R.I.P. the 15-day Disabled List

So one of the biggest things to come out of the new Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement was the abolishment of the 15-day disabled list.

In all of my life, I’ve never known anything aside from a disabled list in baseball that spanned two long weeks. When one of your guys hits the DL, it was two long weeks and change before you could see him again if everything went perfectly.

This new change signals something positive for baseball.

The disabled list will go from a 15-day requirement if a player is placed on it to a 10-day requirement. This is probably for the best as it frees up roster spots rather than forcing a team to decide between playing short for 7-10 days or losing the player for longer than they had to.

It seems like for years I’ve followed teams who insist on making the worst possible decision one can make – making no decision at all – and playing short-handed for a number of days before inevitably putting the guy on the shelf thus losing the roster spot for the days by occupying it with nothing.

Teams will be a lot quicker now to use the DL properly, placing the guy quickly and getting a warm body up there. Also, it won’t leave fantasy teams in flux for quite as long waiting for a damn week to see what the Nationals are going to do with Stephen Strasburg next time he leaves a start early with Strasburg typical tightness.