Something just doesn't seem right, all these free agents got low-balled this Winter, I can't recall any offseason being this bad for players since the post 94 strike era.
What didn’t seem right may have been the growing expectation with this particular agency that not only would people pay the top of the market or beyond for the free agents, but then an additional expectation that the teams would have to accept player-only opt outs to the point of eating the later years if the person‘s production had tailed off, or having to renegotiate or let the person walk if they were still looking good. Also, the ones that would be inclined to bid this high already may be dealing with luxury tax issues, otherwise one would’ve thought the Yankees would’ve done a similar deal to what Arizona did.
It seemed to go beyond an area of fungibility to “this is our new model, win-win for us, what you gonna do about it?” I don’t know that it could be chalked up to pure collusive activity for the clients of this agency in particular to be shopping these sorts of deals, but not get people chomping at the bit for it. The diluted playoff system where the most balanced team during the year can have a blip over a week in October and be done also figures to potentially play into this increasingly.
