CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Guardians find themselves in a frustrating but familiar position as MLB’s free agency period crawls along — stuck in neutral while baseball’s top-tier free agents take their sweet time deciding their futures.

This isn’t just a minor inconvenience. For mid-market teams like Cleveland, this “log jam” effect can dramatically impact their entire offseason strategy, forcing them to wait patiently while stars like Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber, and Cody Bellinger command the spotlight and the headlines.

“There tends to be these log jams, especially heading into the winter meetings,” explained Joe Noga on the Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast. “Where the top guys on the market... once those guys come off the board, that’s when the free agent market starts to open up and that’s

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