MLB wants to speed up free agency. Here's why it would work

Major League Baseball may have too much offseason.

Too much time between meaningful bursts of activity. Too much waiting for consequential transactions to happen.

The Hot Stove too often moves at a glacial pace. Free-agent signings and trades can trickle across four months, producing occasional bursts of excitement before MLB again disappears into the background of the sports landscape. The biggest news often comes in just a handful of markets, while most teams -- and much of the country -- waits, or worse, tunes out.

MLB's latest labor proposal would change that.

It includes a plan to concentrate free-agent signings into a pair of defined windows, turning the Winter Meetings into a starting gun for an offseason transaction frenzy before pausing for several weeks and then firing up baseball business again in February.

The first free-agent signing window would open with the Winter Meetings, typically beginning the first Monday in December, and run through 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 21. It could make the annual convention something of a showcase event again. Teams could negotiate, re-sign their own players, and make trades before then, but free agents changing teams could not officially sign until the Winter Meetings begin.

The initial two- to three-week signing period would be followed by a transaction freeze until the first Monday in February, when free-agent signings and trades would resume, creating another burst of activity. It would happen just after the NFL season concludes and just before equipment trucks ready to depart for spring camps.

The proposal is contingent on a cap-and-floor system. Without that, MLB says the windows are not practical.

While the vision for the offseason signing periods might sound too artificial to some, a concentration of transactions is exactly what baseball's Hot Stove needs.

The proposal would cut dead time out of the Hot Stove calendar and increase the frequency of meaningful action, not unlike the way the pitch clock removed dead time and increased the frequency of action on the field.

The 2021-22 offseason provides a real-world demonstration of what happens when baseball's transaction calendar suddenly becomes concentrated: Activity surges, and attention follows.

Google Trends offers one way to measure offseason interest.

Since 2016, Google searches for "MLB free agency" peaked in March of 2022. What happened then? Baseball's current CBA was agreed to on March 10 of that year, and what followed was a flurry of signings compressed into a tight calendar.

Thirty deals totalling more than $1.2 billion were signed in the first 10 days after labor peace was reached that spring. That's a pace rarely seen in baseball.

There was also an avalanche of activity -- and search interest -- before the CBA expired on Dec. 1, as teams and players were incentivized to complete deals before the uncertainty of a lockout began.

That November, teams awarded $1.9 billion to free agents, a record for the month. In fact, November had never previously produced $1 billion in free-agent spending -- and hasn't since.

By Dec. 1, when the lockout began, 54 free agents had signed with clubs, more than doubling the first 30-day signing window of any year of the past decade. The next-greatest volume was 24 signings through the first 30 days of the offseason in 2022-23.

Baseball didn't suddenly become more interesting because the players were better that winter. Something unusual happened to the calendar: Transactions that normally trickle out over months were suddenly compressed into days.

Over the last decade, two of the top five months for interest in MLB free agency happened that offseason -- Nov. 2021 (No. 5), March 2022 (No. 1) -- per Google search queries.

The 2021-22 offseason was not identical to what MLB is proposing. A lockout creates a different kind of urgency than a negotiated transaction window. But some of the mechanics are similar: Compress the market, and the transaction calendar suddenly becomes an event.

Consider other major sports.

During the 2025 period of NFL free agency, ESPN in-studio shows produced 2 million viewers across the first two days of free agency, the company reported.

NBA free agency also generates wall-to-wall media and social media conversation.

Signing days are something of a national holiday in the world of college football.

Of course, predictability alone does not create interest. The product still must be compelling. And baseball cannot manufacture NFL free agency's enormous cultural footprint simply by adjusting the calendar.

But what those other sports share is predictability. It is an infrastructure advantage.

Their biggest offseason events have dates attached to them. Media outlets can plan coverage. Fans know when to pay attention. Leagues, teams and players can build anticipation around moments when something is actually going to happen. That can be replicated.

MLB's Hot Stove doesn't lack news. It lacks structure.

Free-agent movement can happen at any point from November through March, with long stretches of inactivity interrupted by sudden bursts of news.

A defined signing window would give baseball something it currently lacks in the winter: a recurring, reliable reason to pay attention.

Despite the obvious differences, the 2021-22 offseason also offers an answer to the MLBPA's concern that compressed signing windows reduce player leverage. Even with a 99-day lockout disrupting that offseason, which created two de facto truncated signing periods, players and owners agreed to a then-record of offseason spending.

The signing windows would address one problem with baseball's offseason: its lack of urgency.

The cap-and-floor system would address another: its lack of breadth.

Consider that the Mets, Yankees and Dodgers combined for $3.556 billion in free-agent spending over the 2023-25 offseasons.

The other 27 teams combined for $3.275 billion.

A cap-and-floor system could create a healthier middle of the player market. More teams spending, in tighter windows, could not just increase offseason interest but spread it across more markets.

Ultimately, this should be about making baseball more interesting to more people.

Growth -- a larger pie -- is good for all parties involved.

Consider that since 2015, MLB's compound annual revenue growth rate trails the other major North American sports: NBA 10.7%, NFL 7.5%, NHL 6.8%, and MLB 2.7%.

That's not to say the offseason structure explains all of that lag. It does suggest there is an opportunity to search for growth in how MLB conducts its Hot Stove business -- and how it can better capture and sustain attention.

In recent years, MLB tried -- and largely succeeded -- in making its games more popular and engaging by removing dead time. The latest labor proposal applies a similar idea to the offseason: less waiting, more action and clearer moments for fans to pay attention.

What worked on the field can work off it, too.

More headlines, in more markets, arriving at predictable moments would mean less dead time -- and, ultimately, a more compelling national product.