{"id":516533,"date":"2026-01-12T11:18:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/516533\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T11:18:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:18:22","slug":"manfred-stumps-for-mlb-free-agent-signing-deadline-a-miscalculation-to-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/516533\/","title":{"rendered":"Manfred stumps for MLB free-agent signing deadline, a \u2018miscalculation\u2019 to union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred stumped for a free-agent signing deadline in a radio interview Thursday, one day after slugger Brent Rooker of the Athletics said<\/a> on social media that a deadline was \u201cpretty close to the most anti-player idea you could possibly have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Clark, the head of the players\u2019 union, then warned Manfred could be veering into a \u201cself-defeating calculation of massive proportions\u201d after Manfred said he didn\u2019t buy the players\u2019 argument against the deadline: that it would lead to subpar contracts for players.<\/p>\n

Manfred indicated he\u2019s indeed likely to again propose a signing deadline during this year\u2019s upcoming labor negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s going to be some more conversation about it, because I do believe that there\u2019s a marketing opportunity,\u201d Manfred told WFAN<\/a> hosts Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle. \u201cLet\u2019s face it, we operate in a really competitive environment. Just put entertainment, generally, to one side \u2014 just sports, right? It\u2019s really competitive. And I think that you make a mistake, particularly during the offseason, when you don\u2019t take every advantage to push your sport out in front of your fans during that down period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baseball free agents can sign during spring training or even once the season has begun. Fans, media and industry officials often raise the deadline discussion when free agency goes slowly, as it has this winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only tell you what they said. I don\u2019t know what was in their heads,\u201d Manfred said when asked how players thought about the matter. \u201cBut what they said back was, they thought that kind of deadline would work to the disadvantage of the players. And you know, I just \u2014 I don\u2019t put much credence in this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark responded forcefully.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree agency thrives when competition thrives \u2014 on and off the field,\u201d Clark said in a statement to The Athletic. \u201cIf the owners are genuinely interested in improving free agency, there are many ways to get there, and we look forward to having that discussion in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if their true interest is to blow up the very system on which our streak of uninterrupted seasons has been built \u2014 with the game reaching record heights and poised to go even higher, no less \u2014 that would be a self-defeating miscalculation of massive proportions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manfred told WFAN his goal is to keep a full schedule of 162 games intact for 2027, the first season of the next collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

The current deal expires in December.<\/p>\n

Agent Scott Boras represents three of the biggest names still on the market: Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman and Ranger Su\u00e1rez. Boras said Thursday he opposes a deadline, a position he\u2019s long held.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sole purpose of deadlines (is to) simply restrict competition and deny players the true market,\u201d Boras said by phone. \u201cOur current rules allow for ultimate roster construction and the best possible team for a season. (A deadline is) not for competition reasons. Every owner wants the opportunity for time to allow him to respond to changes by his competitors. That\u2019s why there\u2019s been many significant signings more in late January, February and March, because owners have responded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette and Framber Valdez are among the other standout players available this winter. Boras said he thinks the market has been slow, but only for certain types of players.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, certainly for the premium position players and the premium starters, it has,\u201d Boras said. \u201cFor relief pitchers and closers, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others see some potential for a deadline system, but they have unanswered questions.<\/p>\n

Joel Wolfe, head of the Wasserman agency\u2019s baseball division, has seen positive results with deadlines when clients have joined MLB from abroad. The posting process for Japanese pro players includes a signing window.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was a way to re-create the exceptional efficiency of the posting system for all the free agents, I would certainly be interested in that,\u201d said Wolfe, who represents Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. \u201cBut I have yet to see a good answer as to what happens to the FA\u2019s if they go unsigned that doesn\u2019t unfairly prejudice them. MLB teams always seem to find a way to game the system and crush a large part of the class. I think it\u2019s worth exploring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just haven\u2019t seen any great idea yet that benefits all the players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rooker took the general idea to task on X, where he also asked<\/a> why fans thought a deadline would make a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a genuine question that I am asking based on a lot of the replies,\u201d Rooker wrote. \u201cWhat difference does it make if a guy signs on Dec. 1 instead of Feb. 1? How does that extra 2 months negatively affect the experience as a fan?\u201d<\/p>\n

The commissioner thinks MLB could grab attention away from other sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the first of December to the 20th, if we had a period in there when all that free agency activity went on, it\u2019s a great marketing opportunity for the game, at a point in the calendar when you\u2019re not quite in the NFL playoffs, the NBA\u2019s still kind of early,\u201d Manfred said on WFAN. \u201cIt\u2019s a great chance to kind of own some offseason weeks, which is crucial to selling tickets, selling season tickets. So that\u2019s why I was interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league proposed a deadline in the negotiations that produced the current CBA and the 2017-21 CBA. MLB also proposed a deadline during talks held in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter due consideration, we rejected their proposal as not being in the best interests of players,\u201d Bruce Meyer, the MLBPA senior director of collective bargaining and legal, said in a 2019 statement. \u201cWe asked if MLB was interested in discussing other, more direct and tangible ways of incentivizing early signings and they weren\u2019t at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manfred doesn\u2019t think a deadline would affect the money players make.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s face it, on both sides of these negotiations, there\u2019s really sophisticated people who negotiate for a living all the time,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cYou tell them whatever the hell the rules are, it\u2019s all going to turn out the same no matter what \u2014 the money\u2019s the money is the money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred stumped for a free-agent signing deadline in a radio interview Thursday, one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,165],"class_list":{"0":"post-516533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115881856551849816","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}