As we turn the calendar page over on a new year (or actually replace the calendar I guess), it’s fair to say that we’re all a little bit anxious. We may be anxious about any number of things, but, specifically regarding the Twins, we see holes in the roster, unsigned free agents capable of filling those holes, and a whole lot of nothing in terms of new signings. Everybody has their favorite potential signing and their own opinion on whether Nelson Cruz should come back, but, save for the Minnesota contingent of the Hansel Robles fan club, nobody’s ideal plan has even started to take shape. We’re just waiting, hoping that the holes get filled soon, and guessing at who they’ll be filled by.

Though it’s been worse this year due to uncertainty about game schedules and a potential National League DH, this anxious waiting-for-things-to-happen period has become a staple of the Major League Baseball offseason because the league’s free agency rules have one pretty major flaw. Every year, fans have to sit and wait while signings trickle in slowly and the top free agents – some of the best players in the league – can go months without a team. And it’s due in large part to the league’s rules about service time.

Under MLB’s free agency rules, a player does not qualify for free agency until they have six years of major-league service time or if they’re not offered a contract by the team that owns their rights (non-tender free agents). This means that almost all successful major-league players won’t see free agency until they’ve been in the league for six years. And, taking into account the significant time players spend in the minors, it means that most are pushing thirty by the time they get to choose where to play (as you can see here). Ok, so what? The issue is that, at 30, most players are at their career peak or just past it, and there’s often no telling how fast a player’s decline will come. There are just as many immediate disappointments like Lance Lynn as there are ageless wonders like Nelson Cruz. There are very few “sure things.”

And, because baseball doesn’t have a salary cap, the guys that are closest to “sure things” (Realmuto, Ozuna, Springer and Bauer this year) can demand massive, $25+ million per year deals as the price for their services. Understandably, teams are wary of spending this kind of money, but they still want those blue-chip players. As a result, we get long drawn-out negotiations that cause fans to wait while players and teams are stuck in stalemates. And, because many teams are holding their money for the star free agents, the markets for the lesser free agents don’t really start until the big fish find new homes.

The result of all of this is a lot of waiting for the upper- and mid-level free agents to sign, and when they do, the best players will cost a scary amount of money and the others may or may not ever significantly help the team that signs them. Major League Baseball could fix this by peeling back the service time requirements (creating younger, deeper free agent classes) or by instituting a salary cap and max contract system (keeping players from demanding such huge contracts), but neither is likely to happen, so it seems that we’ll be stuck with baseball’s inefficient free agency system going forward.

Fortunately, this inefficiency actually helps the Twins. You see, if baseball had less stringent service time rules and free agency was more efficient, the wealthy teams that already dominate free agency would become that much more dominant. The better free agency gets, the better rich teams get. Imagine for a second if baseball had free agency rules like the NHL, where players are eligible for free agency at age 27 at the latest (NBA and NFL players see free agency even earlier) – Miguel Sanó and Max Kepler may already be in Yankee pinstripes or Dodger blue and José Berríos would be a year away from heading to Boston. That’s not good. Flashback to reality and the Twins can feature these players for years to come and have time and security to work out long-term deals without having to bid against richer teams. That is good. Major League Baseball’s free agency rules value team control more than any other major sports league in America and team control of young talent is exactly what the Twins have been successful with throughout their history.

Sure, the new front office group has been able to spend more in recent years and they deserve real credit for turning Target Field into a free agent destination worthy of bringing in players like Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz. But, even so, it’s naïve to think that the Twins could compete with the top spenders in the league if free agency were expanded. The team is still built on developed talent, and that’s okay because they’re damn good at it. “Fixing” free agency would only allow other teams to steal the Twins’ homegrown talent away earlier in their careers.

So, the next time you find yourself getting frustrated at the lack of Twins signings or at the fact that Jorge Polanco is still the best shortstop on the roster, remind yourself to be thankful that Jorge Polanco and others are still on the roster at all. Yes, I’d like a more exciting free agency period, too. But, in this case, we should be careful what we wish for.