https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ba ... urned-off/Baseball’s Hot Stove Has Gone From Cold To Basically Turned Off
By Travis Sawchik
Filed under MLB
LAS VEGAS — The Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino was, in some ways, the most appropriate host for baseball’s winter meetings: After all, this offseason was once expected to be punctuated by announcements of record-setting, high-dollar free-agency deals. Bryce Harper, a premier free agent, is a Las Vegas native. But away from the din of the casino floor, a podium set up for press conferences in a vast ballroom was largely quiet last week. After last winter marked the slowest signing period in at least the previous 18 years, this offseason is starting even more slowly, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis of free-agent data.
Teams already seemed less interested in giving time on the field to players over the age of 30 — the time frame in which many players first become eligible for free agency. But now, early in the offseason, teams also seem increasingly less willing to spend on any free agent.
Consider that through Monday, 50 days after the World Series concluded, only 5.2 percent of available free-agent players1 had signed major league deals for guaranteed money, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis of data from The Baseball Cube. Fifty days after the end of the 2017 World Series, 5.5 percent of available free agents had signed. Two years ago that number was 9.2 percent. In the three offseasons prior to that winter — 2015-16, 2014-15 and 2013-14 — it was 9.2, 7.8 and 10.9 percent respectively.
The Cold Stove
- CardsofSTL
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The Cold Stove
- mikechamp
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Re: The Cold Stove
Maybe some patience is all that was needed?
Today's signings include Cahill, Kinsler, Anibal Sanchez and Daniel Murphy.
Today's signings include Cahill, Kinsler, Anibal Sanchez and Daniel Murphy.