Baseball is officially back! Pitchers and catchers have reported to training camp this past week starting on February 13, and positional players started to report this Sunday the 17th. With that being said, this is an off-season unlike many others in the MLB for a couple reasons.
To start out Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are still unsigned along with various others. Why is this so interesting one might ask? Both of these players are among the top ranks at their position in the league and Machado even played in the World Series this past season. So why are managers not signing such elite players? To start both players are looking to become franchise players for an organization; meaning they would sign long term, pricey contracts. Managers aren’t saying that commitment is their number one concern, however, re-building is many teams main concern. Cy Young pitcher Justin Verlander of the Huston Astros spoke out on Twitter about this predicament.
“100 or so free agents left unsigned. System is broken. They blame
“rebuilding” but that’s BS. You’re telling me you couldn’t sign Bryce
or Manny for 10 years and go from there? Seems like a good place
to start a rebuild to me. 26-36 is a great performance window too.”
With all of this being said we will have to wait and see if a team gives in and goes for one of these players. Knowing this we’ll have to keep an eye on this situation and try to stay up to date with the season rapidly approaching.