The players union is at odds with MLB ownership over the free agent stalemate. According to super agent Scott Boras, the market is six weeks behind schedule. This is unprecedented for baseball, which typically has many exciting offseason wheelings and dealings. With this stalemate in mind, let’s look into what exactly has been going on.

Teams have had enough

Albert Pujols has become the poster boy for bad contracts (Photo by SI.com)

Baseball is in a real precarious situation. For the past decade, ownership has been giving out contracts of 7-10 years to premier players with copious amounts of money.

Most notably, Albert Pujols received a 10-year, $254 million contract from the Angels in 2011. That contract has not worked out for the Angels whatsoever and is going down as one of the worst in recent memory. The contract is even starting to take away from Pujols’ legacy, which will be one of the greatest of the last century.

But I digress, as there are plenty of other players such as Josh Hamilton, Prince Fielder and Joe Mauer, who got massive contracts and didn’t play up to them. Since baseball has a rule for teams controlling players for the first six years of their career, it becomes a situation where they are paying them for what they did in the past.

A remedy for the situation would be to allow the players to have the opportunity to reach free agency earlier in their career. However, things like that would have to be negotiated over a long period of time. This is where the threat of a lockout may come into play.

The players want their fair share

Martinez reports that talks with the Red Sox are going well, but no deal seems imminent (Photo by the Detroit Free Press)

This precedent that owners have set is really biting them in the rear right now. It makes sense that we are hitting a wall right now as contracts seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. What the owners have an issue with is the seven or eight-year contracts to players that are on the wrong side of 30 years old.

Reports have come that Eric Hosmer and J.D. Martinez are looking for contracts that are going to last until they are in their late 30s. Now that owners are standing up and saying enough is enough, these guys are thinking that they are getting the raw end of the deal.

On one end, it makes sense for the owners to say enough is enough and not allow these large contracts to be signed.

However, with all the money that baseball teams bring in, it also makes sense for the middle or top-tier players to want a good chunk of that revenue, especially because of the other contracts that have been given out before.

What will happen?

Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training next week, and some of the top dogs remain unsigned. At some point you would think that at least one team would want to sign a Yu Darvish or Jake Arrieta because of their excellence in the past. However, that has to tell you about how they think they will not play up to their contract in the next four to six years.

If Darvish, Arrieta, Martinez and Hosmer stay unsigned, we could be in for some real trouble. We have seen players of this caliber go unsigned as long as they have in recent memory. The first games of the spring start in just three weeks, so these are a lot of big names that need to go in order to get things moving.

The MLBPA released a letter last week showcasing their displeasure with the situation. It certainly looks like the rest of the players are willing to stand with the unsigned free agents to show solidarity. If the players stick together and support these free agents, we may have to wait for baseball longer than we expected.

Featured image from The Chicago Tribune