MLB teams bank on making big splash

FREE AGENTS

to be just as valuable, if not more so.

It also would include hitters Josh Donaldson and Andrew McCutchen, starting pitchers Matt Harvey and Dallas Keuchel and relievers Zach Britton and Andrew Miller.

And should they exercise opt-out clauses, ace lefties Clayton Kershaw and David Price also could hit the market that winter.

It is considered the best free agent class since at least 2000-01, when Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Mike Mussina and Mike Hampton all hit the market at the same time and all of whom, to one degree or another and for better or worse, altered the trajectories of the teams that signed them.

“Every team has threeand five-year outlooks that involve upcoming free-agent classes,” Chicago Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer said. “But it’s been a while since a class like that one has come along.”

The calculations regarding that free-agent class affect not only the teams, such as Washington and Baltimore, that stand to lose their franchise cornerstones — and whose championship windows may be closing accordingly — but all the other teams contemplating bidding on one or more of those players and whose payroll decisions for 2017 may be influenced at least in part by what the 2019 season could hold.

When the Chicago White Sox traded away their ace (Sale) and their leadoff man (Adam Eaton) to Boston and Washington respectively during the winter meetings, receiving seven prospects in return and shedding more than $30 million in guaranteed future salaries, they acknowledged their designs on that 2018-19 free agent class.

“Two years from now, there could be a lot of highimpact talent potentially available,” White Sox GM Rick Hahn said. “To plan with specific targets in mind right now is probably a little foolhardy, but we’ve all noticed the potential depth of that class and we’re going to be ready.”

Going to be ready? They’re already ready. The White Sox have just $4.25 million committed to 2019 payroll, all of it in the form of buyouts of team options to a trio of veterans. tax penalties in the latest collective bargaining agreement — with taxes of up to 95 per cent for repeat, excessive spenders — it’s no coincidence that baseball’s bigmoney teams are reducing future payroll commitments just in time for the superclass of free agents to arrive in 21 months.

Look no further than the New York Yankees. Even though they likely will field another $200-million-plus team in 2017, they have shown a remarkable commitment to youth and development in recent years and have just $74.2 million Harper or Machado that winter — should one or both be available, of course.

It’s rare, if not unprecedented, for a future free-agent class to hold such sway over baseball’s economy so far in advance, but never before have two players like Harper and Machado arrived at free agency at the same time. While that free-agent class is deep in talent and could get even deeper should Kershaw and/or Price opt out of their deals, Harper and Machado are different animals.

Both will be just 26 years old at the end of the 2018 season compared to 30 for Kershaw, 33 for Price and 32 for Donaldson, to name three others — recalling Rodriguez’s first foray into free agency in 2000-01 at age 25, when the Texas Rangers signed him for 10 years and $252 million. MLB’s total revenues were less than $5 billion, then but could be $12 billion or more by 2019.

“Those players who are 26-, 27-, 28-year-old free agents are very, very highly coveted,” agent Scott Boras, whose clients include Harper, said earlier this offseason.

“A lot of clubs have now marshaled their positioning to that age group.”

There is a baseball season approaching mere months away and in places such as Boston, Los Angeles and the north side of Chicago, there is an appropriate level of excitement for what 2017 could bring with little need or inclination to worry about what lies beyond.

But for the folks who run those teams — and all the other teams — there is always one eye trained on the future. And simply because of what is coming 21 months from now, that has never been more true.