Five years ago this weekend, when the Orioles and their star free-agent slugger Chris Davis were finalizing the fateful seven-year, $161 million that the beleaguered veteran referred to recently as a “big lump that they’re kind of stuck with,” it was striking that he and so many other top free agents were still on the market in mid-January.
That year, several of the best bats on the market — including Justin Upton, Yoenis Céspedes and Ian Desmond — were all made to wait in what’s become a commonplace practice now in free agency. Some of the resulting deals worked out better than others.