With spring training starting this past week for Major League Baseball teams, there was plenty of anticipation in the air in both Arizona and Florida, but there was also a surprise thrown into the mix.
According to Ben Nightengale in USA Today, there will be an extra camp set up in Florida in order to accommodate the roughly 80 free agents who have not yet been signed. This has sparked claims from agents and some observers of collusion among front offices in order to lock out players until they agree to play for much lower salaries. However, I find these claims to be a bit lacking.
To be clear, baseball fans do have a right to be concerned. The slow pace of free agent signing the past few months has indeed been historic. According to a Washington Post article by Neil Greenberg, spending this offseason on free agents (as of Feb. 7) has totaled up to only $780 million, whereas about $1.45 billion was spent last winter.
Many of the free agents left are also legitimate stars, not just no-names or veterans looking for a last-minute chance at spending another year in the majors.
Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, J.D. Martinez and Mike Moustakas are all well-known players who remain unsigned. The collusion claims have mostly come from agents who think their clients are being purposefully locked out. I would argue, though, there are many other factors playing into this sluggish pace of signings.
First of all, there is evidence the talent level of the free agents this offseason may have been lower than in previous winters. According to Neil Payne for FiveThirtyEight, this latest group of free agents has the lowest wins above replacement of any crop of top-40 players in their previous three seasons since 2006.
To clarify for people who do not geek out over sabermetrics, wins above replacement are basically an approximation of how much value a team would lose if they replaced a certain player. Add this to the fact that many players left unsigned are in the latter half of their careers, and it is easy to see there are valid reasons for front offices to be wary.
Concerns like these are also indicative of the way the game of baseball has changed over the last few decades. Many teams now employ groups of statisticians and data experts to look over numbers on players such as their wins above replacement or the average fastball velocity of the pitchers. Years ago, data such as this would have never been collected, much less carefully scrutinized.
However, this sabermetric approach has grown increasingly popular over the past few years. Although there are some talking heads who dismiss it, it does appear this is the direction the game is headed for the foreseeable future. It may just be the case the elevation of hard numbers over reputations or name recognition has caused there to be such a high number of players left without jobs.
Finally, it is not as if some big-market teams have not made any moves this winter. The San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees both made big trades to acquire Evan Longoria and Giancarlo Stanton, respectively. With big-market teams acquiring players through this option, they have not had as much of a need to go out and make big free agent signings.
Given these factors, I simply remain unconvinced the lethargic pace of free agent signings has been a nefarious collusion plot among the MLB front offices. There have even been indications this dam might be starting to burst. As reported by Grant Brisbee at SB Nation, the Chicago Cubs recently signed All-Star pitcher Yu Darvish to a six-year contract. This, combined with the fact that free agent Eric Hosmer signed with the San Diego Padres over the weekend, provides further evidence teams are now moving to pick up the 80-some odd free agents still on the market.
So, do not freak out too much, baseball fans. I think this bump in the road over free agents may be starting to smooth itself out.