Major League Baseball handed the players' union a sweeping new labor proposal on Thursday, offering to shrink the regular season from 162 games to 154 and to expand the Division Series to a best-of-seven format. Commissioner Rob Manfred's office delivered the plan during collective bargaining in New York as the league pushes toward a new contract before the current agreement expires.
What MLB Actually Put on the Table
Major League Baseball proposed shortening the regular season to 154 games from 162 starting in 2029 and expanding the division series to best-of-seven in bargaining with players. The 154-game schedule would be a return to MLB's calendar prior to 1960, when it was expanded to the current 162-game regular season.
Owners also proposed adding nine additional days off to the current postseason format, extending it to a maximum 42 days in a move that would give top starting pitchers potential to appear more often. Each best-of-seven series would be played over 11 days instead of nine, adding off days before Games 5 and 7 in addition to the travel days before Games 3 and 6.
A Weekly Day Off and a New Monday Window
Under the proposal, Monday would be a standard off day for most teams, with the exception of potentially televising one or two national broadcasts. Holidays and other special events would negate the full league off day. Teams that play Monday would be off Thursday. A league spokesman said returning to a 154-game schedule would allow a weekly off day while creating a new broadcast window.
Letting Top Seeds Pick Their Opponents
No. 3 seeds could select after the regular season whether to host No. 5 or No. 6 in the Wild Card Series, and the No. 1 seeds could pick which wild-card winner to play in the Division Series. That piece of the plan, starting with the 2027 season, would allow the higher-seeded clubs in the Wild Card and Division Series rounds to pick their opponents, meaning it could arrive two years before the shorter schedule itself.
A Proposal Built Around a Bigger Fight
None of this comes free for the union. The players' association said in a statement that the league once again made clear that all of its proposals are contingent on players' agreement to a salary cap, calling it a system that guts player rights and compensation.
MLB has already put numbers on that cap. The salary cap for 2027 would be $245.3 million, meaning eight clubs would be required to reduce payroll by a combined $578 million, with cap and floor figures based on Competitive Balance Tax payrolls. The league's broader framework also calls for a salary floor of $171.2 million and a 50-50 revenue split between clubs and players.
Why Manfred Is Racing the Calendar
MLB's current collective bargaining agreement expires December 1 at 11:59 p.m. ET, and the league is expected to lock out players on that date, shutting down free agency and trades as it did in 2021. That timeline explains why the league is publicizing proposals in real time instead of waiting for a private resolution.
Word broke Thursday that MLB is pushing a sweeping set of changes for future seasons while Manfred and ownership negotiate a potential salary cap system, with the current agreement set to expire December 1 and speculation of a lockout growing once the World Series wraps up. For Manfred, the 154-game pitch is less a standalone scheduling fix than a bargaining chip in that larger standoff.
October Baseball Keeps Rolling in the Meantime
None of the proposed changes would touch this postseason. The MLB Playoffs are still working through the League Championship Series picture, with the Brewers back in the NLCS against the Dodgers and the Dodgers having already punched their own ticket by eliminating Atlanta. Fans searching for bracket updates this week are watching those current series, not a format that wouldn't begin shaping October until 2029 at the earliest.
The Union's Next Move
The MLBPA said in a statement, 'The league made multiple scheduling proposals today. We are reviewing these materials, including the proposed changes to the playoff format,' adding that 'players will weigh in on these proposals and we will respond at the bargaining table.' That measured response leaves the door open for negotiation without signaling acceptance of a cap system the union has historically treated as a non-starter.
What Comes Next
With the scheduling and playoff-length changes targeted for 2029 and the opponent-selection wrinkle potentially arriving as soon as 2027, the proposal's fate now hinges entirely on the salary cap debate rather than on whether fans like best-of-seven Division Series. If the sides can't bridge that gap before December 1, the scheduling ideas could become a footnote to a much longer work stoppage story, one that will keep drawing attention back to the broader MLB labor fight even as this year's postseason drama plays out on the field.