The Yankees got too much of a head start, and now it is official: The offseason has arrived, and when it ends is anybody’s guess.
Except in practical terms for the Yankees, it will be crammed into the next month before the sport is expected to shut down because of a lockout. If and when it is lifted (with a new Collective Bargaining Agreement) in time to play a season next year, teams will be on the clock to finalize their roster moves while an expedited spring training gets under way, meaning November could be more active in player transactions than it usually is.
Of course, there is also the standard business: the deadline to extend qualifying offers to free agents (5 p.m. ET on Monday), the deadline for those free agents to accept or decline those qualifying offers (4 p.m. ET on Nov. 17), the deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft (Nov. 17) and the non-tender deadline (Nov. 20), all of which will come with decisions for the Yankees. But then by 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, the current CBA is set to expire, and without any realistic expectations of the sides coming to a new agreement by then, the lockout will get underway.
The last time there was a lockout (during the 2021-22 offseason), the Yankees only made a few minor trades in November. Three days after the lockout ended, on the eve of spring training, they made the ill-fated move to acquire Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt from the Twins for Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela, then finished off their roster in the coming days.
