The 99 day lockout was a roller-coaster of emotions. Thankfully, on March 10 a new CBA was agreed upon. This allowed major league transactions to occur again, players to report to camp, and for fans to finally know when and where their teams will begin the regular season come opening day!
During negotiations, several proposals were brought forth by both sides looking to make changes to the game. While not all ideas were adopted, changes such as universal DH and expanded play-offs were brought in and will take affect during the 2022 season. There were also several other changes that will significantly impact the Brewers. Here we will take a look at three of those rule changes.
1) Players can be optioned to the minor leagues a maximum of five times per year
In 2021, the Brewers utilized a franchise record 61 players during the season. Often times players would find themselves being “shuttled’ between the major and minor leagues. Under this new CBA rule, a player can only be optioned, or “shuttled” back and forth fives times per season. If a player is optioned more than five times they will be subject to clearing waivers. This means any other team could claim that player and leave the Brewers empty handed.
2) The Jacob Nottingham Rule
For Jacob Nottingham, 2021 was full of lots of plane trips between Milwaukee and Seattle. On several occasions he bounced between the Brewers and Mariners in relatively very short periods of time. This was made possible through him being out of minor league options, the Mariners claiming him, and the Brewers then trading for him back. Under the new CBA, teams will not be able to re-claim the same player multiple times without every other team having passed on him first.
Here’s a new wrinkle in the labor deal I wasn’t aware of:
The Jacob Nottingham Rule!
If a team has already claimed a player once on waivers that season, it can’t claim him again until every other team has passed
Nottingham zig-zagged from Seattle to Milwaukee 4 times last year
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) March 11, 2022
3) IL timeframe for pitchers increases from 10 days to 15 days
For the past several seasons, pitchers had an IL time of 10 days. Depending upon the circumstances, this meant a pitcher would typically miss just two starts when being placed on the IL. The new CBA states that pitchers will now spend 15 days out, which means a minimum of three starts would then be missed.
Dave Dombrowski said the IL stint for pitchers is now back to 15 days. Was 10 in the last couple seasons.
— Destiny Lugardo (@destiny_lugardo) March 13, 2022
There were several other changes under the new CBA. Popular topics include the draft lottery, international draft, qualifying offers, luxury tax, and minimum player salaries. Not all of these have been resolved, but for now the above rules will have a significant impact on the way the Brewers go about their business in 2022 and going forward.
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