We're going to take a brief break from dissecting the Boston Red Sox's offseason strategy. Don't worry. We'll be back soon with an exposé on how current ownership did actually originally trade away its own 1998 first-round pick and lived long enough to see it come back home. It's one of the stranger trade trees the DBL has produced. But first, Boston has finally done something they've been trying to do for weeks. Shane Mack is gone. The Red...

Opening Day is supposed to be about hope. Hope that your offseason worked. Hope that your prospects break out. Hope that this is finally your year. Unless you're a fan of the Boston Red Sox or the Baltimore Orioles. Then your franchise has spent the entire offseason trying to convince you that losing is actually a long-term investment. The GOPI rankings don't just think these teams will be bad. They think these teams have a legitimate chance to...

For God's sake. Here I am on my "league-mandated vacation," and somehow I'm still being asked to write about...the Top 20 list. Because apparently nothing screams "quality offseason content" quite like owners arguing over whether Player A should be 14th instead of 17th. Fine. Here goes. Another season begins, and right on cue, the annual obsession with the Top 20 list is back. Among the hitters, only one player debuts with a new team: Barry...

As we inch toward the start of the 1998 season, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: We have no shortage of teams aiming for the bottom. The Baltimore Orioles have stripped the roster down to the studs while the league searches for new ownership. The reward? A clean slate and a collection of first-round picks that now rivals some teams' entire farm systems. The Boston Red Sox, apparently offended by the possibility that Baltimore might...

The first domino of free agency isn't a slugger. It isn't a closer. It isn't even the annual 36-year-old reliever who somehow talks a general manager into a multi-year deal. It's Fumiya Nishiguchi. At 25 years old, he's comfortably the best starting pitcher on the market and, by extension, the player most likely to cash in. He's not an ace, but in a free-agent class this light on frontline talent, a durable No. 2 starter with years of team...

Welcome to the hitter's market, where one team's "impact bat" is another team's "solid platoon option." This class is... underwhelming. There are a few genuinely useful players, but if you're looking for a franchise-changing superstar, you're about two years too late. Most contenders will be shopping for complementary pieces, while rebuilding clubs will convince themselves that "veteran leadership" was the plan all along. In other words, it's...

There you have it: my All-Free-Agent teams. My takeaways? There's some talent here, but not much. This isn't the kind of class that changes the balance of power in the league. There are no franchise-altering bats and only one or two pitchers who should genuinely move the needle. If you need depth, you may be in luck. If you need bodies capable of breathing and filling out your Triple-A roster, you're in outstanding shape. If you're looking for...

With the hitters now out of the way, let's turn our attention to the pitchers. Unlike the position-player crop, this class actually has some depth. It also has something else every free-agent class needs: a handful of pitchers who are about to get paid like aces despite not actually being aces. As always, pitching is baseball's most renewable resource right up until you need it, at which point teams start handing out contracts that make...

As we prepare for free agency to begin, the league is once again gripped by the familiar emotions of the offseason: excitement that every owner is about to land "their guy," disappointment that the class is somehow even thinner than advertised, and the creeping realization that several of these contracts will look like radioactive waste by the trade deadline. Still, hope springs eternal. Every winter, someone talks themselves into a career...

Your esteemed writer here, bored while we wait for free agency to begin and therefore helping one of my favorite owners find a new home for OF Paul O’Neill. Acquired for Brian McRae and Tony Womack, O’Neill has apparently spent approximately five minutes in Toronto before being shopped "for probably less than you would think." Ignoring, for the moment, the obvious question of why he was acquired in the first place if the intention was...