Why the Prices Tend to Drop on Lingering Free Agents Late in MLB Offseason

A slow-moving market isn’t unfamiliar to baseball fans, who are just two years removed from an offseason that included a 90-plus-day lockout. Nor is it the first offseason where top free agents expecting deals north of $100 million each don’t know where their Spring Training will begin.

The last time that the hot stove burned as slowly as this one was the 2018-19 offseason, when four out of the top five free agents per MLB Trade Rumors were unsigned at the start of Spring Training. 

Bryce Harper and Manny Machado signed their $300-million deals a couple of weeks into the Phillies’ and Padres’ camps. Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel both remained unsigned until the 2019 season was a third complete. 

That may not be the case for the big four names still out on the market, Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Blake Snell, and Jordan Montgomery. But their markets have not moved much in the last month-plus.

While players of these four’s calibers are all still candidates to earn deals north of $100 million, it’s players who’ve been holding out for their biggest paydays at lower costs who will be getting hurt the most by the slow-moving market. The players in whom teams had the most proactive interest are gone, by now. So is much of the money teams budgeted to spend on their 2024 payrolls.

For example, Michael A. Taylor had a sturdy 2023 season with the Twins. He hit 21 home runs, stole 13 bases, and had a .720 OPS. Taylor has never had a season where he earned more than $4.5 million. His performance with the Twins this last season had experts projecting him to earn up to $10 million on a one-year deal, or to find a multi-year commitment somewhere. 

Taylor and Bellinger remain the only two everyday center fielders on the market. No matter what contracts they end up on, they’ll be vastly different. Bellinger still has some chance to get his massive payday of $200 million over eight or more seasons. Taylor, on the other hand, could still see his highest career earnings, but it may be just a dream to believe it’ll be eight digits.

Taylor is just one of 105 free agents remaining, per MLB Trade Rumors’s list. That’s a high number of men who don’t know where they’ll be starting their 2024 seasons in camp; some clearly will not end up receiving any deal at all. The level of anxiety this puts on players, especially those still wanting another year to salvage their careers, is considerable. This is why some guys we think of as obviously deserving of a big-league deal take a non-guaranteed minor-league one instead. 

Taylor has not shown any signs of wanting to retire if a deal cannot be made, but just last offseason, MLB vet Chad Pinder went unsigned and did retire. Pinder spent his entire seven-year career with the Oakland Athletics and spent his playing time between the outfield, second and third base.

His versatility wasn’t in high demand, and the best offers he could work up were minor-league deals. Pinder was only entering his age-31 season last year. He ended up signing a non-roster deal with the Cincinnati Reds to start Spring Training, but he was cut on March 24 ahead of Opening Day. He then took on short stints with the Nationals and Braves and retired shortly after the Braves cut him on May 28. 

While Pinder was not seeking the highest amount of money in the world, he was an established veteran who had arguably earned himself at least a one-year deal in the $3-$5 million range. It just didn’t materialize.

Taylor will not be the Pinder of this offseason, but players still offering their services to teams could end up in the same boat. Names such as Kolten Wong, Brandon Crawford, and Nick Ahmed fit this sort of bill with their current markets and teams’ need for their positional depth.

Market dynamics ensure that overpays happen early in the winter, and underpays happen late. Players have just one career in which to maximize their earnings and their legacy, and the closer spring training draws, the more pressure teams are able to apply to them on that basis. Players and their families also have to wrestle with the stress of uncertainty about where they will go for spring training and where they'll live when the season begins.

Those are key reasons why we've seen the trend toward later signings, in general. Teams are making more rational decisions, and front offices like the Twins' feel that they can only justify getting involved in free agency once time takes the yeast out of market rates. We'll see how this particular version wraps up, but while the remaining Boras stars are still in line for big money, the deflation that hits free agency as January drags along and February dawns remains a real and unavoidable phenomenon.