The Atlanta Braves win the 117th World Series over the Houston Astros. Thus ends the 2021 season. Now the off-season madness begins! Here are a few important dates to pay attention to (from MLBTR):
November 3: The beginning of a five-day period where teams and players must decide whether to exercise or decline contract options and opt-out clauses for the 2022 season. Eligible free agents cannot sign with anyone but their current team for five more days.
November 7, 4:00 pm CST: The deadline for teams to issue qualifying offers (one-year, $18.4MM contracts) to eligible free agents. For a breakdown of the draft choices teams would forfeit by signing a qualified free agent, see here.
November 8: Free agency officially opens.
November 8-11: General managers’ meetings, hosted in Carlsbad, California.
November 17: Deadline for players tagged with a qualifying offer to accept or reject the QO.
November 19: Deadline for teams to add players to the 40-man roster to keep them from selection in the Rule 5 draft.
December 1, 11:59 pm: Expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement. If MLB and the MLBPA do not agree on a new CBA by then, the league may institute a lockout that freezes teams’ ability to make transactions until negotiations are resolved.
It's difficult to know just how perilous the negotiations are. Early in the process you see a lot of over-heated rhetoric. What they actually say face-to-face does not get reported! Let's hope they can hammer something out and we can have a regular baseball season in 2022.
--M.C.
2 comments:
My understanding is that MLB and the major networks have reached an understanding to expand next year's playoff structure. There would be the same number of teams and two wild card teams based on record, but also four designated teams. Those would be the LAD, CHC, NYY and BOS. The purpose is to prevent things like the Cubs' fire sale (although I'm not sure how it would have prevented the Nats') and to enhance television viewing. Those designated teams would automatically be entered into the playoffs, but if they were to win the division, the next best team in the division would also be in the playoffs, and the wild card teams would be the teams with the best records who were not already in the playoffs (as either division winners or a designated team). There would be a one game wild card game in each league, just like now, and that would leave 6 teams in each league in the playoffs.
So with six teams in each league for the first round of the playoffs, the LDS, they would institute a round-robin type of tournament, whereby each team plays 5 games, one against each of the other teams. Ties would be decided by up to two tie breakers, and total runs scored, if necessary. Then the top two teams would play for the league championship in a seven game series and the winners would play in the world series, just like now. I guess that will be finalized in the CBA, should the CBA be able to be finalized.
Not feeling the designated team issue. Actually despite any benefit is may have, it really turns me off.
Post a Comment