The long national nightmare is over! There will be a baseball season in 2022! According to reports, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have agreed to a new CBA.
The new five-year CBA is expected to include increased minimum salaries, a new pre-arbitration bonus pool to reward the top young players in the game, a raise in competitive balance tax thresholds, the introduction of a universal designated hitter, the widest-ranging Draft lottery in pro sports, elimination of Draft-pick compensation for signed free agents, a system to prevent alleged service-time manipulation, limits on the number of times a player can be optioned in a season and a 12-team postseason. There will also be the evaluation of an international Draft.
What’s Next for Baseball?
Now, what’s happening next? According to many, it looks like free agency could open tonight and players could start to report to Spring Training voluntarily. Additionally, it looks like the official day that players must report to Spring Training is on or around March 17, and with Opening Day on or around April 7th, 2022.
Front offices are now going to be thrust into making decisions and hopefully, during the past four months they have been preparing, however, the minute that free agency resumes and transactions are able to be made, teams will have to try to cram a few months of roster moves and other transactions into a week or so,
More to come…
