With the Yankees out of it, the Manny Machado sweepstakes has turned weird

Yesterday, Dan Lozano, the lucky agent who happens to represent one Manual Arturo Machado - aka "Hakuna Machado" - issued this fierce statement. While reading aloud, play war drums in background:

"I have known Bob Nightengale and Buster Olney for many years and have always had a good professional relationship with both, But their recent reporting, like many other rumors in the past several months, have been inaccurate and reckless when it comes to Manny Machado. I don’t know if their sources are blatantly violating the Collective Bargaining Agreement by intentionally misleading them to try and affect negotiations through the public or are just flat out lying to them for other reasons. But the truth is that their reports on the details of the White Sox level of interest in Manny are completely wrong.

“I am well aware that the entire baseball universe: fans, players teams, and media members alike: are starved for information about this free agent market for all players, including Manny. But I am not going to continue to watch the press be manipulated into tampering with, not just with my client, but all of these players’ livelihoods as they have been doing this entire off-season. The absence of new information to report is no excuse to fabricate ‘news’ or regurgitate falsehoods without even attempting to confirm their validity and it is a disservice to baseball fans everywhere when the media does just that.

First off, aint no "disservice" to me. Ever since the Yankees signed General Curtis LeMahiue, I don't give a crap. Once our "fully operational Death Star" called in sick, I erected a mental Trump wall to keep out Manny news. If anybody still thinks Food Stamps Hal Steinbrenner is playing possum, waiting to jump in and grab Manny at the last second, I suggest you hitch your wagon to that rising British superstar, Theresa May. In the world of free agent spending, this is Yankxit. 

Still, the Manny numbers tossed about do sound crazy: seven years for $175 million? That's Jacoby Ellsbury-type money... and for a player who actually plays! Could Manny's stock have plummeted that far? Unless you think Olney made it up - and he's been around a long time - somebody somewhere has been feeding low-ball figures on Machado, and you don't need Trump's greatest brain ever to discern why: If the world believes Machado will sign for peanuts, it undermines every other free agent on the market, from Bryce Harper to Neil Walker. 

But you  know what? History never changes. The kid who owns the ball can always take it home with him, and the game must halt. In the battle between "Haves" and "Have Nots," bet the Haves. The owners always win. Machado's salary gets debated in public, where nobody can feel sorry for him. Nobody asks how much the team owner banks, or what he even does to deserve a paycheck. He owns. That's all. 

So now we watch the "plight" of MLB free agents - a thought that's laughable, when compared to real working people. But here's the rub: The owners are colluding. Everybody knows it. And in the center square, instead of Paul Lynde, there's Hal, the owner with the largest market at his disposal, and the most money to spend, and a family tradition behind spending it... and he sits on the sidelines, not a peep. 

In a truly free market, the Yankees would set the pace. But that's not the way of a monopoly. So this is what we have, folks: Call it collusion, or price-fixing, or bid-rigging, whatever you want. It's a secret agreement between participants in a market to buy a product at a fixed price, through the control of supply and demand. MLB isn't a corporation. It's a cartel.