How The Milwaukee Brewers Are Impacted By These 5 CBA Changes

Finally! Baseball is back as the league and players’ union have agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Brewers baseball is back in our lives.

Opening Day is finally set, 40 man roster players will show up at spring training, free agents can sign, trades can be made, and baseball is moving again after a 99 day lockout.

The players came into these CBA negotiations looking to make major changes, and they succeeded on several fronts. Here’s how five of these changes impact the Milwaukee Brewers.

New CBA Rule: Players optioned max of 5 times per year

One of the rules put in place in the CBA that will have the most impact on how the Brewers construct their roster is the new limit on player options mid-season.

Previously, players had three option years where they could be optioned an unlimited number of times during that season and only one “option” would be used. Teams could have players go up and down like a rollercoaster and there was nothing the player could do about it.

Now, players can only be optioned back down to the minor leagues from the 40 man roster a maximum of five times per season before being exposed to waivers. If a player has already been optioned five times in a season when they get called back up they have to either remain on the team the rest of the season or, be exposed to waivers if the team wants to option them again.

On waivers, any other team could claim that player and the Brewers would get nothing in return.

Over the past few years, the Brewers have utilized what has essentially amounted to a shuttle between Milwaukee and Triple-A involving several members of their bullpen. They rotated through arms making sure they had someone fresh for that bullpen to keep it fully stocked. Now, if they continue that with some of those low leverage bullpen arms like Angel Perdomo or Jandel Gustave, they could end up losing them.

David Stearns is going to have to build his bullpen and build his roster with this now in mind. His constant and unlimited shuttling of relievers is coming to an end.