James Shields

The Kansas City Royals made a big splash in 2012 when they traded away top-rated prospect Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and Patrick Leonard to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for James Shields and Wade Davis.

There has been no greater riddle this offseason than James Shields, the marquee free agent nobody wants.

OK, "nobody" is an overstatement. But while other elite arms—Jon Lester, Max Scherzer—have fallen off the board, the market for Shields remains a puzzling mess.

Add the Arizona Diamondbacks to the list of teams that say they're out on the 33-year-old right-hander.

The MLB free-agent market now consists of Max Scherzer, James Shields and everyone else. But beyond Scherzer and Shields, there are still a handful of valuable players to be had. And as the market gets thinner, those assets will only become increasingly valuable as teams try to fill their remaining roster voids.

The calendar has changed over to 2015, yet there are still several noticeable names remaining in the MLB free-agent pool.

1. January Will Bring the Max Scherzer Thaw

Spring training is little more than a month away, which means the biggest marquee free agent this side of Jon Lester is about to sign with…

"The two sleepers all along for me were St. Louis and Washington," one American League executive said of Max Scherzer's possible destinations. "They're just guesses. I can see him with the Yankees, too, or going back to Detroit."

As you'd expect from a Cy Young-caliber pitcher with baseball's most powerful agent, Max Scherzer has some rather large contract demands that he doesn't seem interested in backing down from.

Max Scherzer is the biggest pitching prize still on the free-agent market, but there is another starter still without a team who is due for a big payday soon.  Former Kansas City Royal James Shields is a little old at 33, but he has had an impressive career and should have plenty of suitors.

Well more than two months have peeled off Major League Baseball’s offseason calendar, a hot-stove season that has been as active and stunning as any in recent memory. 

Yet it is not finished. Two big-money free agents still swim around untouched—Max Scherzer and James Shields—while several clubs with World Series visions remain a player away from being legitimate threats in October.

The calendar's about to turn—another baseball season and spin 'round the sun in the books—and still James Shields sits, unsigned.

That's not an utter surprise; this offseason was ridiculously pitching-rich.

To put it in focus: Max Scherzer, the marquee arm on the market, is also unemployed heading into 2015.

Max Scherzer and James Shields still need homes for 2015 and beyond.

The two starting pitchers remain untouched on MLB's free-agent market, waiting to select a new employer before Opening Day. While action predictably intensified once fellow ace Jon Lester made his decision, the other premium hurlers did not budge on expediting the process.