Breaking down MLB's bizarre buyer's market and how to fix it

Spring training is five weeks away, and yet 15 of the top 20 free-agent position players are still unemployed.

While it's been a slow offseason - and, indeed, a long winter if you're an unsigned Scott Boras client like J.D. Martinez or Eric Hosmer - to suggest front offices have been inactive would be putting it lightly.

In lieu of nine-figure contracts getting dished out, bona-fide stars like Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, Evan Longoria, Marcell Ozuna, Gerrit Cole, and Dee Gordon have switched teams via trade.

There's one problem though: The return for stars has been alarmingly inconsequential. In fact, in exchange for the aforementioned stars, only one top-100 prospect has changed hands - Christian Arroyo.

This isn't necessarily a new development. When Martinez was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks midway through last season, the Detroit Tigers got an underwhelming package of middling prospects back. Granted, the Diamondbacks were acquiring Martinez as a rental for two-and-a-half months, but he was still posting a 1.018 OPS with the Tigers at the time of the trade.

And it's not like teams suddenly became averse to overpaying for rental players. The Yu Darvish trade got the Texas Rangers a top-100 prospect in Willie Calhoun.

Truth is, McCutchen is on an expiring contract that suppresses his value. But by trading him away during the winter as opposed to part-way through the season, the Pirates guaranteed that the Giants could offer their newly-acquired star a qualifying offer next offseason - ensuring at least draft-pick compensation if he signs elsewhere.

And that doesn't address the fact that the Pirates got an underwhelming package for Cole as well, a 27-year-old pitcher who is under team control for the next two seasons.

So, why are teams trading away their stars for nothing?

There's never going to be one simple reason, but let's examine the many factors that may affect the market.

First, there's the fact that so many free-agent options remain readily available. Instead of trading for McCutchen, the Giants could have, hypothetically, signed Lorenzo Cain or Jarrod Dyson or Jon Jay or any host of outfielders still stuck on the open market. An increase in supply will always diminish the perceived value of a product or service, and the same principle extends to recruiting baseball players.

There has been some consternation about whether collusion is the answer to the slow offseason. Even Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts faced questions about possible collusion being afoot. However, if a team like the Pirates or Rays were tipped off about competing clubs colluding to lower the value of free agents, they would be much less willing to part with their stars for less.

Of course, there's the obstacle of the new collective bargaining agreement as well, which penalizes team much more strictly for exceeding certain payroll thresholds. That seems to incentivise working out trades for players who are already under contract, but again, doesn't explain why teams looking to move their stars would settle for a lesser return.

Then, there's the possibility that certain teams may just not value the current crop of free agents. With next winter's group set to be much better, perhaps clubs just don't hold Martinez or Hosmer in high regard. After all, it likely wouldn't have been a smart investment for the Giants - who play in the National League - to sign Martinez to a multi-year deal, and have to deal with his defensive woes.

The Houston Astros may actually be to blame.

The defending World Series champions erased the collective memories of Astros fans everywhere who suffered through three consecutive 100-loss seasons from 2011-13. Not only did they show that tanking worked, they proved to MLB teams that, if it's done right, the fans will happily come back to the park.

Now, teams have an excuse to pack it in, declare futility, save money on payroll, and know that attendance revenue will return.

How do we fix it?

Again, there's no simple response. But if the supposed reason for trading away stars is to actively focus on tanking, MLB could benefit from finally allowing teams to trade draft picks.

Teams can technically include competitive-balance draft picks in trades, but that's done pretty rarely. Instead, we see clubs include international bonus-pool money, as we saw in the McCutchen and Gordon trades, but there's no guarantee that money ever actually gets used.

If multiple teams opt to tank at the same time, it could be truly terrible for the sport for many different reasons. Chiefly, it would kill parity. For a sport where even the worst teams usually win about 60 games, competitive balance is a feature of baseball that is already dissipating from the NBA and NFL.

Perhaps more worryingly though is the fact that it wouldn't work as well as it did with the Astros. We know that one team tanking at a time can work because Houston had the first overall pick in three consecutive drafts. But if two or more teams chase futility at the same time, it could mean an even longer streak of 100-loss seasons as the teams try to climb out of the basement.

At least if the Pirates got draft picks back for McCutchen, it would come with some promise of future success without the Giants giving up a prospect they feel attached to in their system. Baseball is the only North American sport that does not allow the trade of any draft pick, and adding that feature could help promote parity, and give clubs a better reason to part with their stars.