Rob

Manfred

The horrible rumor that began circulating last night proved true. Henderson, a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2009 and probably the greatest leadoff hitter of all-time, spent 25 seasons in majors, leading his league in steals 12 times, runs five times and walks four times. He also topped the AL in OBP and OPS while winning MVP honors in 1990. 21 years after retiring, he remains the all-time major league leader in stolen bases (1,406) and runs scored (2,295), as well as the single-season steals leader (130 in 1982). He would have turned 66 on Christmas.

“I think we will have a spring training ABS test that will provide a meaningful opportunity for all major league players to see what the challenge system will look like,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said at the owners’ meeting on Wednesday. Triple-A stadiums used ABS in 2024 for the second straight season, but the league has suggested they will continue to look for ways to improve the technology before potentially introducing it during MLB games. “I would be interested in having it in ‘26,” Manfred said. If robot umpires were going to be introduced in MLB games, there would need to be an agreement reached with the Major League Baseball Umpires Association, whose collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1.

Rose, MLB’s all-time hits leader at 4,256, played for the Reds, Phillies and Expos from 1963-86, batting .303 with 160 homers. Along with being The Hit King, he’s MLB’s leader in plate appearances (15,890) and games played (3,563), and he was the NL MVP in 1973. After his playing career ended, he accepted a permanent place on MLB’s ineligible list after being accused of betting on baseball during his time as a manager, including games in which his team played.

It’s about time. The specially designed All-Star jerseys have drawn a lot of ire from fans over the last few years and have not been major hits with sales either, which likely has a lot to do with this decision. Regardless, it won’t be anything for fans to worry about moving forward.

The MLB will continue with their season-opening series in foreign countries as a way to expand the game. As we saw this season, the starting pitchers will likely not be fully stretched out by this time, but fantasy managers will get an early look at bullpen leverage ladders and lineups. This year, that gave some people an inside track to draft Robert Suarez.

Never before have we rooted so hard for Nightengale to be right about something. That said, he certainly has a better track record than Hernández, who is a bad umpire behind the plate and somehow worse when assigned to a base. Nightengale says Hernández and MLB have been working on a financial settlement, which makes sense; MLB was always going to have to pay to make Hernández go away.

While it’s not robo-umps, it seems like MLB games could get a challenge system that would allow hitters to use technology to challenge a ball/strike call. Manfred left open the possibility to expand on this but mentioned the challenge system would be “at least a starting point...if and when we bring it to the big leagues.” Details will undoubtedly emerge in the coming months.

That’s pretty big news. Manfred will be 70 when his new term ends, which seems like a good time to wrap it up. He’ll have one more CBA negotiation before then, as the current agreement, ratified in March 2022, is due to expire following the 2026 season.

After installing the pitch clock in 2023, the league will now reduce the time on the pitch clock from 20 seconds to just 18 seconds with runners on-base. The league claims that pitchers delivered a pitch to the plate with 7.8 seconds remaining on average, so cutting off two seconds will have no meaningful impact on pitcher fatigue on performance. The other rule changes seem equally unnecessary. Teams are now allotted four mound visits instead of five, the running lane to first base has been widened onto the grass and if a pitcher comes out onto the mount to warm up before an inning, he must face at least one batter before being removed. The league claims that 24 times in 2023 pitchers warmed up and then were removed when a pinch hitter was announced, and it cost three minutes of time on average. So they have to stop that before it gets out of hand. For the record, the MLB Players Association voted against all of these rule changes and state that they believe more time needs to be taken to process the impact of last year’s changes before creating more changes.

The series of games will showcase young players from all 30 organizations, with prospect groups from each team facing off against one another, as part of a doubleheader accompanying a regular spring training contest. Passan adds that the goal is to bring top-caliber prospects onto big league fields as opposed to backfield games at spring training complexes.