Colorado Rockies: MLB, MLBPA strike a deal

According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, MLB and the MLBPA have struck a deal on a few different labor issues regarding the return of baseball for the Colorado Rockies and the other 29 MLB teams.

Jeff Passan of ESPN reported on Twitter that MLB and the MLBPA have reached an agreement on a number of different issues regarding the fallout of COVID-19. The agreement has already been voted and agreed upon by members of each of the 30 teams, including the Colorado Rockies.

In a series of tweets, Passan (and others have as well) that the MLB owners will front $170 million to the players for the months of April and May. If a season will not be played due to the virus, the players will be able to keep that money.

Passan reports that the deal will also give MLB the opportunity to shorten the MLB draft to just five rounds and delay the international signing period until January of 2021. The 2021 Amateur Draft may be shortened to as little as 20 rounds and the international signing period may be pushed back to December 2022.

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As Sam Dykstra of MiLB.com noted on Twitter, with fewer rounds in the draft, a lot of high schoolers will decide to go to college and a lot of college players will stay in college for as long as they can due to this. He also noted that short-season rosters (Grand Junction for the Rockies) will be a difficult task too. This is also of note because some teams (like Grand Junction) may be in their final year of operation anyways.

The arbitration rules will also likely see changes due to a full schedule likely not being played.

As Passan also noted, perhaps, the biggest piece of information to come out of this deal is that regardless of whether the season will be played in full length, partially, or not at all, all players currently on MLB rosters will receive a full year of service time.

For the Colorado Rockies, that means that Nolan Arenado will be one year away from being able to exercise his opt-out clause and Trevor Story will be one year away from free agency next offseason, no matter what.

As more develops with this, stay tuned to Rox Pile as we will have all of this information on this in the coming days and weeks.