Colorado Rockies: Here’s the important dates for this offseason

The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros to win their first World Series since 1995 on Tuesday night in Game 6 of the World Series. With it, the offseason will officially begin for all 30 MLB teams, including the Colorado Rockies.

It will be a huge offseason as the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the MLB Player’s Association (MLBPA) and the MLB owners expires this offseason.

For play to resume, the two sides must either come to an agreement on a new CBA or else. The “else” is not something that either side would like to happen. Either a strike would happen or, as they did after the 1994-1995 strike, agree to disagree and resume play next year without a new CBA and play under the conditions of the new CBA (a new CBA wasn’t agreed upon until December 1996, more than two years after the players went on strike).

Throughout the offseason, there will be many important dates throughout the offseason. These will be subject to change due to the CBA negotiations.

Here are the important dates to note for the MLB offseason, including for the Colorado Rockies.

• Today (November 3): Today will be the start of a five-day period where teams and players must decide whether to exercise or decline contract options and opt-out clauses for the 2022 season. This will include Colorado Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon and his $21 million player option for next season.
• November 7, 3:00 PM MST: This is the deadline for teams to issue qualifying offers (one-year, $18.4MM contracts) to eligible free agents. The Colorado Rockies could issue qualifying offers to Trevor Story and Jon Gray.
• November 8: Free agency officially begins.
• November 8-11: The general managers’ meetings will happen. It will be hosted in Carlsbad, California, which is a suburb of San Diego.
• November 17: This is the deadline for players tagged with a qualifying offer to accept or reject the qualifying offer.
• November 19: This is the deadline for teams to add players to the 40-man roster. This must be done to prevent players from being subject for selection in the Rule 5 draft.
• December 1, 9:59 PM MST: The current CBA expires. If MLB and the MLBPA do not agree on a new CBA by then, the league may institute a lockout that freezes teams’ ability to make transactions until negotiations are resolved.

From here on out, things could be subject to change due to the CBA negotiations.

• December 2: The deadline for teams to tender contracts for their arbitration-eligible players. The Colorado Rockies will have, roughly, 12 players eligible. We mentioned those 12 players and projections for their 2022 salaries in this article two weeks ago.
• December 6-9: The Winter Meetings are scheduled to take place in Orlando, Florida.
• December 9: The Rule Five Draft will be held at the conclusion of the Winter Meetings.
• December 15: Conclusion of the 2020-21 international amateur signing period. This usually runs from July through June but the 2020-21 and 2021-22 international signing periods were delayed to run from January through December as part of MLB’s COVID-19 changes.
• January 14, 2022: Date for teams and arbitration-eligible players to exchange filing figures. Teams and players can still agree upon a contract and avoid arbitration after this date but each side must know the figures by then.
• January 15, 2022: The new start of the 2021-22 international amateur signing period will begin. As mentioned, the signing period was changed due to the pandemic. The 2021-22 period is scheduled to run through December 15, 2022.
• February 26, 2022: First games of Spring Training. Each team will report to Spring Training a week or two before this but it depends on each organization and whether or not the players are pitchers and catchers (who report first) or position players.
• March 31, 2022: Opening Day 2022.

Hopefully, all of these days will be able to fall in line but if the rumors about the situation are to be believed, there will be some turmoil this offseason between the MLBPA and the owners over a new CBA. Eventually, the new CBA may bring big changes to baseball for 2022 and beyond.