Cleveland Indians: When will the free agent market move?

The Cleveland Indians have lost most of their free agents. What has really been the big question all winter long, when will the free agent market pick up the steam and interest that we’ve been expecting all year?

At first, things were thought of as a little bit slow, but that was explained by the trade interest in Giancarlo Stanton and the interest in Shohei Ohtani. Everyone figured, once those two found new homes, the market would get back to normal.

Stanton was traded to New York and Ohtani signed with the Angels, both just in time for the Winter Meetings to start. The meetings are where most of the offseason activity tends to happen, but nothing really big went down. A bunch of free agent relievers signed with new teams, but no trades, no blockbuster deals were struck.

Here, everyone was starting to get concerned, December passed by and nothing really happened. Practically all of the big names were still available in free agency. The trades that were few and far between did not generate any follow up moves.

We head into January, still nothing. Rumors are leaking out that the players are upset that they aren’t getting offered deals according to their perceived value. Pace of play talks also anger the players.

Then last Thursday happened. The Milwaukee Brewers of all teams struck a deal for Christian Yelich, the biggest fish (pun intended) on the trade market. And then, barely an hour later, they sign Lorenzo Cain to a five year deal. The Cleveland Indians were heavily in the market for Cain.

Everyone thought that these two deals would be what would spark the market. With a big trade and free agent signing out of the way, this could pave the way for deals for other players around the league.

But since then, crickets. A few relievers have signed small deals here and there, but no big free agents have signed, no more big trades have happened.

When will this stalemate come to an end?

Hopefully soon. Spring Training starts in a few weeks and most teams are going to want to finalize their rosters going into that. Players will want to sign deals and finalize their plans for the season. The players may be pressured into signing what they view as “below-market value” contracts.

However, signing below market deals may set a bad precedent for other free agents and will lessen the earning potential of those players. So they’re in a bit of a dilemma.

The players aren’t stupid. They’re going to sign deals eventually. They have offers on the table. Players obviously have their sights set higher but it’s clear that teams are unwilling to meet that price.

Normally at this point in the offseason, any remaining free agents will have decreased their asking price in order to get a deal. But with most of the options still available, they have no reason to drop their price because all of the roster holes are still there.

The Cleveland Indians have to be monitoring this market for the prices to fall. Letting Jay Bruce and Carlos Santana go in free agency shows that the payroll is stretched pretty thin. If prices for players fall far enough, it could make sense for a deal. They did the same thing last winter with Edwin Encarnacion. He signed for less money and less years than what was expected.

This stalemate will reach an end at some point. Experts are predicting the week before pitchers and catchers report to be a feeding frenzy. But then again, we’ve thought every week was the week where deals went down. And every week so far, we’ve been wrong.

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With Spring Training just around the corner, this is something teams and players will need to work on very quickly. Draft pick compensation is not as bad as it used to be, and everyone’s running out of excuses.