Everything You Need to Know About the 2022 MLB Season

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The games are back, with the Major League Baseball Baseball Association agreeing on the deal on Thursday afternoon. And with that, the regular season will begin on April 7. But before it starts, the teams will be doing some spring training to get themselves riled up, which happened earlier this month. Both fans and bettors have something to look forward to this year.

However, the teams got back together for their so-called Summer Camp before playing on a 60-game season. The following year, the MLB failed to start a shortened season, which led to spring training. Thankfully, everything is in motion now that the spring training has been modified, followed by a regular season.

That said, there are many things that you might need to catch up on regarding this year’s regular season. Here are some of them.

2022 Spring Training

Earlier this year, the spring training games were delayed a few times:

1. On February 18, MLB pushed back the spring training to March 4.
2. A few days later, on February 24, announcements were made saying that the spring training would be on March 8.
3. On March 1, Rob Manfred announced the delay and moved it to March 12.

As a result, the players who wanted to go early voluntarily reported for spring training on March 11. And when March 13 rolled, reporting was made mandatory for all players. The first two scheduled games were back on March 17, and after that, the entire slate kicked off.

The Grapefruit League games will be held in stadiums across Florida, while the Cactus League will be around Arizona. The spring games will end on April 5, and after that, the regular season will finally start. The opening day for the regular season will be on April 7, just two days after the end of the spring training. This date is a week later than the original date, March 3.

Playoff Format

The October field will be expanded from ten teams to twelve, making it six teams from each league from its original five teams per league. Each league will have 3 division winners and three wildcards.

However, there will be no reseeding in the division series. Instead, the No.1 seed plays the winner of the 4-5 series, and No.2 will be the winner for 3-6. Also, there will be no play-in games to decide spots for playoffs. Instead, they will be decided by tie-breaker formulas, which will affect baseball odds. For this season, there will be 162 MLB games.

On-field Rule Changes

One of The big changes for the 2022 season is the National League’s adoption of the designated hitter. This was originally a decision in 2020 for the shortened league due to the pandemic but was reverted last year in 2021. But for this year, pitchers will no longer have a spot to bat in the games.

Speaking of rule changes, starting in 2023, a Joint Competition Committee will be in charge of the rule changes, and they are composed of four active players, two umpires, and six members appointed by the MLB. They will be in charge of decision-making on rule changes like the pitch clock, larger bases, automatic ball/strike systems, etc. Any rule changes made by the committee will be adopted instantly and notified to the players in 45 days.

Trading

When the lockout was still going on, teams could not officially start their trade talks, but now that the schedule is already set, they can officiate trading. So while big trades do not usually happen during the Spring training, this year could be an exception because the winter trade lockout did not develop further.  

International Draft

This is a big issue in the league. Its decision relies on the MLB and MLBPA, which has until July 25 to start their decision that will decide how they will implement or if they will ever implement international drafting in the future.

If it happens, the free-agent pick compensation will be eliminated. But, on the other hand, if no decision is made, the current international signing and international draft will remain the same.

Final Words

There is a lot to expect for the MLB 2022 season because there are a lot of changes, especially since they are now moving to a regular season, unlike the last two years. Although there were some setbacks earlier this year, this will be a good season for baseball fans because everything will be back in business.