AL East

The New York Yankees have fierce competition in the AL East. Only the Baltimore Orioles finished beyond 10 games out of the playoffs. The Boston Red Sox have proven their goals this offseason by acquiring Adrian Gonzalez, and the Tampa Bay Rays are looking to bring back talent from last year's postseason squad while adding some new pieces.

While the Yankees have free agent pitcher Cliff Lee directly in their sights, the Winter Meetings continue around them.

Teams are trying to find talent wherever they can in the hopes of bolstering their respective team for 2011.

While Lee is the biggest free agent on the market, outfielder Carl Crawford is a close second.

Via Ken Davidoff of Newsday:

The Yankees met today with the representatives for free-agent LHP Pedro Feliciano.

Via Chad Jennings of the Journal News:

Girardi said this afternoon that [A.J. Burnett] has already reached out to [Larry Rothschild], and the two will get to work this offseason. The problem is easy to diagnose but not necessarily easy to fix.

Never a dull moment in the land of the New York Yankees, and this offseason is no different.

The early talk was Cliff Lee and Derek Jeter. Now that Jeter is signed, all the attention is focused on the big name lefty, Lee.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman was apparently frustrated and somewhat annoyed with the pace of the Lee negotiations.

Carl Crawford and Cliff Lee are still available in Major League Baseball Free Agency. Some of the major names have already landed with new teams including Jayson Werth and Victor Martinez.

That leads to the question of who are the best remaining free agents. While it is a simpler process to measure these players from a numbers standpoint, who are the best value players remaining. In other words, who provides the most "bang for the buck".

Let's take a look at the 50 most valuable players still available on the market.

Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner had surgery on his wrist yesterday to remove some inflammation and everything went well. The Yankees expect that he’ll be ready to go by spring training.

Well, here we are.  Just one more trade until I discuss what I believe is the worst one in baseball history and for No. 2, I’ve picked a good one. 

Boston general manager Theo Epstein has had his own formula for success.  It's a version of "money ball," where he values things like on base percentage more than batting average and how a guy fits in with the Red Sox organization.

As well as not paying high dollars or giving a lot of years to older players.  It's as if there is a sign on Yawkey Way that reads, "Anyone over 30 need not apply."

Stop the presses: Derek Jeter said something interesting.

We've waited a long time for this; sat through 15 years of interviews and press conferences devoid of even the slightest semblance of insight or intimacy.