One of the major subplots of the offseason has been the slow market for Edwin Encarnacion and the many other first baseman and DH types available. The glut of similar players means teams can wait out agents until demands are lowered, so Encarnacion, Mark Trumbo, Mike Napoli and Chris Carter are still unsigned, even though they collectively averaged 41 home runs and 108 RBIs.
It didn't help those players -- or the second-tier guys such as Pedro Alvarez, Mark Reynolds, Adam Lind and Logan Morrison -- that the Rockies signed Ian Desmond on Wednesday.