young talents as CJ Abrams, James Wood, and MacKenzie Gore as part of the six-player trade package.  One player Washington didn’t land was Jackson Merrill, though Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that the Nationals asked about Merrill as part of the trade talks.

Though Merrill was the 27th overall pick of the 2021 draft, his prospect stock didn’t really start to take off until he started to post big numbers for the Padres’ rookie league and A-ball affiliates during the 2022 season.  In fact, injuries limited Merrill to only 25 games in 2022 at the time of the Soto trade, so the Nationals weren’t working off a lot of scouting information when they checked into Merrill’s possible availability.  Though the Friars gave up a lot to bring Soto to San Diego, it looks like they made a canny move in keeping Merrill, as his tremendous rookie season helped lead the Padres to the NLDS this season.  Merrill hit .292/.326/.500 with 24 home runs over 593 plate appearances, and (even more remarkably) played strong defense as San Diego’s everyday center fielder despite never before playing center during his pro career.

Some other items from around baseball…

  • Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park will remain a natural-grass stadium when the Athletics begin play next season, a league spokesperson told the media (including The Athletic’s Evan Drellich).  Since the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate will continue sharing the ballpark with the A’s, the initial idea was to install an artificial surface for 2025 and beyond, as a grass field will take quite a bit of wear-and-tear from two full schedules’ worth of games.  However, players still preferred even a beaten-up grass surface to turf, as playing on an artificial surface outdoors in California would’ve routinely raised on-field temperatures to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, even for some night games.  “In light of the players’ clear preference for natural grass, and after weighing with the MLBPA the potential risks and benefits of maintaining natural grass versus replacing the playing surface with synthetic turf, all the parties are aligned in moving forward with a natural grass field for Opening Day 2025,” the spokesperson said.
  • In other stadium news, the Rays’ immediate landing spot isn’t yet clear as the club continues to assess how badly Tropicana Field was damaged by Hurricane Milton.  Amidst speculation that the Rays could at least open the 2025 season in any number of different cities, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred made it clear in an interview on the Varsity podcast that the league’s preference is to keep the Rays in the Tampa/St. Pete area.  “The easiest thing is always to stay in the market where the clubs are anchored, if we can manage it,” Manfred said, in terms of Tropicana Field, “we’re hopeful…the repairs can be done in a way that allows them to resume playing.”  That said, Manfred is aware of the “complication” of how the city could balk at a large repair bill for a stadium that will soon be abandoned entirely, as the Rays’ new ballpark is slated to be ready for Opening Day 2028.  (Hat tip to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.)

Rob Manfred Hints At Changes To Rules On Trading Draft Picks

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Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred spoke on various topics today, including possibly loosening the rules on trading draft picks. Per J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, Manfred suggested the owners have some openness to allowing teams more freedom to trade picks but he also noted that changes would have to be collectively bargained with the MLB Players Association.

Under the current rules, teams can only trade competitive balance picks. Only the clubs with smaller markets/revenues get those and they make up a small portion of the overall number of picks in the draft.

Plenty of other sports allow the trading of draft picks, which adds an element of excitement to the draft itself as well as trades during the rest of the year. Many have argued for MLB to follow suit and allow picks to be traded, but the counterargument has been that teams might send away too many picks and doom themselves to years of fielding ineffective teams.

The counter to that argument has usually been that teams can already do themselves plenty of harm by trading away prospects and that things wouldn’t meaningfully change by adding draft picks to the equation. Furthermore, it has been argued that teams should be subject to the consequences of their own actions as opposed to being preemptively protected from them. This latter point seems to be something that Manfred is receptive to.

“The positions the clubs have taken over time in terms of what they want us to do at the table has been a product of a balance between flexibility in terms of utilizing the resources available to you on the one hand and paternalism on the other—that is I’m going to prevent you from doing acts because I think it would be stupid,” Manfred said. “I don’t think we have that many stupid clubs. We’ll see how it shakes out. We will go through our (collective) bargaining prep,” he continued. “The clubs are really sophisticated now. I do think that there’s a really good argument for allowing them to decide how to use their resources.”

The MLBPA clearly has some level of concern about tanking, the practice of teams intentionally making themselves worse in the present in order to improve their chances of winning in the future. They have tried to push back against the practice by looking for things in CBA negotiations like a salary floor or draft lottery, successfully getting the latter but not the former.

A team that hamstrung itself by trading away numerous draft picks could perhaps impact free agent earning power, as such a franchise might get into such a poor long-term state that they effectively sit out free agency for a while. But as mentioned, that’s not too similar from a team under the present system that has traded away significant prospect capital and spend many years in rebuilding mode. It could also be argued that such a club may be incentivized to sign free agents who could then be traded for draft picks, making up for those that were traded away in previous years.

Whether the two sides can agree to change the rules will be known in the next few years, as the current CBA extends through the 2026 season. They will have many other issues to address, such as the competitive balance tax, minimum salaries, TV/streaming revenue plans, expansion and other topics, but perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope for those who want to see draft picks trade hands in the future.

Manfred: ABS Likely To Arrive As Challenge System In MLB, Though Likely Not Ready For 2025

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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke to members of the media about the future implementation of an automatic ball-strike (ABS) system, also known as “robo umps”, in the majors. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and Evan Drellich of The Athletic relayed some of his comments. The commissioner said that there will likely be a challenge system in place when ABS first arrives in the big leagues, but that isn’t likely to happen next year.

Robo umps have seemed inevitable for some time now. Many other sports have seen technological advancements gradually take over duties previously carried out by human officials and the improvement of ball tracking technology has allowed baseball fans to clearly see calls missed by umpires in real time. As various websites track and grade umpires, fans have become increasingly vocal about their disappointment in umpires and the desire to move towards robo umps.

MLB has been trying out various methods in the minor leagues and in independent partner leagues for years now and Manfred said there is a “growing consensus” that players would prefer a challenge system as opposed to letting the ABS system take over completely. “Those who have played with it do have a strong preference for the challenge system over ABS calling every pitch,” Manfred said, “and that has certainly altered our thinking on where we might be headed.”

In a challenge system, the game is still called the traditional way, with the human umpire calling balls and strikes. However, each team gets a set number of challenges each game, where they can appeal to the ABS system to see if the umpire made a mistake.

This is something that Jayson Stark of The Athletic took a detailed look at in August of last year. While some fans may simply want every call to be rigorously made as the machine sees it, Stark got various reasons from baseball people as to why it would be preferable to do it with challenges.

One reason is feel for the game, with the example that a human umpire might expand the strike zone during a blowout to move the game along, something the robo ump wouldn’t do. There’s the entertainment factor of seeing the challenge play out on the scoreboard at the ballpark or on the broadcast. As an example, a minor league game last month ended on a challenged call, with video relayed by Foul Territory on X. Some want pitchers with consistent control to get a more favorable zone from the ump, as compared to a more wild pitcher. Some also don’t want the skill of catcher framing to go away.

The last point is something that Manfred touched on yesterday. “I think the players feel that a catcher that frames is part of the art of the game,” Manfred said. “If in fact framing is no longer important, the kind of players that would occupy that position might be different than they are today. You could hypothesize a world where instead of a premium catcher who’s focused on defense, the catching position becomes a more offensive player. That alters people’s careers, so those are real, legitimate concerns that we need to think all the way through before we jump off that bridge.”

Though the challenge system may be coming to the big leagues at some point, it doesn’t seem like it will be next year. “We still have some technical issues; I don’t mean technology, I mean technical issues in terms of the operation of the system,” Manfred said. “We haven’t made as much progress in the minor leagues this year as we hoped at this point. I think it’s becoming more and more likely that this will not be a go for ’25. One thing we did learn with the changes that we went through last year is taking the extra time to make sure you have it right is definitely the best approach. I think we’re going to use that same approach here.”

Per Feinsand, those issues are related to whether the strike zone is determined by a player’s height or by camera systems. “I’m not sure that anybody is wholly satisfied with either approach,” Manfred said. “We have not started those conversations [with the MLBPA] because we haven’t settled on what we think about it. It’s hard to have those conversations before you know what you’re thinking.”

Drellich also relayed some of Manfred’s thoughts on other topics in a separate piece. In that one, Manfred discusses the uniform situation with Nike, improvements to the Sacramento ballpark that will host the A’s for the next three years, the rise of pitcher injuries, the 2028 Olympics, Diamond Sports Group, pretacked balls and more. MLBTR covered some of these topics last night.

Rob Manfred Discusses Mizuhara, Fletcher Investigations; A’s Stadium Plans

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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke to reporters (including Evan Drellich of The Athletic) regarding the league’s ongoing investigations into allegations of illegal sports betting against Ippei Mizuhara and David Fletcher. Mizuhara had worked as Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter during his time with the Angels and joined him in heading to the Dodgers this offseason but was fired on Opening Day amid reports connecting Mizuhara to an illegal gambling operation in California, while Fletcher was connected to that same operation by reporting last week.

As noted by Drellich, MLB’s department of investigations has largely been deferential to federal authorities over the course of the investigations. Manfred suggested that this deferential approach was a necessary one, noting that federal authorities have “a lot more tools” at their disposal than the league does with which to conduct investigations in this situation. Drellich explains that while league investigations regarding legal gambling can be assisted by regulators and alerts received by the league’s central office, no such avenues are available in cases of illegal gambling.

“We have no way to know what an illegal bookmaker is doing,” Manfred said, as relayed by Drellich. “…by definition, in most cases we’re going to be chasing, usually a press report or a criminal investigation.”

Manfred went on to suggest that a more proactive approach to the investigations could risk “interfer[ing] in an unproductive way,” prompting the league’s decision to move slowly in its investigations of these cases while following reporting based on investigations from the news media and federal authorities. Reporting earlier this month suggests that Mizuhara is pleading guilty to charges of bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return in relation with his alleged theft of more than $16MM from Ohtani to fund his gambling habit.

Aside from his comments on the ongoing investigations, Manfred also discussed the impending relocation of the Athletics from Oakland to Las Vegas and their temporary move to Sacramento following the 2024 campaign while they await the construction of their new stadium in Nevada. Manfred notes that Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, which is the current home of the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats, is set to undergo significant renovations in preparation for the A’s arrival next season. Per Manfred, an entirely new home clubhouse will be constructed for the A’s while the visiting clubhouse will be renovating, the field will have new artificial turf installed, and the stadiums cameras will be upgraded to accommodate big league broadcasts.

In addition to discussing the upgrades being made to the club’s temporary ballpark in Sacramento, Manfred noted that the timeline for construction on the club’s permanent ballpark in Las Vegas is a relatively tight one if the club is to begin playing there in 2028, as previously expected. According to Drellich, Manfred indicated that the A’s would need to break ground in Las Vegas in April 2025 if they’re to be ready for Opening Day 2028. That gives the club less than a year to gather private funding for the stadium project, of which they are reportedly seeking $500MM, and reach an agreement with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority regarding a plan for the club to meet its $1.1 billion in commitments toward the construction of the stadium.

MLBTR Podcast: Finding Fits For The “Boras Four,” Which Teams Could Still Spend? And Rob Manfred In His Last Term

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Rob Manfred Not Planning To Seek Another Term As MLB Commissioner

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Rob Manfred spoke with the media today and said that his current tenure as MLB commissioner will be his last. His current term runs through January of 2029. Alex Speier of The Boston Globe was among those to relay the news.

“You can only have so much fun in one lifetime,” Manfred said, per Evan Drellich of The Athletic. “I have been open with them (the owners) about the fact that this is going to be my last term.”

Manfred, now 65, has been the league’s commissioner since 2014, replacing the retiring Bud Selig. During that decade at the helm, he has proven to be incredibly unpopular among baseball fans but has consistently received the approval of club owners.

That tenure has had many standout elements, notably the significant rule changes aimed at speeding up the pace of the game, the tampering with composition of the baseballs, the expansion of the postseason, the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, the 2020 pandemic, the 2021-22 lockout and the Athletics’ planned relocation to Las Vegas.

The rule changes naturally rankled many purists among baseball fans. The fact that no players received any punishment for the sign-stealing and that Manfred referred to the World Series trophy as a “piece of metal” also caused a great deal of upset, particularly among fans of clubs that lost to the Astros in the postseason. The ongoing relocation of the A’s was clearly not popular in Oakland. The work stoppage, baseball’s first since the 1994-95 strike, was not well received by those who want players to receive a larger chunk of baseball’s revenue relative to the owners.

But the commissioner is ultimately chosen by those owners, who have clearly been happy with the profitability of the game. In July of 2023, Manfred was unanimously approved for another five-year term, with no reports that there was any hesitation or alternative path considered by the bloc.

As with all modern sports leagues, baseball has been gradually pivoting from cable TV towards online streaming. This has not been without challenges, as seen by the tumultuous recent history of the Diamond Sports Group, but the league has also signed lucrative streaming deals with outfits like Apple and NBC. That’s in addition to national deals with traditional broadcasters like Fox and ESPN. As Diamond Sports Group’s relationship with MLB clubs has splintered, the league has taken over broadcasts for some clubs and has future plans for a multi-team streaming package, which would essentially be like MLB.tv but without blackout restrictions.

Despite various challenges, Manfred said in late 2022 that league revenue would be a record $11 billion, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. At the time of Manfred’s extension vote in July of last year, the league pointed out on X that attendance was trending up, perhaps a symptom of those pace-of-play changes. Franchise valuations continue to rise over time, highlighted by the recent agreement to purchase the Orioles. A group led to Peter Angelos purchased the club in 1993 for $173MM and his family agreed to sell it recently to a group led by David Rubenstein for $1.725 billion, multiplying roughly tenfold in just over 30 years.

Everyone in baseball, from fans to historians to players and owners, will naturally form their own opinions of Manfred and his tenure. For now, he still has much on his plate in the remainder of his term. The A’s relocation is still ongoing and the future of Diamond Sports Group remains up in the air. Manfred has also said that he would like to get the ball rolling on expanding the league to 32 teams by the time he leaves.

The league will also have to start a process for replacing him, though they have five years to plan that out. When Selig was stepping down, Manfred was quickly seen as a favorite to succeed him, having already represented the league in collective bargaining talks for many years. Manfred was named the league’s chief operating officer in September of 2013 and Selig reportedly preferred him as his successor. A committee was formed in May of 2014 consisting of seven owners, with the eventual vote requiring 23 out of 30 owners to approve a new commissioner. Manfred and Red Sox chairman Tom Werner were the two finalists, with the initial voting in August 2014 resulting in a 22-8 split, which was in favor of Manfred but not enough to seal the deal. It eventually got over the line the next day.

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