It's now December 20 - let's go!

[drjim]

What a dumb offseason for baseball. It's almost Christmas and a grand total of 2 of the top 20 free agents have signed. What are they waiting for?

 

Baseball could really put a stake in ground for the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas and instead they putz around with this nonsense.

[nicksaviking]

I think Ohtani held things up a bit and Darvish looks like he's holding up the SP market. The top three relievers haven't signed but most of the other usable bullpen arms have.

 

There's not much in the way of good up the middle talent this year. Everyone's waiting on guys like Hosmer, Moustakas, Martinez and Frazier but we've see the last several years that teams these days are only luke warm on corner bats. I'd guess the top bats and agents are waiting to be presented big contracts like the prior top bats from years past but these guys are playing positions that holds much less interest than before. I think the offensive inactivity is largely due to there not being much to covet on the open market.

 

Pitching? Well I just hope that market is being held up by Darvish who is coming to Minnesota.

[Vanimal46]

Don't teach your kids to be a power hitter. Clearly teams forgot how to compensate those types of players. Instead, teach your kids how to throw the ball really hard for one inning.

[gunnarthor]

It's groupthink. Someone on mlbtv was pointing out that most of the big money teams think alike and they all believe if you make players wait longer, salaries go down.

[drjim]

 

It's groupthink. Someone on mlbtv was pointing out that most of the big money teams think alike and they all believe if you make players wait longer, salaries go down.

 

This will be one of the downsides of all front offices more or less looking the same. Baseball is going to be a lot less interesting outside of the actual games.

[laloesch]

It's probably a combination of both.  I heard that most of the pitchers won't start signing until Darvish signs then a flurry of activity will take place.  They are waiting for him to "set the market value" for starters.  Len was saying he may not sign for another 4 or 5 weeks. 

[ashbury]

This will be one of the downsides of all front offices more or less looking the same. Baseball is going to be a lot less interesting outside of the actual games.

Hot stove talk is fun but I'm not sure that general fan interest hinges on front offices having widely diverging business models.

[drjim]

 

Hot stove talk is fun but I'm not sure that general fan interest hinges on front offices having widely diverging business models.

 

But diverging business models does lead to action.

 

If it really waits until Darvish signs, and that doesn't happen until mid-January, that strikes me as a bad thing for the game. Everything is then a lot of nothing followed by a sprint until spring training.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

I think the Twins will move on from Darvish if he's not going to sign for another four weeks.

[Vanimal46]

It's probably a combination of both.  I heard that most of the pitchers won't start signing until Darvish signs then a flurry of activity will take place.  They are waiting for him to "set the market value" for starters.  Len was saying he may not sign for another 4 or 5 weeks.

 

Yeah it seems to be this way in every sport. Darvish is clearly setting the market before people like Cobb and Lynn sign a contract. Wouldn't be surprised if JD Martinez is the guy who'll set the market for Hosmer and the others.

[notoriousgod71]

I generally hate all offseasons because it seems like the same 4 or 5 teams improve themselves every season while the others sign retreads and trade away their stars. That isn't interesting to me.

[drjim]

Update: Offseason is still mostly dumb so far.

[ashbury]

Update: Offseason is still mostly dumb so far.

Someone from SABR probably could devise a metric to confirm that, if you haven't been wowed by the offseason by Dec 23, you probably won't be much more wowed on Dec 31.