Don’t look now, but pitchers and catchers are due to report for spring training in nearly one month.

And yet, several marquee free agents remain available, namely the top four position players on the market — Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Alex Bregman and Cody Bellinger — as well as a pair of impact starting pitchers in Ranger Suárez and Framber Valdez.

But teams can now cross off one of the most notable hitters who had reportedly been available via trade.

Following months of trade speculation, Arizona intends to hold onto its All-Star second baseman, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported Friday. No team was reportedly willing to meet the club’s lucrative demands, prompting them to remove the 32-year-old from the trade block.

Marte, whose seven-year, $116.5 million contract runs through 2030 and includes a player option in ’31, seemed to draw interest from several teams — with the Boston Red Sox believed to be the most heavily involved — but trade conversations never appeared to materialize with any club this off-season.

D-backs general manager Mike Hazen could potentially revisit trading Marte during the summer if they fall out of playoff contention in the National League. But it remains to be seen if the acquisition cost will be any cheaper than it was this winter.

This development would presumably also eliminate the possibility of Arizona signing Bregman, whose potential arrival appeared contingent on Marte’s departure.

With the threat of a CBA lockout looming, several topics continue to be discussed between the players’ union and commissioner Rob Manfred, with the latter believing the slow-paced nature of free agency could be resolved by the addition of a signing deadline.

Manfred recently praised the potential benefits of imposing such a deadline during a radio appearance on WFAN, claiming it’d be an advantageous “marketing opportunity” for the sport’s off-season period to enhance its entertainment product. Players, meanwhile, have taken a much different stance on the subject, suggesting it would favour team owners and heavily impact the leverage that players and their representatives hold in free-agent negotiations.

Notable free-agent signings have become increasingly common in the later months of the off-season, such as January, February and even into the early months of spring training in recent years. But Manfred believes that the sport would benefit from compressing that activity across several weeks in December.

While that could increase demand, stealing attention away from other professional sports leagues — like the NHL and NBA — introducing a signing deadline would pose a major threat to the salaries that players could command, tipping the free-agent scales in the owners’ favour.

Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLB players’ union, has repeatedly stated that he strongly opposes the idea of a free agency signing deadline.

For the first time in over a decade, the Toronto Blue Jays will return to Sunday Night Baseball next season — albeit on NBC’s broadcast, replacing ESPN’s coverage after the network opted out of the remainder of its contract with MLB last year.

The Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals will be showcased across the United States during their contest at Kauffman Stadium on Sep. 6, with the game streaming exclusively on Peacock. In Canada, however, fans will still be able to watch it on Sportsnet.

Toronto was originally scheduled to host the New York Yankees during ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast on July 8, 2018, at least until the matchup was ultimately flexed out of that window and pushed to a 1 p.m. local start time.

In addition to their lone SNB appearance in ’26, the Blue Jays will also be featured on the network’s “Sunday Leadoff” schedule four separate times, including three in May.