On this, the 97th day of free agency, four days before the first pitchers and catchers report to spring training, less than six weeks ahead of Major League Baseball opening its regular season, the two best free agents in more than a decade remain unemployed. This is not a black eye for baseball. It is a ruptured spleen, a punctured lung and a lacerated kidney.
What a failure, this offseason. No matter how much Bryce Harper and Manny Machado ultimately sign for, no matter where they end up, this is now more than three months of posturing and feinting, star-shooting and lowballing.