When it comes to free agency, the most useful tool most players possess against clubs calculating how to crush their value is the ability to wait things out for the entire winter. In fact, Scott Boras
has made this his signature move over the last decade and a half, stretching things into spring training and, in some cases, even the regular season. (Remember the Stephen Drew saga?)
But not every player has this luxury, and there are two in particular we should keep a close eye on over the next couple of weeks: Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto. Both have been posted by their Japanese clubs, and both have official negotiating windows with MLB teams that will close soon. For Murakami, it’s 5:00pm on Monday, December 22nd, and for Okamoto, it’s 5:00pm on Sunday, January 4th. By those deadlines, each player will either have to sign with an MLB franchise, or end up back with their original clubs in Japan.
For the Red Sox, this matters on multiple fronts. First and foremost, they might end up signing one of these guys. But in addition to that, each has played a majority of their games in Japan at third base. For Murakami, that’s 763 out of 1,003 games, and for Okamoto, it’s 835 out of 1,377 games. However, both of them will probably end up spending less time at third base than they did on the other side of the Pacific, and that’s on top of the fact that (as discussed) if they don’t reach a deal with an MLB team, they won’t be coming stateside at all.
So the bottom line is this: These two players create dramatic uncertainty in the third base market! Three weeks from now, they could either fill two third base holes on MLB rosters, end up back in Japan, or sign with clubs intending to use them at multiple positions that may or may not include third base. The only thing we know for sure is there are deadlines coming.
All of that brings us to Alex Bregman and the Red Sox, who remain in an awkward stalemate because nobody actually knows the true balance of supply and demand for third basemen on this particular free agent market. Both sides probably want each other in the end, but both sides also absolutely love to operate with leverage and believe they have it. For Bregman and Scott Boras, they can wait the entire winter to see if somebody gets desperate and hands them a big bag of money. For Craig Breslow and the Red Sox, they can shop at multiple locations and play options off of one another. As long as this remains the case, both camps will likely keep playing footsie with each other.
But soon, Murakami and Okamoto will have to act, and like the river card coming out in a hand of poker, it will change the negotiating power of everybody at the table. If both bats go back to Japan or sign with MLB teams looking to use them predominately at first base or DH, Bregman’s position is bolstered. If they sign with clubs who want to use them mostly at third base, Bregman’s position collapses. And if the Red Sox sign one of these guys, then we should get REALLY comfortable in waiting for Bregman to find a destination, which could even still be Boston in that long, drawn out timeline of messy roster construction.
But we’re not done, because things only get more complicated from there when you consider how both Marcelo Mayer and Nolan Arenado influence the situation. Mayer doesn’t have a position settled, but of course could play third base. However, as noted over the weekend, his name is coming up in trade negotiations. Again, uncertainly.
With Arenado, things are a bit more set in stone as we know he’ll play third base and that his contract value is underwater, but given his position on a rebuilding roster he serves as an insurance/fallback option for any team that gets to the end of the winter and still needs help at the hot corner. And given how often Craig Breslow and Chaim Bloom exchange phone calls, you have to imagine his name has come up in the event the Red Sox miss out on Murakami, Okamoto, and Bregman.
This dynamic also complicates other trade negotiations. As long as the Red Sox don’t know where the free agents land, they don’t know exactly how tightly they need to hold onto Mayer. And one of those trade destinations might literally be St. Louis with the Red Sox now eyeing Willson Contreras.
This is all to say that the first step in untying this huge knot might just be Murakami and Okamoto. There are so many layered levels of leverage in this ball of wax that nobody wants give it up, and it’s very possible that most minds in both the free agent and trade markets want to force Murakami and Okamoto to put their cards on the table before making other moves.
In other words, get comfortable. We might be here for a while.
