MLB and MLBPA reach tentative agreement; baseball is back

One day short of 100 days into the MLB owners’ lockout, we have a tentative deal for baseball to return to the field:

Here’s how the vote went among the 30 MLB team player reps and the eight-member MLBPA executive board:

Here are details about how Major League Baseball will resume:

So the free agent frenzy can begin later today, and I would assume there are teams and agents who have been waiting to talk and we’ll see deals made fairly quickly, based on that.

It was reported earlier Thursday that MLB spring games would begin possibly on March 17. The Cubs were scheduled to have an off day that day, so their first spring games will be a split squad Friday, March 18, at Sloan Park vs. the newly named Guardians and also at Glendale against the White Sox, both games at 3:05 p.m. CT.

The regular season schedule is tentatively set to begin Thursday, April 7. On that date the Cubs are scheduled to host the Brewers at Wrigley Field. That game is currently set for a 6:40 p.m. CT start, though that could change. The games that had been “removed from the schedule” — that’s MLB’s exact wording — will apparently be made up later as part of doubleheaders, and those DH games will go nine innings. The Cubs had five games “removed,” a three-game set at Cincinnati and two games against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field.

More on rules:

There will obviously be much, much more to sort out over the next days and weeks but... baseball is back!