Rob Manfred Discusses Possible MLB Split-Season Format, In-Season Tournament, Free Agency Deadline

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has a lot he still wants to accomplish before he retires in January 2029.

One of those things could be splitting up the season and playing an in-season tournament, much like commissioner Adam Silver instituted in the NBA. Many professional soccer leagues also feature in-season tournaments that overlap with their traditional league play.

"We've talked about split seasons. We've talked about in-season tournaments," Manfred said Thursday in a radio interview with WFAN's Chris Carton and Chris McMonigle (h/t Evan Drellich of The Athletic). 

"We do understand that 162 (games) is a long pull. I think the difficulty to accomplish those sort of in-season events, you almost inevitably start talking about fewer regular-season games. It is a much more complicated thing in our sport than it is in other sports. Because of all of our season-long records, you're playing around with something that people care a lot about."

Manfred also floated the idea of a free agency signing deadline.

"From the first of December to the 20th, if we had a period in there when all that free agency activity went on, it's a great marketing opportunity for the game, at a point in the calendar when you're not quite in the NFL playoffs, the NBA's still kind of early," Manfred said. "It's a great chance to kind of own some offseason weeks, which is crucial to selling tickets, selling season tickets. So that's why I was interested."

The overall length of the schedule and the difficulty of traveling across the country during that grueling stretch also serves as motivation for his vision for eight divisions of four teams each that are divided geographically.

That would require adding two expansion teams, and he also said he wouldn't want teams in the same city (New York Mets and New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels) being in the same division.

"You would realign, you would do it along geographic lines, which would alleviate—could alleviate—a ton of the travel burden that's on players," he said. "Remember, we ask our players (to play) 162 times in 186 days. … You can eliminate a lot of that travel and make it less burdensome, which would be a great thing in terms of player health and safety."

That would be a significant amount of change in a short amount of time considering Manfred doubled down on his desire to walk away from the game when his current contract expires in January 2029.

The first step would surely be expansion franchises, but all of these changes would require collective bargaining and approval from the Major League Baseball Players Association as well.

If nothing else, fans cannot accuse Manfred of lacking ambition toward the closing stretch of his career.

The in-season tournament has generally been seen as a success for the NBA, as it breaks up a long schedule and gives players something to play for outside of the conference standings over the course of 82 games. With high payouts awaiting the champions, there have been a number of memorable and competitive games in that environment.

MLB would surely have to institute something similar if it is going to gain the approval of the union. Expansion teams would also mean more markets but also more teams to split the money in revenue sharing.

None of these changes are guaranteed and will surely require some back and forth, but Manfred is thinking about them as he contemplates his next moves.