Author: Spencer Reyes
Editor: Fran Attie
As the 2021 MLB season is coming to a close, each team is being divided into groups: the playoff contenders, teams who can’t even compete, and fringe postseason teams.
Traditionally, fans are used to seeing around 30 players on their favorite team for the month of September, but COVID and the Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) negotiations have shaken up the normal rules we are used to for the last month of regular season baseball. For starters, the rosters will only expand by 2 players—moving from 26 to 28—and teams will still be able to add another player for doubleheaders.
The reason behind MLB teams using less players for September is because Minor League Baseball extended their season and postseason to end on October 3rd, which is around the the time the MLB’s regular season ends.
The top 2 Triple-A ballclubs in each division will play 10 more games to extend the season, including 5 at home and 5 away for each team. Thus, Triple-A teams will need their top players in the minor leagues to have the best chance at winning in this new playoff tournament.
Another regulation implemented due to the pandemic is that, if a player is vaccinated, they can be called up during September from any level in the minor leagues. If a player is unvaccinated, they must be called up or have spent their recent games at the Triple-A level before they can make the leap to “the show”.
The final change is that, if a rookie is called up during the month of September, the games he plays in will count towards his rookie eligibility. Normally, rookies wouldn’t allocate MLB service in the month of September, but MLB has taken advantage of the CBA negotiations and COVID to allow for this to change this season.
One thing to note is that not all of these rules will be in effect for 2022. The Players Union is allowing the MLB to experiment with these changes before they can agree on a new CBA for the next 10 years of professional baseball. The Players Union is very protective of their athletes, so if they feel that these rules directly affect how professional ballplayers will develop, then they will take action.
It will be interesting to see which players get the call up and which athletes stay down to help their teams win a championship. You can count on the SportUniverse to cover this last month of baseball before 12 teams get a chance to win the World Series trophy!
SPORTS ARE OUR UNIVERSE
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