Free agents not moving

But, don’t use the word collusion

With apologies to Shakespeare, THIS is the winter of our discontent. Three weeks before pitchers and catchers report, and the lack of free-agent activity has major league baseball facing a crisis unlike anything seen since the mid 1980s.

There have been significant trades, thanks largely to new ownership gutting the Miami Marlins roster, but free agent moves have been scarce. Lorenzo Cain is the only player to get more than a three-year deal — a five-year pact with Milwaukee. More than 100 free agents remain without deals. Thirteen teams haven’t signed a free-agent position player.

The lack of activity has players and/or their agents hinting at spring training boycotts, refusing to consider pace-of-play changes and suggesting the lack of player signings “feels co-ordinated,” (don’t say collusion).

The last couple months, frustrated hosts on MLB Network Radio have offered numerous reasons why the off-season has been so slow. Collusion isn’t one of them.

• Player agent Scott Boras holds the reins on many of the top free agents, including Eric Hosmer and J.D. Martinez. Boras often waits until late in spring before getting deals done, believing team desperation will lead to bad decisions. Hosmer has reportedly been offered sevenyear contracts from San Diego and Kansas City, but is holding out for eight. Martinez has turned up his nose at a fiveyear offer from the Red Sox. But Boston realizes few teams are in a position to offer Martinez the kind of deal he’s asking, and refuse to bid against themselves — a lesson division-rival Baltimore learned the hard way when Boras convinced the Orioles to shell out $161 million over seven years for Chris Davis. That’s not collusion, that’s good business.

• Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta, the latter another Boras client, are the top starting pitchers available. But Darvish is considering offers from five or six different teams, and has plugged the market. Teams are in a holding pattern, and aren’t going to sign the likes of Lance Lynn or Alex Cobb until they know if they landed Darvish. Meanwhile, Darvish drags his heels, waiting for his preferred teams to try and clear payroll.

• Teams are wising up about the perils of long-term contracts. Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Jacoby Ellsbury, Chris Davis, Prince Fielder, Matt Kemp, Joe Mauer, etc. The Miami Marlins practically had to give away Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees, just to escape his 13year, $325-million deal. The majority of players on eightor 10-year contracts offer limited production, clog rosters and crimp future payroll spending. The Phillies are only now recovering from the Ryan Howard extension, and the Mets are still paying Bobby Bonilla. Even as the industry rejoiced at Cain’s deal, and saw it as a potential thaw in the market, dominating the talk was surprise that Milwaukee threw in that fifth year.

• As illustrated by Hosmer and Martinez, players still want long-term deals. There have been reports of teams offering shorter contracts with higher average annual value, such as the Phillies used to sign Carlos Santana (three years, $60M), but the vast majority of players have refused those opportunities.

• In the era of sabermetrics and statistical algorithms, most MLB teams are on a level playing field when it comes to player evaluation. They are playing from the same playbook, which means fewer teams are going to make bad decisions.

• Given the cost of older free agents, teams are more willing to fill their rosters with young, cheaper talent developed through their own systems. Prospects have never been so valuable. And because some free agents come with the price tag of forfeited draft picks, or the loss of international signing money, teams are reluctant to pay that price.

• Numerous teams have no chance at the playoffs this season. Washington, Cleveland, and Houston are division locks. The Cubs, Dodgers and Yankees are considerable favourites. Only a handful of teams have legitimate wild-card hopes. When half the MLB teams have no chance before the season even begins, that limits the number of free-agent spenders.

• The payroll luxury tax, combined with next year’s free-agent class, is another factor. The Yankees, Dodgers and others are trying to keep their rosters below $197 million in order to reset their tax penalty, as that makes it easier to wade into next year’s free agent bonanza that includes Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, Charlie Blackmon, Brian Dozier, and possibly Clayton Kershaw, who has an opt-out clause after this season. Teams are saving their financial bullets for next season.

Certainly, the players are right to be frustrated. It’s a perfect storm of factors that have stalled the off-season proceedings. But to not see the bigger picture beyond the whispers of collusion is just wrong.