CC Sabathia

The Boston Red Sox made their moves. Trading for Adrian Gonzalez and signing Carl Crawford has transformed the Red Sox from one of the better offensive teams in the league into the most feared lineup in the American League.

The Philadelphia Phillies stole Cliff Lee right out from under the Yankees' nose. Imagine facing a playoff rotation of Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels.

Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno could probably be accused of a lot of things, but one of them will never be loyalty to his fan base. In the seven plus years that Arte Moreno has owned the Angels, he has steadfastly committed himself that the baseball experience at Angels Stadium remains affordable for fans, and that, with the exception of the 5-year, $90 million contract given to center fielder Torii Hunter, the team remains committed to exercising fiduciary responsibility.

Come on everybody let's sing! "It's the most wonderful time of the year, duh, duh, duh duh duh duh, blah, blah blah blah blah blah, it's the most wonderful time of the year ."

That is, except for the obscenely manic, your compulsive over eaters, and New York Yankee fans already fretting over the state of their team and the very recently improved roster of their hated rival, the Boston Red Sox.  

The surprising decision of Cliff Lee signing with the Phillies ultimately had a major impact on our early starting pitcher rankings.  He always was going to be considered one of the better options in the league for 2011, but now he appears to be a borderline Top 5 option.  Let’s see where he ultimately falls, as well as all the rest in our updated rankings.

Spring training may still be two months away, but the cold winter months have had little success subduing MLB's offseason hot stove.

The fall of 2010 has been an eventful one in the baseball world, even with the free agent class being as thin as it is.

As always, there are some teams that have added tremendously to their chances of World Series title contention in 2011, and plenty more that have been set back further, whether by their own missteps or by the unexpected choices of those they pursued (cough...Cliff Lee...cough).

In a desperate attempt to stay relevant, the Washington Nationals shocked the baseball world and handed out a colossal seven-year $126 million contract to Jayson Werth.

Certainly they are not the first overly ambitious team to overspend on a free agent, and they won’t be the last; but it does raise some interesting points.

Often times if a big-market team, with high expectations, fails to make the playoffs, the only possible move seems to be a free agent spending spree. Other times, irrelevant teams will make major moves in an effort to silence angry fans.

New Year's resolutions for all 30 MLB teams are difficult to craft.

With the big time free agents starting to find homes and the trade market heating up, next years teams are starting to take shape.

Technically, every team's 2011 New Year's resolution is to win the World Series in October.

But if you play in Pittsburgh or Kansas City, that probably doesn't seem too likely.

Now for the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and a few other club it's too easy to say their resolution is to win the title. So we'll try to add a little more suspense to it than that.

The offseason which some hoped would build upon last year's isn't exactly going so well. Shaun Marcum was shipped off to Milwaukee, John Buck bounced to Florida, and Scott Downs got the money he was looking for in LA. Kevin Gregg isn't likely to come back either. 

Overbay is now a Pittsburgh Pirate. Good luck trying to get five million dollars worth of value from him... 

In the middle of the night, while many East Coast baseball fans were sleeping, possibly dreaming of the glorious news that the Yankees had finalized a deal to bring Cliff Lee to the Bronx, the unthinkable occurred: somehow, the Yankees didn't get their man.

In one of the more surprising developments of the baseball offseason, Cliff Lee has decided to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies. Lee's deal with the team is worth $115 million over five years. This signing comes as a surprise as most people expected Lee to either stay in Texas with the Rangers or sign with the New York Yankees.