MLB union head decries soft market

Players’ union head Tony Clark says the number of rebuilding teams and unsigned free agents in a historically slow market threatens the sport’s integrity, an assertion immediately rejected by Major League Baseball. “(A) significant number of teams are engaged in a race to the bottom. This conduct is a fundamental breach of the trust between a team and its fans and threatens the very integrity of our game,” Clark said, referring to the more than 110 players who are still unsigned. MLB attributed the amount of unsigned players to a misreading of the marketplace. “Our clubs are committed to putting a winning product on the field for their fans . ... In baseball, it has always been true that clubs go through cyclical, multi-year strategies directed at winning,” the commissioner’s office said.