Milwaukee Brewers: Important dates for the off season?

The off season is set to start almost as soon as the World Series ends. What are the upcoming important dates that the Milwaukee Brewers need to worry about?

Off season speculation season is almost upon us.

Free agency, trades, and rumors are right around the corner. When are the key dates that the Milwaukee Brewers will have to consider when making roster moves and building their squad for the 2020 season?

Days after the World Series

Once the last champagne bottle is popped, teams can make trades again.

Within five days after the World Series, teams have to activate players off the 60-day Injured List. The only Milwaukee Brewers still on the injured list are Bobby Wahl and Corey Knebel. Both will be added back onto the 40-man roster.

Teams can also extend qualifying offers to their own free agents, and teams can also start to sign players five days after the World Series ends. The Milwaukee Brewers don’t have any players they’ll be extending qualifying offers to this year.

The deadline for players to accept or decline a qualifying offer is 15 days after the World Series.

November 20th

This is the deadline to add players to the 40-man roster and block them from the Rule V Draft. The Milwaukee Brewers should be fairly active here. They have a few prospects who will be eligible for the Rule V Draft, including Corey Ray.

December 2nd

This is when the Milwaukee Brewers have to decide if they’re going to offer contracts to players under team control. If they choose not to offer contracts to unsigned players who aren’t eligible for free agency, they become free agents. This is an important date for Travis Shaw fans.

Winter Meetings

Baseball’s winter meetings are scheduled to start on December 9th and end on December 12th after the Rule V Draft. Every Major League executive, player agent, and random job seeker will head to San Diego, CA this year.

Arbitration dates

Assuming teams can’t come to terms with their arbitration eligible players, they’ll exchange numbers on January 10th, 2020.

The Milwaukee Brewers have 15 players remaining who could be arbitration eligible. Most will end up on the Brewers 40-man roster, but there are tough decisions that need to be made on Jimmy Nelson, Tyler Saladino, and a few others.

Josh Hader earned Super-Two status, and will be arbitration eligible. He may cost the team more than they were planning for, but he’ll undoubtedly remain in Milwaukee.

Arbitration hearings will start in February 2nd for players that can’t come to terms with their team.

After arbitration begins, the next important date is February 12th. That’s when pitchers and catcher report to Spring Training for the Milwaukee Brewers and our long, dark winter finally comes to an end.