What Reducing the DL from 15 to 10 Days Could Mean
Wednesday night in the 11th hour, MLB owners and players agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that will cover five seasons through 2021. While many of the items eventually agreed upon were tweaks and not major overhauls, one of the items that was of interest to me was the reduction of the disabled list from 15 days to 10 days. On the surface, this could look like a win-win for both the players and the owners. After all, players get to come off the DL and back on to the playing field five days sooner than they would have in past seasons, and owners can save coaches and fans from having to watch replacement-level players play while a most likely better player is on the shelf.
Using DL data compiled by baseballheatmaps.com, I took a look at length of stay on the DL by all players who landed on the list from 2010-2016. Since 2010, 319 players have spent exactly 15 days on the DL. In total, this is 4785 days spent on the DL in seven seasons. Now, for fun, let’s assume those same 319 players were ready to go after the new minimum of 10 days on the DL. Simple math here will tell you those players spent 3190 days on the DL. So in theory, over the course of seven seasons, reducing the DL to 10 days could save players 1595 days on the DL and owners the same number of days using most likely replacement-level players. On a per-team average basis, reducing the DL by five days could actually save a team 7.6 days of DL time.
Seems like a win-win, right? Again, players come back sooner, GMs don’t have to call up as many players from the minors and burn options, and owners save money by not having as many extra players come up from the minors accumulating MLB service time. Not so fast. In the same seven-season stretch, 3324 players spent 15 days or more on the DL and only 319 came off after 15 days. So only 9% of all players on the DL spent the minimum amount of time out of action. Why would this be? Well, the obvious answer is if a player is hurt, they are hurt. No one knows a player’s body better than the players themselves and they will return to action when they feel they are ready.
But the other answer is it pays to be on the DL in the majors. There is protection. Players still earn their salary and collect service time, so why rush back from an injury? In the minors it is a different story. If you get hurt it becomes the next man up for a promotion to the big leagues. There’s a reason there is a saying in the minors: “you can’t make a club in the tub.” Now, just because there is protection doesn’t mean players want to spend time on the DL. If they could, they would spend no time on the DL, as time away from the playing field can hurt future earning potential. Injuries are an inevitable part of the game but most seem to prevent players from feeling they are healthy enough to come back sooner than 15 days to compete at their best. By reducing the DL to 10 days, I can see increased pressure from fans and media to come back quicker. What we have to remember is this is the new minimum. Players will return when they and the medical staff feel they’re ready. I wouldn’t give your hopes up to see players return from the DL sooner than they have in the past.
Former Major Leaguer, amateur writer
It appears that the author does not understand how “options” work. Calling up a player from the minor leagues does not “burn an option”. There is actually no such thing as “burning an option”. One option equals one season. You can call a player up ten times or none during a season without having any impact on the number of options a player has left. When that season is completed you have used up one option whether the player was ever called up or not.
The simple way to understand this concept, which is frequently misunderstood is as follows:
A team automatically retains a player’s rights for three seasons after he is drafted. After the third season the player must be put on the 40 man roster or else be subject to the Rule 5 draft. After a player is placed on the 40 man roster, the team has the right to assign him to the minors for three more seasons. These are option years, and each year is referred to as an option. The number of times a player is actually assigned to the minors has nothing to do with how many options are remaining. After the three option years are completed, a player cannot be assigned to a minor league team without clearing waivers. If he claimed by another team, that team takes over the existing contract, and is subject to the same constraint about not assigning him to the minors.
Good catch but allow me to clarify a little better. Yes, all players that are on the 40 man roster that do not make the team in spring training are optioned to the minor leagues if they have options remaining. And yes you are correct they can be called up and down as many times as needed during the season as the option was used in spring training. Let’s say a starting pitcher gets hurt and it’s a minor injury but will miss at least a start. If placed on the 15 day DL that will be at least two starts so they need a replacement starter. A team may have in house options available on the 40 man but may not want to start their Major League service time clock if they have yet to make their debut so the team select the contract of a pitcher not on the 40 man from the minors. Once the hurt starting pitcher is ready to go, the replacement starting pitcher could be sent back to the minors still on the 40 man, thus using an option for only two starts or DFA’d and taken off the roster all together. A similar situation could be a reliever currently in the MLB bullpen step into the rotation and a relievers contract is selected from the minors. There are times when the lowest man in the bottom of the bullpen totem pole can go weeks without pitching and this relever can get sent back to the minors pitching once or not pitching at all. In theory, a 10 day DL could eliminate these possibilities as it is possible to use a four man rotation in a ten day stretch if the schedule is favorable. Looking at the big picture talking about using replacement level players options seem insignificant, and it is. But it is roster movement and added salary, as little as it may be, that a 10 DL could eliminate. Anyway, this was too long of a defense for two words that can easily be taken out!