Time to get excited about the upcoming season
Forget about complaining about the greedy players and owners. Forget about the childish behavior we have witnessed over the last few months.
The important thing to remember is baseball is back. It's coming back on July 23 and 24. We'll find out the Braves schedule soon, but there is plenty to be excited about.
Some items of interest:
Teams must submit 60-man player pool names by Sunday at 3 pm ET
Not all players on the 40-man roster have to be invited to major league spring training
Players report July 1 – Spring training starts July 3
Opening Day July 23 or 24
Regular season ends September 27
Sixty game regular season
Teams will play 10 games each against opponents in their own division, 20 games against team in interleague play, sticking to geographic region – NL East vs. AL East
Trade deadline will be August 31
Clubs will open the season with 30 players until the 15 day of the season, 28 players until the 28 day of the season and then 26 for the duration. No expanded rosters for September
Teams can take up to 3 taxi squad players on road – one must be a catcher
Designated hitter in the National League
Spring training in their own home cities
Injured List – 10 days
Teams cannot exceed 60 players in their designated player pool. To add a player, the team must remove another through an improved transaction (including trades, waiver claims, releases, outright assignments, etc.)
Listen to The Bill Shanks Show weekdays at 3:00 p.m. ET on Middle Georgia’s ESPN. You can listen online at TheSuperStations.com. Follow Bill on Twitter at @billshanks and you can email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.