Major League Baseball wants its offseason to be more like the NFL or NBA’s, and it has made a serious proposal to do just that.
The league presented the players association on Thursday with a plan to jam free agent signings into two separate windows each winter, with a complete freeze on trades and deals in between.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported the plan as thus: There would be a dead period from the end of the World Series until the first day of the Winter Meetings in early December, which would allow teams and players to talk but not sign anything.
MLBPA interim executive director Bruce Meyer on MLB’s proposal that would overhaul the offseason calendar and shrink most of free agency to a short window in December:
“The league, through their propaganda arm, is promoting their latest set of roster and transaction proposals as…
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 27, 2026
Free agency would then begin on the Monday of the Winter Meetings and end again on December 21.
From there, free agency and trades would be on hold until the first Monday in February when the market reopens for good.
Strings Attached
The catch is none of it happens unless the players’ union agrees to the salary cap system MLB floated back in May, something the union has said it will never accept outright.
MLB’s pitch didn’t conclude with free agency. The league also suggested reducing the number of in-season minor league options from five to four, and switching to a weekly system of roster moves.
Teams would have one more arm on the active roster, with the pitcher limit increasing from 13 to 14 during the time the 26-man roster rule is in effect, from Opening Day through the end of August.
The Next Step
Whether any of this makes it past the negotiating table is another matter. The current collective bargaining agreement is nearing its end and a lockout is widely expected when it does.
That leaves the free-agency shakeup as just one piece of a much larger package of proposals the union has already signaled it
