MLB offseason calendar and the Rockies: What to look for this winter

Hello Rockies fans, one hour later than usual. Hope you had a fun socially distant Halloween and enjoyed turning back your clocks to get an extra hour of sleep. The MLB offseason officially began on Wednesday after the World Series ended (but for the life of me, I can’t recall who won it). That was when we received the new free agents list (which we’ve already covered, at least partially, here and here). But there’s a lot more on the horizon that we need to be on the lookout for. What follows is the offseason calendar, and what it means for the Rockies.

The Rockies have six free agents: Daniel Murphy, Chris Owings, Kevin Pillar, AJ Ramos, Matt Kemp, and Drew Butera. Teams were also required to move players off the 60-day IL, so David Dahl was added to the 40-man and Joe Harvey was outrighted to Triple-ABQ. (Thanks for Rockies Roster, as always, for keeping this information up to date). So what does the rest of the winter look like?

Monday, November 2: Tomorrow, the Baseball Writer’s Association of America announce their finalists for their major awards. You can watch this announcement on MLB Network at 4 pm MT, but don’t expect many Rockies to be named.

Tuesday, November 3: If you’ve got nothing else going on, you can see if Charlie Blackmon and Nolan Arenado will win Rawlings Gold Glove Awards on ESPN starting at 5 pm MT.

Thursday, November 5: The Silver Slugger Awards presented by Louisville Slugger will be announced on MLB Network.

Friday, November 6: The Platinum Glove Winners and the Gold Glove Team will be announced at 4 pm MT on MLB Network. We’ll look to see if Nolan will win his fourth straight Platinum Glove. He’s already won his fourth Fielding Bible Award at Third Base.

Monday, November 9: Tune into MLB Network to see who won the AL and NL Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Awards.

Tuesday, November 10: Next up, Manager of the Year awards. Again, watch MLB Network.

Wednesday, November 11: The Cy Young Award will be announced on MLB Network.

Thursday, November 12: This is the big one. NL and AL Most Valuable Player Awards will be announced. Then we enter a lull period.

Friday, November 20: The deadline for adding Rule 5 Draft eligible players to the 40-man roster comes at 6 pm MT. Players who signed professional contracts at age 18 or younger must be added to the 40-man roster within five seasons after signing the contract and those who were 19 years old or older must be added within four seasons. Those who aren’t will be eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 Draft. The Rockies have six spaces available on their 40-man roster.

Wednesday, December 2: The famous “non-tender deadline.” This means that teams must decide whether to tender contracts to club-controlled players currently on the 40-man rosters. If they don’t do that by 6 pm MT, they become free agents. Considering the Rockies issues with the bullpen, they might non-tender some of those low performers but they could also decide to keep as many MLB- experienced arms as they want.

Monday, December 6 through Thursday, December 10: THE MLB WINTER MEETINGS IN DALLAS, TEXAS. Well, they’re scheduled for the Omni Hotel in Dallas, but considering the ongoing pandemic, don’t expect them to be held in person. If they are, it will be featuring very limited personnel. And considering the message from Dick Monfort to season ticket holders, don’t expect a ton of activity from the Rockies.

Here’s where we would typically expect a free agency flurry, but a lot of prognosticators believe the hot stove will stay mighty cold this year after teams had minimal revenue from the shortened 2020 season. So this dry season between the winter meetings and spring training will probably be dryer than usual. Keep those baseball movies on rotate.

Friday, January 15, 2021: The Arbitration filing deadline. Teams and arbitration-eligible players must reach an agreement on contract terms by 11 am MT. If they don’t, both sides will submit salary figures for the 2021 season and an arbitration meeting will be scheduled. Agreements can still be reached during this time, but the Rockies are known to be a “file-and-trial” type of club.

The Rockies have a lot of arbitration eligible players. This is Jon Gray’s last arb-eligible season; he’s a free agent after 2021. Tony Wolters (who will try to avoid a second-straight arbitration hearing) will enter his third arb-eligible offseason. David Dahl, Kyle Freeland, and Carlos Estevez have their second year coming. Ryan McMahon, Raimel Tapia, Antonio Senzatela, and Jairo Diaz are all first year arbitration eligible.

Friday, February 12, 2021: The date we will all be waiting for—or at least something close to it—pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Scottsdale, Arizona will begin to come alive again. What it looks like will depend on federal and local regulations surrounding the pandemic and what they’ll look like four months from now (and if 2020 has taught me anything, nothing even four weeks from now is predictable).

Saturday, February 27, 2021: Game one of the Spring Training schedule opens as the Rockies take on their SRF co-residents, the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Thursday, April 1, 2021: The regular season opens at Coors Field for the first time in over eight years as the Rockies host the Los Angeles Dodgers, who may or may not have accomplished some things in the shortened, weird, kinda-hard-to-call-it-a-real-season 2020 season.

Thanks to Al Yellon and the folks at Bleed Cubbie Blue for help putting this calendar together!

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Colorado Rockies: Are we setting up for another zombie offseason? | Roxpile

I’ll leave that answer up to Kevin Henry and you, the reader. I’m just here to present dates.

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Whatever else may be going on surrounding the Rockies right now, it pales in comparison to reminiscing about these groovy threads from previous team dress up flights.

In the comments, tag yourself. I’m Larry Walker wearing a colorful patterned suit and completely missing what constitutes 70’s clothing but also wearing a fedora.

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