SEATTLE _ Pitchers and catchers report in fewer than two weeks, which should be the most joyous declaration of the baseball offseason.
Yet this has been a troubled winter for the sport. I've rarely seen such a lack of positive momentum heading into spring training. Maybe that's because the Mariners joined the torrent of MLB ballclubs opting to step back from a spirited push toward contention.
It's more than that, though. Anecdotal evidence says this is an industry-wide issue. Baseball has receded even further in arrears of football in the American consciousness. While baseball's offseason once crackled with intrigue over signings and trades, it has been largely dormant.
For the second year in a row, someone forgot to turn on the hot stove. Unbelievably, more than 100 free agents remain on the market with spring training just days away. That includes the two biggest names, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, as well as prominent players such as Craig Kimbrel, Dallas Keuchel, Marwin Gonzalez, Adam Jones, Josh Harrison, Mike Moustakas, Evan Gattis, Carlos Gonzalez ...
I could go on. There is a growing call for some sort of deadline to spur free-agent signings, perhaps shortly after the winter meetings _ another showcase event that has devolved into a snoozefest.
The way it is now, teams can't even fully market their ballclubs to fans. They know their roster composition will change, in some cases dramatically, after the inevitable bargain-hunting scramble that looms in the near future as players become desperate to land somewhere, anywhere.
This would all be just an annoyance, largely forgotten once ball meets bat in Arizona and Florida and the magic of the game is revealed anew. But what's ominous, and should concern all fans, is the growing drumbeat of labor unrest that has spurred fears of the sport's first work stoppage since the crippling strike of 1994-95.
That's an unprecedented quarter-century of labor peace, a glorious feat considering the acrimony that existed for so long. And there is still plenty of time to find common ground before the basic agreement expires in 2021.
But the era of goodwill between the union and management that was forged in the aftermath of the 232-day strike is dissipating rapidly. Players and agents are girding for a protracted battle as the expiration of the five-year deal signed in 2016 approaches.
An interesting dynamic has emerged, one that astounds those of us who closely followed the eight MLB strikes or lockouts between 1972 and '95 (and covered a few of them).
In every one of those, the Major League Players Association outmaneuvered, outlasted and outright clobbered the owners, which led to unprecedented salary growth for the players.
But with the latest contract, there seems little doubt that the owners have managed to seize back power. While the players concentrated on "quality of life" issues, such as chefs in clubhouses and improvements in travel and scheduling, the owners hammered home subtle but vital gains in more tangible economic issues _ most notably, those regarding the luxury tax and amateur draft.
The result has been a drain on spending that last year led to, according to the Associated Press, the first decline in average salary since 2004 and the first decline in MLB payrolls since 2010 _ at a time when industry revenues soared above $10 billion. Teams are loath to hand out multiyear, free-agent contracts _ even the large-market clubs that used to drive the market but now endeavor to stay under the luxury tax, which works as a de facto salary cap.
Throw in the growing trend toward what is commonly regarded as "tanking" but in reality is an attempt to slow-build a more permanent contender through player development, and you get the stalled free-agent market that exists today.
Whenever players and agents throw out the dreaded "c" word _ collusion _ management comes right back and says it's not that at all. On the contrary, they say, it's an industry that has, through analytics, simply become smarter. They've discovered the folly of giving massive contracts to free agents at the precise point their skills inevitably decline.
Instead, the coin of the realm is youthful homegrown stars, who make a pittance compared with the proven veterans who once reaped the rewards of free agency but now, increasingly, have to sign short-term deals for far less than they anticipated.
The result is that baseball's middle class is getting squeezed out. And they don't like it one little bit. Whereas it was always the owners who bickered among themselves over labor issues, to their ultimate demise, now it is the players who are riled up and bitter.
It will be a major test of union chief Tony Clark to keep them unified in the coming negotiations. The solidarity of the players under legendary union founder Marvin Miller and the formidable Donald Fehr was their greatest strength. But Alex Rodriguez was the last active player to go through a work stoppage; he's been retired for three years. The current group doesn't have the shared history of recent triumphs to sustain it.
What the players likely will seek is a way for their big paydays to come earlier, so that the free-agent freeze in their later years isn't so crippling. That could mean an attempt by the union to raise the minimum wage and lower the amount of time necessary to become arbitration eligible and attain free agency.
But teams have found a way to make their six years of salary control work for them, in a big way, and won't give it up easily. So these next few years are bound to get testy and tense.
For now, you can revel in the fact that business issues finally will get pushed to the side in about 10 days. By then, we might even know who's on what team.
