Over the weekend, executives across baseball hunkered down in their offices to fill out a document. One general manager called it “the most important paper I’ve written since college.” Another scrambled to find someone to translate his version into proper Japanese. An executive, short on sleep, long on frustration, said: “This is so stupid.”

In anticipation of Shohei Ohtani’s posting, the agents for the 23-year-old Japanese star sent a memo to all 30 teams, asking them to explain why Ohtani fits in their organization. Some executives rolled their eyes. Others saw it as an opportunity to differentiate themselves. Each wound up doing the same thing: Putting together their best sales pitch for what everyone agrees is a once-in-a-lifetime player, not simply because of his talent as a pitcher and hitter but the absurd discount in which teams may realize well over $100 million in surplus value.

“Shohei Ohtani,” one agent said, “is like the baseball version of the new Amazon headquarters.”

He is, according to people around the game, a lot of things. A staggering talent, capable of throwing a ball 102 mph from the right side and hitting it like a leviathan from the left side and running with the speed of Mike Trout despite standing 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds. A complete mystery, part of which is adding to executives’ agita, in that because they know so little about him, they aren’t certain how, exactly, to frame their answers to the questionnaire. A bargain, seeing as the largest signing bonus he’ll receive is $3.5 million and the fee owed his Japanese team, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, is only $20 million.

“This is a $200 million Powerball in a 30-person town,” one National League executive said. “You kind of have to buy a ticket.”

View photos MLB teams are busy making their best sales pitch to Shohei Ohtani’s agents. (Getty Images) More

Here’s what Shohei Ohtani isn’t: The reason the 2017-18 free-agent market is suffering from some unholy rush-hour-caliber gridlock. For the prevailing wisdom that the uncertain status of Ohtani and trade limbo of Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton has brought baseball to the end of November with Doug Fister the only free agent signed and no trades of significance executed, the reality, nearly 20 executives, agents and officials from the league and union told Yahoo Sports, is that neither is impeding much at all.

“I don’t buy the Ohtani thing, because no matter what you do, he fits. He’s cheap. He’s great. If you get him, it’s a bonus,” one GM said. “You’ve had a lot of time to get [things] together. I don’t buy that you’re spending a [ton] of time on it. And I don’t really buy the Stanton thing. J.D. Martinez is the only guy on the market you can squint and see some effect there.”

As another agent put it: “If Ohtani weren’t coming and the Marlins were keeping Stanton, they’d come up with two other things to slow the market down.”

This is the crux of the stalemate: While a number of factors have caused it, they are no mistake and have conspired to turn the Hot Stove lukewarm, according to officials on both sides, who spoke with Yahoo Sports on the condition of anonymity because the league and union frown upon public discussion of free agency. Among the reasons:

1) Four-corners free agency

With apologies for the mixed-sport analogy, teams believe bleeding out the clock on free agents is an effective way to drive down prices – and players haven’t figured out a proper way to combat it. In the past, executives said, this affected third- and fourth-tier free agents.

And while some believe the pace of signings will turn this week – a sage of past markets said he sees seven to 10 players, many among them relief pitchers, signing in the next week – the chill has been noticeable and troublesome.

“The clubs each believe, and maybe correctly, that the longer they wait, the prices will come down,” one longtime official said. “That usually has not been the case as it relates to the premier free agents, so either there’s nobody in this marketplace that teams wouldn’t live without or it’s just the latest turn that even for premier free agents we’re going to delay, delay, delay.”

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