Every MLB offseason evolves at its own pace, and this winter, that tempo is slow. It's not just slow for a specific subset of free agents. It's slow for the nine-figure guys, slow for outfield bats, slow for relief pitchers. It's slow enough that spring training starts in less than six weeks and well over 100 players remain jobless.
While it's easy to blame the free agencies of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for gumming up the proceedings, only a handful of teams were ever realistically in the bidding for either. So while the pair's measured approaches did the market no favors, there's a far simpler explanation: teams and players are digging in, both sides waiting to see which blinks first.