It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize to be able to deduce that the MLB offseason has the slowest and most brutal pace in all of professional sports.
The NBA and NHL have their drafts take place in late June after the conclusion of the postseason, and free agency begins on July 1st. It takes under a week for many of the key free agents to ink new deals. The rest of the offseason consists of trade chatter, but rosters being relatively set by the start of August allows for discourse to carry the way.
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In the NFL, free agency predates the draft in March, but most players are signed by the draft in late April. Once again, rosters are set relatively early around May, allowing for trade chatter and offseason discourse to dominate.
In Major League Baseball? Not only is the draft relatively meaningless in terms of immediate impact and held in July, but there’s an extremely frustrating snail-like pace to every single offseason regarding free agency and trades. Do things usually pick up in December, and most teams have done something notable by the New Year? Sure, but there are offseasons where game-changing talent spends months on the market.
Who could forget the 2018-19 offseason, where Bryce Harper and Manny Machado practically begged to be Yankees before signing elsewhere, but not until the start of spring training? Or what about the Scott Boras quartet of All-Star level free agents that did the same in the 2023-24 offseason?
So far this year, we seem to be heading towards an offseason where so much premium talent is unsigned when the calendar flips to 2026. As of Christmas Eve, Cody Bellinger and Kyle Tucker are unsigned, as are Alex Bregman, Eugenio Suárez, and Bo Bichette. Japanese imports Tatsuya Imai and Kazuma Okamoto are too. Framber Valdez, Zac Gallen (Bob Nightengale notwithstanding), and Ranger Suárez are all still looking for a home as well. Some of those players have hardly any rumors about them.
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Why does this happen? In my mind, I think it has something to do with the way contracts work in MLB. There’s a maximum contract limit in the NBA, and the NFL doesn’t allow deals above five years. As many fans are well aware, MLB free agents can essentially bargain for infinite contracts for over a decade with countless tricks such as deferrals (of which the Dodgers have ten-figures of) to minimize the luxury tax hit.
That’s another thing. MLB doesn’t have a salary cap or a salary floor, when every other league does. Most years, you see the same 5-10 teams competing for the big money free agents, while the bottom half of the league refuses to give a player more than $30 million in guaranteed money — unless they’re facing a possible grievance. It’s an even playing ground in every other league.
But I’m not here to ramble about the uniqueness of the MLB financial system; that’s for another day (especially while staring down the barrel of a lockout next year). As the offseason goes on and more news slowly trickles, there’s been one trend that’s been concerning: the Yankees are relatively quiet.
Sure, they’ve retained guys like Trent Grisham, Ryan Yarbrough, Amed Rosario, and Paul Blackburn, but the team’s only external additions have been Rule 5 draftee Cade Winquest and a few minor league signings. It’s an odd approach after the team’s brutal defeat to the Blue Jays in the ALDS, especially when the Jays have already signed Dylan Cease and—at least from the outside—appear to be frontrunners for Tucker.
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Yet, despite some discouraging reporting from people in the know, it doesn’t feel like the Yankees are lagging behind the market, but rather playing the market.
The only market the Yankees were actively involved in entering this offseason that has seriously progressed is the reliever market … but they also never seemed very likely to give an eight-figure contract to a high-leverage relief arm after having success with low-cost, reclamation projects in the past. (And getting burned by such deals for the likes of Aroldis Chapman and Zack Britton in still-recent memory.)
The other two markets they’re involved in-the outfielder and starting pitching market—remain relatively stable. Bellinger and Tucker are still unsigned, and it seems like they’ll remain on the market for a while due to a lack of serious bidding. Backup and platoon options like Harrison Bader, Austin Hays, and Miguel Andujar are still out there. Trade options also remain with Byron Buxton and Luis Robert Jr.
While there has been more movement among starting pitchers, seeing as Cease and Michael King have signed, there’s still plenty of options. While the Yankees don’t seem overly linked to any of the big free agent arms, they’ve been rumored to be involved in trade discussions with the Brewers and Nationals for Freddy Peralta and MacKenzie Gore, with others being rumored as available around the league.
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And that’s where we circle back around. Is it the fault of teams like the Yankees being patient or the market itself for why free agency in MLB feels like such a drag? It might be both. Scott Boras is notorious for trying to rake teams over the coals for his clients, which is often why his non-slam dunk clients linger for months. Yet, the lack of teams being willing to spend money depresses the market and limits bidding wars. You know how stunning it was for the Pirates to even sign Ryan O’Hearn to a $29 million deal?
All in all, there’s reason to not get too antsy about the lack of action from the Yankees as long as there’s still favorable cards waiting to be drawn. When those cards start going and the Yanks remain passive? That’s when you should really start to wonder about the intentions of Hal Steinbrenner and management with payroll.