Manny Ramirez

At any given time, there are arguably 30-35 active players in the Major Leagues who are deserving of a spot in Cooperstown once they call it a career. Whom among those on an active roster for 2011 are most likely to be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame sometime in the future?

The following is a position-by-position list of players who, in my opinion, can start thinking about their acceptance speeches right now.

The Mannywood era of Dodger baseball came to a close in 2010. Now that the slugger has moved on from the City of Angels, the hunt is on to replace him.

Dipping below 700 total runs scored in 2010 for the first time since 2005, the Dodgers need to improve their offense if they plan on climbing to the top of the National League West once again. Even with Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, they were a team that was 27th in baseball in home runs at 120 and 24th in RBI at 621.

This is a difficult time for many of those who believe the game will forever be tainted by the Performance Enhancing Drug era.

I refuse to call it the "Steroid Era" as many of the so-called cheaters never actually took a steroid. If you're going to label something, it may as well be accurate.

I will admit that some of the things MLB players did during this time disgusts me. It's not so much the fact that they cheated, but that they were so smug and arrogant that they thought they could get away with it.

The Major League Baseball free agency period is beginning to wind down. Adrian Beltre has signed with the Texas Rangers, Matt Garza is now a Chicago Cub after a big trade and many teams have wrapped up signing players for the 2011 season.

Manny Ramirez is without a doubt one of the most powerful and productive hitters to ever play the game of baseball.  Manny has a career average of .313 and has hit 555 home runs in his colorful career.  Manny is a 12-time All-Star and has won the Hank Aaron award twice.  He has won two World Series rings with the Boston Red Sox (2004,2007) and was the World Series MVP in 2004.  

The world series was won.  The parade is over.  Now it's time to look at the division as a whole and really ponder about who is going to come out on top in 2011.  Many changes have been made to all teams in the division and fans from Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona, Colorado and especially San Fransisco all know that their team has a chance to compete.  Let's go down the list of teams in the division and see who has the best shot of coming out on top in the NL West.

With Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth out of the picture now, the free agency period has settled into the backdrop.  However, many players are still out on the market looking for contracts. 

Even with the big names signing big contracts, there is still plenty of talent available.  Here are the top 20 free agents that are still available. 

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The MLB has benefited greatly off of imported talent.  A recent wave of Japanese and South American players have taken the game by storm.  

Today, about 27% of MLB consists of foreign-born players.  Great talents like Hideki Matsui and Ichiro were established already in Japan.  They still were able to make an even bigger name for themselves here in the States.  Many others from South American countries as well have "made it big" in America.  Collectively, these foreign-born plays add another dimension to the game.  

Money makes the world go 'round, even (and especially) in Major League Baseball.

If nothing else, money makes baseball's off-season much more interesting, with teams handing out absurdly large contracts left and right, to the likes of Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth and Cliff Lee.

It's been an eerily quiet offseason for most clubs.

While teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers have all been among the most active thus far, most have remained rather inactive in the early part of the free agent season.

With so many long-term contracts in the past that have proven to be a burden to clubs down the road, general managers aren't spending lavishly like in previous times.

It's a bad time to be a remaining free agent, because the amount of money left to spend is shrinking by the day.