I Don't Think It's the Mets

[Edgy MD]

Maybe I'm misreading the activity relative to previous years, but maybe the whole market is moving slow. Maybe a lot of teams are waiting their target players out, hoping for their price tags to fall. The Met have handed out the only nine-figure deal of the offseason, and hey, the American league home run champ is still floating out there.

In fact, Trumbo on the market may be a big part of why Jay Bruce is still on the Mets. Sometimes, the dominoes need to fall in order.

Maybe the teams are colluding. Maybe everybody thinks their up-and-coming players are a better bang for the buck than what's on the market.

[Frayed Knot]

Teams are definitely getting smarter (or at least think they are) about protecting their own up and coming players rather than chasing the non-elite type of FA.
The Orioles have all but publicly admitted that they'd rather have the draft pick that they'd get from someone else signing Trumbo than they would having Trumbo himself back again.

[Edgy MD]

The agreement structure which suppresses salaries until a guy gets six years ... not only suppresses salaries until a guy gets six years, but once they get there, unless they're particularly and consistently and demonstrably really good ... suppresses their salaries once they hit those six years by pitting them against younger players for jobs, players who may not get the job over them in a level playing field.

So dozens and dozens of viable vets are waiting past new years for job offers that may end up being minor league contracts, despite six decent years in the bigs.

[Vic Sage]

i also think that the new defensive metrics might be having some impact as well. As those improve, and as younger GMs start to actually take them into consideration, 1-dimensional sluggers with no glove (like our own Mr. Bruce) become less and less valuable, depending on the needs of any particular team. It looks like Seattle is certainly going the speed/defense route.

[batmagadanleadoff]

These newfangled defensive metrics [crossout:2akm90iq]might've[/crossout:2akm90iq] probably cost Daniel Murphy the MVP award.