As others cut costs, should Nats look to spend big this winter?

The start of free agency in baseball has long failed to live up to whatever advance hype comes along with it. If the first day of free agency in the NFL, NBA and NHL resembles Walmart on Black Friday, in Major League Baseball it looks more like a group of seniors strolling through the mall concourse at 9 a.m. on a random Tuesday.

Owners don't send their private jets out at the stroke of midnight to pick up potential big-name targets. Agents prefer to drag the whole process out and wait for the market to develop before getting serious. At best, things start picking up in early December around the Winter Meetings. At worst, some of the sport's brightest stars are still sitting at home when pitchers and catchers report in mid-February.

While we don't know what this offseason is going to be like, it's probably safe to assume free agency is more likely to drag on for months than experience an early explosion of activity. That was already the trend in the sport before the coronavirus pandemic. It's easy to imagine the global medical disaster and its far-reaching ramifications are only to make the winter worse from MLB's perspective.

We've already seen many clubs lay off or furlough employees in both their baseball operations and business offices, including the Nationals. Over the last few days we also saw teams across the board decline 2021 options on players, some of them downright shocking given the quality of the players involved and their seemingly reasonable price tags.

So when the clock strikes 5 p.m. EST today and all free agents officially are free to begin signing, don't expect a flurry of transactions.

If anything, we should probably prepare ourselves for a common message coming out of front offices: "After losing so much money in 2020, we have to watch our budgets in 2021." (Feel free to debate among yourselves whether that's a valid argument for owners to make or not.)

Thing is, there are going to be a ton of quality players available for anyone who wants them beginning this afternoon. George Springer. J.T. Realmuto. Marcell Ozuna. DJ LeMahieu. Michael Brantley. Justin Turner. Carlos Santana. Ryan Braun. Trevor Bauer. Jon Lester. Marcus Stroman. J.A. Happ. Chris Archer. Kevin Gausman. Charlie Morton. James Paxton. Rick Porcello. Robbie Ray. Kolten Wong. Ryan Zimmerman. Howie Kendrick. Didi Gregorius. Joc Pederson. Nick Markakis. Brad Hand. Tony Watson. Sean Doolittle. Blake Treinen.

Think of the quality roster you could assemble just by signing a bunch of those guys.

Nobody's in a position to do that, of course, but this does raise an interesting question: Is there a team out there that might try to take advantage of everyone else's reluctance to spend big this winter and go all-in on free agency?

There's certainly reason for several clubs to consider it. Including the Nationals.

If you're a rebuilding organization with a ton of needs, this probably doesn't make sense. But if you've already got a solid core group of players and just need to supplement it with the kind of players who can help catapult you into legitimate contender status, this winter might just present a golden opportunity to you.

We don't know what the Nationals' financial plan for 2021 is yet. Do they intend to keep payroll roughly where it's been the last few years? Do they insist they need to bring it down? Do they have the ability to increase it?

Whatever instructions he has received from ownership, Mike Rizzo also is supposed to watch what the rest of the sport is doing and make decisions either to keep up with everyone else or (better yet) surpass them all. If Rizzo sees baseball cutting back this winter, why not try to convince ownership now is the perfect time to spend, taking advantage of a depressed market?

If he really wanted to, Rizzo could make multiple big moves by the end of the day and make a bold statement about the Nationals' intentions for 2021. We know, in reality, that's not going to happen.

But there does appear to be an opportunity presenting itself right now. All it takes is one MLB franchise to be willing to zag while everyone else zigs.