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MLB players, owners finalize plans for 2020 season

Spring training starts on July 1, opening day will either by July 23 or July 24

By Eric Stephen Updated
World Baseball Classic - Championship Round - Game 3 - USA v Puerto Rico

Major League Baseball handled its business on Tuesday, with players and owners finalizing health and safety protocols as the final hurdle to the 2020 season.

“All remaining issues have been resolved and Players are reporting to training camps,” the MLB Players Association announced Tuesday.

Players agreed to report to spring training by July 1, which is one week from today, at each team’s home city. The Dodgers will report to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles rather than Camelback Ranch in Arizona, for instance.

All that’s left is for MLB to announce the schedule, which will be 60 games and is currently being reviewed by the players association. Opening day will be July 23 or 24, per MLB.

Teams will play their own division and the interleague division in the same area. For the Dodgers that means only games against the National League West and American League West.

Which means the Dodgers will in fact play the Astros in 2020.

Rosters

This was going to be the first year of 26-man active rosters, but with health and safety concerns of a hasty restart teams will be able to have 30 active players for the first two weeks of the season, per Ronald Blum of the Associated Press, then 28 players for another two weeks, followed by the standard 26-man rosters.

Those rosters will include the use of the designated hitter for the National League for this season only. The last few proposals between owners and players included universal DH for both 2020 and 2021, though they were unable to reach an agreement.

Other stuff

  • The trade deadline will be Aug. 31.
  • Extra innings will start out with a runner on second base, which has been in effect in Double-A and Triple-A the last two seasons.
  • There will also be a taxi squad of up to three players allowed on the road. Those players will not receive major league service time but will receive the major league daily allowance of $108.50 for each day of the trip. Taxi squad players will be paid at their minor league rate.
  • MLB teams must by Sunday at 1 p.m. PT submit a roster of 60 players who will be eligible to play this season, the “club player pool,” which will include players not on the 40-man roster. If players are added to the 60-man club player pool throughout the season, another player (40-man or not) will have to be removed via transaction.

We’ll break down further details as things become more official and finalized.

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