Will new year inject some life into ice-cold free agent market?

The new year has arrived. But does that mean all those free agents who are still out there will start picking their employers for 2018?

It's been a really slow hot stove league so far. Aside from the usual excitement right before, during and right after the Winter Meetings, there has been precious little action across baseball. And that was especially true over the holiday break, which saw Wade Davis sign with the Rockies, a couple of third-tier relievers sign deals and nothing else.

It's not uncommon for front offices to take the final week of December off, but what is uncommon about this offseason is the lack of significant signings across the board.

MLBTradeRumors.com publishes a list of the top 50 free agents entering each offseason. According to some research done by the fun-loving guys who run the @CespedesBBQ Twitter account, only 20 of those top 50 players signed before New Year's Day. That's the lowest number, by far, over the last five seasons, with at least 27 and as many as 34 of the top 50 free agents having signed before Jan. 1 in recent years.

You can argue whether any of this matters much to the Nationals, who don't have nearly as many roster holes to fill as most every other club out there. They've already addressed two of their four most significant needs: a right-handed reliever (Brandon Kintzler) and a backup first baseman (Matt Adams). They still appear to need a fifth starter, another backup outfielder and maybe some more relief help.

But if the Nats have any interest in diving into the market for a more prominent player (cough, Jake Arrieta, cough) they're kind of at the mercy of the slow-moving market. There haven't even been that many rumors about such top-tier free agents as Arrieta and Yu Darvish to date.

On the offensive side of the market, J.D. Martinez remains unsigned, as do Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and others.

Eventually, one of the dominoes has to fall, at which point the avalanche continues. But with six weeks to go until pitchers and catchers report, there sure are an awful lot of big-name players out there who still don't know where they need to be come mid-February.