The 162 Game Marathon Begins

What the end of Spring Training and the first games of the season mean to MLB Teams

By Daniel Kaplan

 Photo credit: DirecTV

The Final Days of Spring Training

As Spring Training progresses and the position battles rage on, around the last week of camp is when General Managers and Coaches have big decisions to make. These decisions mostly revolve around who will fill out the 26-man MLB Roster on Opening Day. One might think the main factor in these decisions is “who performed best in camp and won the job?”. While that is significant, other factors go into this decision such as a player’s contract, whether or not they have options, their physical shape and durability, and other key elements. 

Contactually, MLB teams often give Non-Roster Invitees (NRI) something called an “out”. An “out” is a contractually clause where if they are not on the Major League Roster by a given date; they can elect free agency to see if they will have a better opportunity with another club. Players can have multiple “outs”, giving teams more time and flexibility to add them to the roster, or not. Other players that belong to an organization going into spring training already can have different “Options.”. Every player gets 3 Options which allow the team to send, or option, them down to the Minor Leagues throughout a season. Teams can only use one option on a player per year, so once they send them to the minors, they can then bring them up and down as many times as they need to during that season while still only having used one of these options. During Spring, decisions may be made about a player who has already had all three of his options used, because if they choose to not add him to the Major League roster, they would have to Designate him for Assignment (DFA), which allows other teams to potentially claim him. This happened during this most recent Spring Training in 2025 with Phillies catcher Rafael Marchan and Garrett Stubbs. Marchan was out of options and Stubbs had one available, and the team chose to select Marchan to the MLB roster and option Stubbs to the Minors. Keep these elements in mind when you’re looking at what decisions your favorite team made at the end of Spring Training! 

Opening Day

Each One Is Special		The Game Is Going Global
Opening Day in MLB is an incredibly meaningful and special day. For fans, it signifies the beginning of their favorite sport and team back in action. For players, coaches and staff, it is a day to reflect on their hard work paying off that allows them to be on a Major League Field doing what they do at the highest level, which can never be taken for granted		With the popularity of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) and influx of immense talent from countries like Japan, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and more; Opening Day is now celebrated around the world more than ever!

“You always get a special kick on Opening Day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you’re a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.”

— Joe Dimaggio, Baseball Legend

Those First Few Games

Let’s talk about those first few games of the Regular Season. Everyone is excited whether you’re a fan, a player, or a coach for the 162 game marathon that is about to begin. All the planning and preparation is done, everyone feels that this is the best roster they could possibly have and ready to attack any opponent who would dare to step in their way. Unfortunately….this is not how Baseball works exactly. With series being so short, and the season being so long….parity exists, and that is a good thing! The roster you have on Opening Day will, without a shadow of a doubt, NOT be the same roster you have in September, or July, or even April for that matter! Injuries happen, players struggle, players thrive, prospects break their way into the Major Leagues, trades occur, etc. This is all to say; do not read too much into the first week or so of games, in either direction! 

Teams might come out of the gate strong and have great chemistry and get great pitching outcomes and have their timing down right away and rattle off 5 wins in the first 6 or 7 games. Perhaps this team was predicted to win the division, and perhaps they lost over 100 games just a season ago. On the flipside, your team that spent all this money in free agency, traded for a superstar, or are just down right great, might sputter out of the gate and drop 2 of 3, or 5 of 7 to teams they shouldn’t lose to due to some key players getting off to slow starts. Either way, the real answer is that this is far too small of a sample size to make any significant deductions from! It becomes so easy to forget just how many games there are to be played once that adrenaline starts pumping and you see your favorite team winning or losing.

Remember, it takes time for hitters to get their feet underneath them and their timing; it takes multiple starts or appearances for pitchers to be fully stretched out and honed in on their best pitches. It also takes time to gel as a team; those unquantifiable traits that bring people together and make them play for each other, that feeling you can’t quite put your finger on but you know it when you watch a good team play; they’ve got “it”. “It”, takes time to build, and that doesn’t happen in the first week of the season. 

With all that being said, Baseball is BACK, and we can all celebrate that!