The 2024 “preseason” is upon us. The Rockies concluded their championship season back on November 2nd and I know it has once again been a long off-season up to this point. As always, I appreciate everyones patience and would again like to thank all those that have been running WDL teams – special shout out to Rob for his recaps to his Wailea Beach squad in their Slack channel.
I want to take a second to look ahead to the season and some key dates that I will tentatively put on paper.
- Spring Training: I am planning on setting our Spring Training in-game date to February 5th. This will serve as our “players reporting” date with games not beginning until Wednesday the 7th. We will again kick things off with minor league vs. MLB teams for likely two days. I will aim for ST to conclude with final games on Tuesday, March 19th.
- Opening Day: The Dodgers and Padres are currently set in-game to begin the season on March 20th and 21st in the series that is taking place overseas in real-life. IRL these two return home and then play ST games before the second “Opening Day” on the 28th. I will be moving that two-game series between LA and SD to the 25th and 26th instead. I am doing this for three reasons. 1) The timing of the 20th and 21st is awful for my schedule with the way the NCAA Tournament is laid out this year 2) We cannot get back to ST after those games are played like they can IRL and 3) Related to both 1 and 2, this will create a window between the end of ST & start of season that everyone can prepare their rosters in. The rest of the 2024 MLB schedule should be accurate to RL and will not undergo any further changes.
- The Draft: I will be setting the in-game draft date to July 17th, one day after the ASG. Aim will likely be another early May start. When will the pool become official? TBD — I’ll have it at a point where you can start scouting soon, while more players are continually added between now and April/Mid-April.
- Rookie Leagues: Related to the draft, I will ensure that the rookie league levels have Opening Days scheduled for several days after the draft takes place.
- IFA: More info on this to come at a later point in time.