MLB owner: The long-term free-agency deal is dead

It’s starting to look more and more like those big deals Manny Machado and Bryce Harper want just might not be out there. At least one MLB owner says that’s the way the league is going.

Speaking Friday at a team event, Astros owner Jim Crane told reporters the numbers don’t support the kind of lengthy deals superstars are looking for.

“I think that teams are very focused on value, and some of the deals that have been thrown out with Harper and Machado I think are long-term deals,” Crane said. “I don’t think that you’ll see too many more 10-year deals in this business anymore because the analytics are so good and a lot of those deals never work.”

When the offseason began, speculation was rampant Machado and Harper would both be in line for potentially record-setting $300 million deals. But as the league saw last season, free-agency is no longer the financial jackpot for players it once was.

Crane said he sees this offseason working out much the same way.

“I think it’s a little bottled up with the two big guys still out there, but things will break loose,” Crane said. “I think it’s very similar to last year.”

The free agency market has collapsed in recent years with marquee players failing to earn the kind of contracts – in money or years – they would have garnered in the past.

As Crane identified, teams have been reticent to give lengthy deals to even the best players in their primes, fearing the statistical drop-offs that often come with age.

But if players like Machado and Harper – arguably two of the best in the game today – can’t find a home before spring training, the league and the players union may find themselves at a serious impasse.

Crane, who also left the door open for big-name Astros free agents Dallas Keuchel and Marwin Gonzalez to return to the team, said the market should work itself out.

“I wish [Harper and Machado] the best,” he said. “You’ll see things get sorted out here in the next few weeks.”

Sorted out, maybe, but to whose benefit is yet to be seen.

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