Andrew McCutchen

Starting in center field for the New York Mets...Andrew McCutchen.

Your reaction to that sentence—assuming you're a Mets fan—likely depends on your feelings about risk versus reward. Because, boy, does McCutchen offer plenty of both.

Major League Baseball's winter meetings have come and gone with plenty of players, both free agents and not, finding new homes during the four-day stretch.

But the offseason could have more twists and turns awaiting before pitchers and catchers report for spring training in February.

Here is the latest on three big names who have been rumored to be on the trade market recently.

Like a cotton candy maker, baseball's winter meetings tend to spit out anything that sticks.

Sure, deals are made like the one that saw Chris Sale traded to the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday. But speculation, more than anything, is the product of the meetings.

It's tough to determine which of the hottest thoughts, rumors and conjecture might end up being true, but we'll give it a try and play or fiction with what has emerged thus far from baseball's annual conclave.

In a baseball year that was about ending droughts, the Washington Nationals had to sit back and wonder why they were left out.

They have a good team. They won 95 games, the third time in the last five years they've won at least that many (no one else has done it more than twice).

All it got them was another chance at October frustration. The Nationals didn't win a postseason series. The Nationals have never won a postseason series.

The 2016 Major League Baseball winter meetings will run from Sunday through Thursday in National Harbor, Maryland, and trade buzz is picking up as general managers get ready to intensify discussions regarding some of the sport's biggest names.

From All-Star starting pitchers to game-changing outfielders, there are plenty of enticing names circulating in advance of hot-stove season.

If anyone's having trouble imagining Andrew McCutchen wearing something other than a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform, don't worry. Soon you won't have to.

Because it'll be reality.

With the Pittsburgh Pirates facing an uncertain future after a disappointing 2016 season, the likelihood that Andrew McCutchen will be traded seems to be increasing.

Continue for updates.

Free agency gets all the headlines this time of year in Major League Baseball, but a dreadful crop of talent for all 30 teams to choose from should boost interest and activity in the trade market over the winter. 

The end of November is often the calm before the storm, as MLB players and executives are making their final preparations for the winter meetings that will begin on December 4. 

There's a club of major league superstars so exclusive it has just two members.

To get in requires a number of recent top-five finishes in Most Valuable Player voting. One year won't do—sorry, Bryce Harper—and neither will two. You might get there soon, Manny Machado, but not just yet.

Hot-stove season is upon us, which means trade rumors are starting to fly at a fast and furious pace as teams across Major League Baseball seek to retool their rosters and gear up for title runs in 2017. 

And with big names like Andrew McCutchen and Miguel Cabrera surfacing in advance of this year's winter meetings, the rumor mill shouldn't stop churning anytime soon.