If NFL, NBA and NHL free agencies are a mad dash, MLB’s is a gentle stroll, its moments of hyperactivity inadvertent and unpredictable.
Cody Bellinger, the best position player not named Shohei Ohtani in this year’s free agent class, was (re)introduced by the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday, two days before the start of March. Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery and Matt Chapman — the Nos. 3, 6 and 8 free agents on ESPN’s list, respectively, at the start of the offseason — have yet to sign and don’t seem particularly close to doing so.
And while it’s easy to pin the blame on Scott Boras, who represents all four of those players and has become infamous for his willingness to stall, the reality is that baseball’s limitless offseasons tend to encourage dawdling. And this latest example has seemingly rekindled Major League Baseball’s long-held desire for some sort of signing deadline, an endeavor that so far has been fruitless.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred reminded reporters this month that the league previously proposed a December signing deadline that was “not warmly received” by the MLB Players Association, which has consistently fought against artificial restraints to a free market system.
“We’d rather have two weeks of flurried activity in December, preferably around the winter meetings where you’re all there to write about it and we all get excited about the upcoming year,” Manfred told the assembled media in Tampa, Florida, on Feb. 15. “That will be a project in the next go-around.”
Manfred’s latter point was in reference to labor talks around a collective bargaining agreement, which expires after the 2026 season.
If recent history is any indication, the topic will continue to go nowhere.
