MLB commissioner doesn't think league has tanking issue

Commissioner Rob Manfred does not believe Major League Baseball teams are tanking.

Agent Scott Boras has been vocal this offseason about free agency being severely affected by the fact that close to one-third of the league is rebuilding, saying the league needs to eliminate the "noncompetitive cancer."

Manfred, however, doesn't see the disparity of spending and talent between teams as an issue, and believes there's no way to have all 30 teams in the same competitive window at the same time.

"It is unrealistic to think that everyone is going to have the exact same expectation to win on the exact same (timetable)," Manfred said Thursday, according to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports. "By definition, they have to be at different points in the process of developing the most competitive club possible.

"Teams have always done best when they bring a cohort of players together and that team matures together and grows together. I don't see any conceptual change on that topic."

With less than two weeks to go until spring training opens, more than 100 free agents remain without a contract, and no player has signed for more than $80 million. Manfred attributes that to a number of factors and believes every offseason in unique.

"Every (free-agent) market is different," Manfred said. "There's different players, different quality of players, different GMs, different decisions, a new basic agreement, different agents who had particular prominence in a particular market in terms of who they represent.

"Those factors, and probably others that I can't tick off the top of my head, have combined to produce a particular market this year. Just like there's been some markets where the lid got blown off in terms of player salary growth, occasionally you're going to have some that are not quite as robust."