Speaking to some assembled media around the start of spring training in Florida last week, Rob Manfred made a bunch of news across his varied comments. Perhaps most unexpected among them was that he will not be seeking another term as commissioner—fear not, Manfred Heads (Manfrheads?), his term doesn’t expire for another five years. But nestled amongst the various quips and quotes was a response to a question posed about free agents loitering on the market, relayed by the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier:
A free agent deadline has been a popular topic of conversation ever since the league’s owners and front offices managed to let two 26-year-old potential Hall of Famers linger around into February back in the 2018-19 (which itself was coming off a frigid free agent market in 2017-18). The reasons why it’s popular are obvious: It’s not great for the league or the particular players involved that they haven’t found new teams to play for as spring training kicks into gear. It’s not a huge deal, of course, but the lack of resolution certainly bothers fans, and I’d wager the players themselves would prefer to be settled; likely their future teams would prefer to have them in camp from Day 1, too.
Given that it’s in everyone’s best interest to get these deals done by now…why aren’t they? For starters (and I don’t just mean Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery), the ability to wait (and wait and wait) teams out could cause desperation, leading to increased offers or new entrants in a bidding war. In other words, it’s leverage. Just look at the Orioles, who are already looking at delayed starts, at a minimum, from two members of their starting rotation. Their fifth starter is now their third starter. If that happened to a team willing to spend money, well…we might have seen some movement.
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