IRVING, Texas -- The free-agency frenzy of Sunday, which saw $407 million guaranteed to players, was the latest sign that a labor stoppage in Major League Baseball is upon us. At this point, with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, the rush to lock in deals is the consequence of the likely lockout that would start at midnight.
Certainly the intersection of labor strife and free agency has made for the most compelling November in perhaps a decade. Marcus Semien grabbed his $175 million bag from the Texas Rangers. Kevin Gausman got $110 million to go to Toronto. Byron Buxton locked in $100 million to stay long-term with the Minnesota Twins and Sandy Alcantara $56 million with Miami. Jon Gray went to Texas and Avisail Garcia to Miami and Corey Kluber to Tampa Bay and Michael Lorenzen to the Los Angeles Angels and Kole Calhoun to Texas. More deals are coming. Soon.
But then, when it's done -- silence. The hot stove will be doused, for an indeterminate amount of time. On one hand, the fact that teams and players have acted as though the collective bargaining iceberg the industry is about to hit doesn't really exist portends well for the possibility of a deal coming together before games are lost. On the other, that we're here at the Four Seasons Dallas at Las Colinas, where the league and MLB Players Association will spend the next few days bargaining, and there is so little hope for a deal, speaks to the lack of progress up to this point.
There are a million questions coming off one of the wildest days of free agency in memory. Here are answers to 20 of them.