So much of the meta-theater of professional sports occurs around the trade market and free agency that I find it hard to even imagine the time when neither of these concepts existed as we know them. Sports news outlets have entire calendar days devoted to these events and they expand these discussions into the everyday turning of the rumour mill and endless speculation.
As a fan, however, and as someone becoming progressively more invested in prospects and draft capital, I keep questioning the value of the big free agent signing and those swing-for-the-fences types of trades. In recent years, the discussion in sabermetric circles focused on years of control and the commodity value of pre-arbitration and arbitration years in relation to in-game projected player value.