MLB Proposes Free Agency Dead Periods to Compress Signing Windows

Rob Manfred has long been jealous of the way other leagues are able to essentially weaponize free agency to generate huge media buzz, which stands in stark contrast to baseball’s drawn-out winter slog. And with the current collective bargaining agreement ending soon, it appears as though the commissioner wants to throw a “solution” into upcoming negotiations. According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, MLB has proposed sweeping changes to free agency that would greatly restrict the periods during which players can sign new deals.

The proposal includes a dead period from the end of the season to the first day of the Winter Meetings — held in the first or second week of December — during which teams and players can negotiate without signing deals. Trades could still be completed during this period. Free agency would open on the Monday of the Winter Meetings and end on December 21, which is roughly a two-week period.

No signings or trades would be allowed from December 21 through the first Monday in February, at which point the floodgates would open. This is meant to create two separate feeding frenzies, one right in the middle of the offseason and the other just before the start of spring training. While I’m not opposed to shaking things up, especially with the way the Boras-ification of modern free agency has slowed free agency down, this just feels forced to me.

The more I think about it, however, the less opposed to it I become. This isn’t about restricting communication, as teams and players can still negotiate during dead periods. The whole point is to compress actual signings, and thus the official reporting of those deals, into shorter windows that put MLB in the spotlight at times when interest is either waning or waxing. Beyond the artificiality of it, I’m not actually sure this changes things all that much.

I’m definitely going to need a little more time to marinate on it and take in a few different perspectives before fully coming to terms with the idea, but I’ve settled on “meh” for now.

The same goes for other proposed changes, which include the following:

• Teams would set weekly 26-man rosters
• New minimums for IL stints: 1 week for hitters, 2 weeks for pitchers, and 12 weeks instead of 60 days
• Rule 5 Draft eligibility would be pushed up by a year, with selected players also able to be optioned