Baseball

The Philadelphia Phillies rebuild, it would appear, is on.

Following a lengthy stretch of success during which they won five straight National League East division crowns and the 2008 World Series title, the Phillies have stumbled the past two seasons, falling to .500 in 2012 and 73-89 last year—their worst mark since 2000.

Now that baseball is in the thick of the winter meetings, rumors and potential signings and trades will be heard out the wazoo. Plenty will be going around throughout the next two days or so, and Bleacher Report's Adam Wells has done a fantastic job of keeping track of them so far.

Much is being made of the Philadelphia Phillies' desire to trade left fielder Domonic Brown, as reported by Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan. A line in the sand has been drawn, and there are those who feel as if Brown is the keystone for the Phillies' future while others are screaming sell, sell, sell!

The Arizona Diamondbacks want to protect slugger Paul Goldschmidt, but trading for Mark Trumbo is not the answer.

This MLB offseason marks the third that Theo Epstein and company have been at the reins of the Chicago Cubs, and to this point, it has been a relatively quiet winter on the North Side.

That's not a big change from the past two years, as the new front office staff has been methodical in its approach towards rebuilding the franchise from the ground up and putting its stamp on the organization.

The Seattle Mariners are back. That's the main message that one can take away from their signing of Robinson Cano. The deal was first reported by ESPN Deportes' Enrique Rojas. 

Jonathan Papelbon and Kyle Kendrick are on the trading block for a reason, and that reason's name is Nelson Cruz. The Philadelphia Phillies are looking to find wiggle room financially so they can land another high-priced free agent or two.

After coming up short in the sweepstakes for Prince Fielder and Josh Hamilton in each of the last two offseasons, respectively, the Seattle Mariners were determined to land one of the few elite hitters in this year’s free-agent class.

Well, they got one Friday.

The most common thought of the week—I know because I've said it, wrote it, texted it and tweeted it myself—is how there won't be much left for teams to do at next week's winter meetings because everything has already happened.

Nobody is offering the New York Yankees a shoulder to cry on following Friday's free-agent departures of Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson.