83 days until Major League Baseball’s opening day at the time of this article.
61 days until the first match of the World Baseball Classic.
Contractually, the earliest a mandatory report date for any MLB is 33 days from opening day of the regular season(at least until 2027). However, there is a voluntary pitchers and catchers report often before the rest of the team comes in. This is for pitchers to get their arms warmed up prior to the start of full practice and catchers being there more or less as emotional support. Kidding. Sort of. Catchers getting reps with the pitchers helps develop communication and team work prior to them rolling into general infield reps with the rest of the team.
That said, 33 days from from MLB’s 2026 opening day, March 25, is February 20th and that happens to be a Friday. First full team work outs are expected to begin February 16, 2025 being that starting workouts at the end of the week is counter productive. From there we can assume that pitchers and catchers are reporting in on February 11th, 2026.
We can also refer to the Baltimore Orioles releasing their spring training schedule to help solidify that for other teams. Currently the only team to do so.
Great!
But it gets complicated from there this year. The World Baseball Classic (WBC) starts games March 4th and the competitiveness has risen dramatically. This means we have more MLB players expected to be on those rosters and add nuances to the schedule.
Orioles are scheduling WBC roster players for earlier report dates with pitchers and catchers reporting February 9 and position players February 12.
This will make Spring Training a bit more complicated this year in terms of when you can catch all stars as they will be preparing for essentially two different competitions and due to play in Japan, Puerto Rico, Florida or Texas.
Best advice is to catch the earliest practices and games that you can in spring training because there’s no guarantee if you’ll see the players you want if they are due to play for the WBC.
Additionally, while Shohei Ohtani has not been confirmed for Japan’s WBC team, a safe bet is to assume he will be gone late February or early March in addition to any other Japanese players rumored to be on the WBC roster. Catch them sooner than later this spring training.
The positive to the WBC having a presence in Spring Training is that you can catch Team USA on March 3rd and 4th at Salt River Fields. Not confirmed at this time, but we can hopefully assume that you will be able to see traditionally Grapefruit League players taking the Cactus League field like Aaron Judge, Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, Gunnar Henderson and Kyle Schwarber.
Update:
There currently is no difference between regular roster and WBC roster players. I’ll add it as I find out. Graphic is updated and also will list the dates below:
Club | Pitchers & Catchers (First Workout) | Full Squad (First Workout)
AZ | Tues., Feb. 10th | Sun., Feb. 15th
CHI | Wed., Feb. 11th | Mon., Feb. 16th
CIN | Wed., Feb. 11th | Mon., Feb. 16th
COL | Thurs., Feb. 12th | Tues., Feb. 17th
LAD | Fri., Feb. 13th | Tues., Feb. 17th
MIL | Thurs., Feb. 12th | Tues., Feb. 17th
SD | Wed., Feb. 11th | Sun., Feb. 15th
SF | Tues., Feb. 10th | Sun., Feb. 15th
ATH | Wed., Feb. 11th | Mon., Feb. 16th
CWS | Tues., Feb. 10th | Sun., Feb. 15th
CLE | Thurs., Feb. 12th | Tues., Feb. 17th
KC | Wed., Feb. 11th | Mon., Feb. 16th
LAA | Wed., Feb. 11th | Mon., Feb. 16th
SEA | Thurs., Feb. 12th | Tues., Feb. 17th
TB | Thurs., Feb. 12th | Tues., Feb. 17th
TEX | Tues., Feb. 10th | Sun., Feb. 15th
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