MLBPA proposes temporary roster size expansion amid CBA negotiations

The players' association has proposed a temporary expansion of roster sizes as part of ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations, per CBS Sports, with a potential work stoppage remaining a real possibility as talks continue.

What happened

Per CBS Sports, the players' association put forward a proposal for a temporary roster size expansion during the current round of CBA negotiations. The report does not specify the exact size of the proposed expansion, the duration of the temporary measure, or whether the league's ownership side has responded to the proposal. What the report does make clear is that a potential work stoppage is looming — meaning neither side has reached an agreement, and the sport is operating under the kind of ambient tension that tends to make every transaction feel a little more consequential than usual.

The CBA is the foundational document governing the relationship between the league and its players: it sets the rules on service time, arbitration, free agency, the draft, and — relevant here — the structure of rosters. When a CBA expires or lapses, the mechanisms that govern daily baseball operations become subjects of negotiation rather than settled law. A proposal around roster sizes, even a temporary one, signals that the players' side sees roster construction rules as a meaningful lever in the broader bargaining picture.

Why it matters

Roster size is not an abstract procedural detail. It is one of the most direct ways the CBA shapes how many players are employed at the major-league level at any given time, and how much leverage individual players have in the system.

Under current general league rules, active rosters sit at 26 players through August 31, then expand to 28 from September 1 through the end of the regular season. The 40-man roster — the reserve list a player must be on to be called up — operates as a separate ceiling that governs which minor-league players are protected and which are exposed to the Rule 5 draft. Any proposal to expand roster sizes, even temporarily, touches all of those layers simultaneously.

From the players' perspective, larger rosters mean more players earning major-league salaries, more service time accumulating across the industry, and — in practical terms — more roster spots that clubs cannot fill by cycling through minor-league options or keeping players in the minors to delay their service clocks. It is, in other words, a proposal with economic consequences that extend well beyond the question of whether a team carries a seventh reliever or a fourth outfielder on a given Tuesday in June.

From the clubs' side, roster expansion means higher payroll obligations and more complex roster management. Whether ownership has signaled any openness to the proposal is not addressed in the CBS Sports report.

What we don't know yet

The CBS Sports report leaves several material questions unanswered, and it is worth being precise about what remains unconfirmed.

The exact scope of the proposed expansion — how many additional players, and on which roster (the active 26, the September 28, or the 40-man) — is not specified in the report. The duration of the "temporary" measure is similarly undefined: temporary could mean a single season as a bridge provision, or it could mean something tied to a specific phase of a new agreement. The report does not say.

Whether the league has formally responded to the proposal, whether the two sides are close on this particular point, or whether the roster expansion proposal is a standalone ask or part of a broader package is also not addressed. CBA negotiations typically involve bundled proposals where movement on one item is linked to movement on another, but the report does not characterize the state of the broader talks in that kind of structural detail.

Most significantly, the timeline for a potential work stoppage — or for a resolution that avoids one — is not established in the report. CBS Sports describes a work stoppage as "looming," which is a meaningful word choice, but it does not attach a deadline or a specific trigger point to that characterization.

How roster mechanics work — and why a "temporary" expansion is complicated

It is worth pausing on the word "temporary," because roster rules are not simple switches. Under the current structure, the 26-man active roster and the 28-man September roster are set by the CBA. The 40-man roster limit is also a CBA construct. Changing any of those numbers — even temporarily — requires agreement on how the change interacts with the rest of the system.

For example: if the active roster were temporarily expanded, clubs would need to add players to their 40-man rosters to call them up, which in turn affects which players are exposed in the Rule 5 draft. A temporary expansion that does not address the 40-man limit simultaneously could create a situation where clubs have the roster space but not the 40-man flexibility to fill it. Conversely, a temporary expansion of the 40-man limit raises its own questions about player protection and draft eligibility.

None of this is to say the proposal is unworkable — it is to say that "temporary roster expansion" is a headline that contains a considerable amount of structural complexity underneath it, and the CBS Sports report, by its nature as a negotiations-tracking piece, does not resolve that complexity.

The injured list structure adds another layer. Players on the 10-day IL (position players), 15-day IL (pitchers and two-way players), or 60-day IL each interact with the roster limits differently — the 60-day IL, notably, removes a player from the 40-man count entirely, which is one of the tools clubs use to create roster flexibility during a season. Any expansion proposal would presumably need to account for how IL placements interact with the new roster numbers. A player on a rehab assignment — up to 20 days for position players, up to 30 days for pitchers — occupies a roster slot in a way that would also intersect with any new limits. The mechanics are layered enough that even a "temporary" fix requires a fairly thorough accounting of downstream effects.

Options and waivers add yet another dimension. A player generally has three option years before the club must keep him on the active roster or expose him to waivers. A player designated for assignment must be traded, released, or placed on waivers within seven days. If roster limits expand, the calculus around when to option a player, when to designate him, and when to simply carry him on an expanded active roster shifts accordingly. These are not hypothetical edge cases — they are the daily arithmetic of roster management for every club in the league.

What to watch

The most immediate thing to monitor is whether the league responds to the roster expansion proposal, and whether that response — or the absence of one — moves the two sides closer to or further from a broader agreement.

Beyond the roster question specifically, the framing of the CBS Sports report — that a potential work stoppage is "looming" — suggests the overall CBA negotiations are not in a comfortable place. Work stoppages in baseball have historically affected spring training and, in more severe cases, the regular season itself. The report does not indicate that the current situation has reached a particular level of urgency, but it does not suggest the two sides are on the verge of a handshake either.

The roster expansion proposal is, in one reading, a relatively targeted ask — a specific, bounded change to how many players can be on a roster at a given time. In another reading, it is a signal about the players' side's broader priorities: more jobs, more service time, more economic participation at the major-league level. How ownership responds to it will say something about how far apart the two sides are on those underlying priorities, not just on the specific roster number.

CBS Sports notes it is tracking all major steps in the negotiations as they develop. The desk will do the same.