Rosters to stay at 28 beginning Thursday, per report

MLB rosters are slated to drop from 30 to 28 on Thursday, but per Ken Rosenthal, the original plan to have rosters drop from 28 to 26 two weeks after that is being scrapped. Instead, team roster sizes will be 28 from Thursday until the end of the season, and taxi squads, which have been three players, will be increased to five players beginning Thursday.

There has been talk for several days about adjusting the roster limits in the wake of a number of injuries, as well as what is anticipated to be a number of doubleheaders that will need to be played going forward to make up for postponed games. There was talk that the roster limit would stay at the current 30, but it appears the compromise is to continue with the planned drop to 28 this week, but keep the total amount of players who can travel with the team at 33.

Under MLB’s COVID-19 protocols, teams have a pool of up to 60 players who are eligible to be part of the active roster. Those players who are not on the active roster work out separately, at what has been dubbed the Alternative Training Site for each team, in order to ensure that, if one group of players has a COVID-19 outbreak, the other group isn’t exposed.

However, teams also have what are designated as “taxi squad” players — players who can travel with the active roster on the road, and thus are available to be immediately activated in case a roster move is necessary. Teams have had 30 active roster members and 3 taxi squad players, and going forward after tomorrow will have 28 active roster members and 5 taxi squad players.