Every MLB offseason evolves at its own pace, and this winter, that tempo is slow. It's not just slow for a specific subset of free agents. It's slow for the nine-figure guys, slow for outfield bats, slow for relief pitchers. It's slow enough that spring training starts in less than six weeks, and well over 100 players remain jobless.
While it's easy to blame the free agencies of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for gumming up the proceedings, only a handful of teams were ever realistically in the bidding for either. So while the pair's measured approaches did the market no favors, there's a far simpler explanation: Teams and players are digging in, both sides waiting to see which blinks first.
The truth is, this is normal-ish. Not every winter is like 2022-23, when 36 of the 37 players who received guarantees of $20 million or more were signed before New Year's Day -- the lone exception, Carlos Correa, who'd agreed to two deals before Jan. 1 that were nullified during the medical review. In 2021, J.T. Realmuto and DJ LeMahieu signed in late January and Trevor Bauer in February. Josh Donaldson was a mid-January deal in 2020, a year after the two best players in the class, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, stretched into February.
But executives, agents and others watching free agency unfold agree: It's rare that this many productive players are available after the calendar turns. We're into January and the reigning National League Cy Young winner, a World Series star and a 28-year-old former MVP center fielder are all unsigned. This offseason's biggest free agent splurges have also been dominated by a single team while many others have sat back. To wit:
The Los Angeles Dodgers' free agent outlay this winter: $1.043 billion.
The free agent outlay of the next 19 highest-spending teams this winter: $1.040 billion.
Then there are the four teams that haven't spent a dollar in free agency this offseason, and it's quite the mixture: the New York Yankees (who have been quite active on the trade front), Chicago Cubs, Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies.
Excuses abound for the slow pace of free agency -- the instability of local television contracts is teams' pretext du jour -- but everyone recognizes that almost every team ultimately wants to improve, and the simplest way to do so is by signing players better than the ones currently on rosters.
So the market will move, though perhaps not with the urgency this time of year would typically suggest. Over the next 10 days, teams and agents will spend a significant amount of their bandwidth posturing in advance of the Jan. 12 arbitration-exchange date. There will be signings between now and then, yes, but the free agent deluge should arrive between Jan. 12 and the first arbitration hearing Jan. 29.
Whether it's this week or late January or even approaching spring training, we have plenty more intrigue to come and deals we'll debate. Here, after conversations with more than 25 agents, executives and other league sources, is where the hot stove season stands.