INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Major League Baseball is considering a change to its longtime rule allowing active rosters to expand from 25 to 40 from Sept. 1 through the rest of the regular season.
MLB executive vice president for baseball operations Joe Torre said general managers discussed the matter Wednesday on the opening day of their annual meeting.
Some teams have been reluctant to use the larger limit late in the season. They have cited not wanting to disrupt minor league teams in their playoffs, and those decisions have led to big league games in which teams have differing numbers of available players.
"Each team should have equal number of players available every day," Torre said. "I just think you play the whole season with one set of rules and the most important time of the year, especially for clubs that are in a pennant race, I just don't think it's fair for it to be done (with a) different number of roster people."
Torre said one possibility would be setting a fixed number of players who must be on the active roster for September games.
"We've talked about 28. We've talked about 30," he said. "It was talked about at length today."
Any proposal for change would be subject to bargaining with the Major League Baseball Players Association.
"This was a subject in bargaining in 2011, but no agreement was reached," union head Michael Weiner said Thursday. "If MLB has a midterm proposal to make, we will consider it. This clearly is a mandatory subject."
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