David Lennon: As MLB free agency begins, there's a whole lot of uncertainty
Free agent pitcher Tarik Skubal looks on from the dugout before the Dodgers' game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Aug. 21, 2026 in Los Angeles. Credit: Getty Images/Harry How
It’s become accepted that a lockout is virtually guaranteed in MLB when the current collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m.
What will happen in the weeks leading up to that red-letter date, as well as the fallout during the long months of the sport’s nuclear winter, is anyone’s guess at this point.
While negotiations already have been underway for most of this year, the impasse over a salary cap remains as formidable as ever. This time, however, the two sides — and particularly the owners — seem more willing to sacrifice games in order to gain their long-term objectives.
In the short term, however, the presumption is that the business of signing free agents will resemble the 2021 pre-lockout frenzy — albeit with fewer blockbuster deals, given a somewhat less star-studded 2026 class — when that window opens Monday at 5 p.m.
Five years ago, in the hours leading up to the CBA’s expiration, teams spent more than $1.4 billion on 27 new contracts on Dec. 1 and more than $2 billion during what amounted to a three-week signing period.
The Rangers alone doled out $500 million for Corey Seager (10 years/$325M) and Marcus Semien (seven years/$175M) — two players who became cornerstones of their 2023 World Series title (Seager was named Series MVP).
The Tigers handed a six-year, $140 million contract to Javy Baez. The Mets gave a three-year, $130 million contract to Max Scherzer, who finished out that final season with Texas.
At that time, the agents and teams realized the doomsday clock was ticking, but the circumstances didn’t feel quite as dire as they do now. And if the owners are preparing for a drawn-out battle with unknown financial ramifications, will they be as willing to award big paydays in this overheated environment — especially to the side they're fighting?
“There’s going to be teams that are not going to do anything because they want to see what happens and they’ll sit tight,” one baseball executive said. “But there’s some other clubs that will try to take advantage of the situation and pick off some players now. In the overall scheme of things, signing 10 or 15 free agents before the lockout really doesn’t change the dynamics much.”
Both sides came away pleased with how that condensed free-agent process played out despite the uncertainty waiting in the new year. The indefinite length of baseball’s free-agency period, which is different from the other three major pro sports, has long been considered a detriment to generating offseason buzz. But the union has stood by the traditional system, citing the need for a true open market rather than being hemmed in by deadlines, a window that can give agents more leverage.
In a typical offseason, the closest thing MLB has is the winter meetings, a four-day-long industry-wide convention during the second week of December when jamming everyone into the same hotel space can spark an intense flurry of activity. With the lockout expected, however, the sport’s annual marketplace is all but canceled at this point, so now another baseball crisis will end up serving a similar purpose.
Against that backdrop, there is a curiosity of what this DefCon 1 labor environment will mean for the free-agency price points, with back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal headlining that list. Skubal is a client of Scott Boras, who has shown an affinity for playing the long game to drum up more dollars. Boras, however, also is the agent who engineered the 2021 deals for Seager and Semien, so he’s quite effective negotiating with a lockout looming as well.
Beyond Skubal, it’s not a particularly strong free-agent winter. The next tier would include front-line starters Michael King and Freddy Peralta — who dramatically rebuilt his plummeting value by shining down the stretch for the American League champion Rays — followed by the likes of Seiya Suzuki, Randy Arozarena and Jazz Chisholm Jr. Maybe the most coveted hitter could be Japanese star Teruaki Sato, who already has been posted by the Hanshin Tigers.
It’s difficult to say which side stands to gain from this pressurized, lockout-driven signing period.
Last time around, the work stoppage extended for 99 days, and even though the season opener was delayed until April 7, none of the 162-game schedule was missed.
With this labor battle anticipated to drag on longer, this year’s free agents don’t want to be riding out that turbulence as they wait for their next job — especially if there are new payroll restrictions in place when the sport does resume.
As for the teams, hurrying to sign free agents during this next month could ensure that those new contracts are exempt from any penalties or caps upon the completion of the new CBA, perhaps making that another bargaining chip in these negotiations.
Everything seems to be on the table at this point, but from the owners’ perspective, some kind of salary cap is the driving force behind all of their moves going forward.
“Number one, we have an unprecedented level of unanimity among ownership that this is something that we need to do, that we need to get ourselves in a position to operate like all the other major professional sports in North America,” commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters before Game 1 of the World Series. “Secondly, and even more importantly to me, our fan polling, and we do it regularly, has moved hard in the direction of the fact that we have a problem and that our fans see a salary cap as the answer to that problem.”
In the meantime, will history repeat itself in terms of the free-agent frenzy from 2021?
We’ll find out soon enough.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
