Free agency has been a very difficult slog for a lot of Major League Baseball players, and Brad Brach was one of them.
Brach, a reliever with a 3.08 career ERA, didn’t sign on with the Chicago Cubs until February 11. On Friday, he peeled back the curtain on his free agency experience, and it said a lot about why some guys took so long to be signed — and others still aren’t signed at all.
Brad Brach on his free-agency experience: "We talked to certain teams and they told us that, 'We have an algorithm and here's where you fall.' … It's just kind of weird that all offers are the same, they come around the same time. Everybody tells you there's an algorithm."
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) February 15, 2019
It’s great fodder for those who believe that there’s some sort of ownership-level collusion going on in baseball. While it doesn’t seem that Brach is accusing anyone of anything untoward, it’s pretty clear that front offices have changed their thinking on spending in recent years, for whatever reason. One player thinks that thinking is going to have major consequences sooner rather than later.
