MLB Trade Rumors

While nearly every MLB trade has its clear winners and clear losers, there are the select few swaps that actually work out perfectly for both sides. 

The Boston Red Sox might not want to trade John Lackey, given his strong 2013 season and his extremely team-friendly $500,000 club option for 2015. But, in all likelihood, they'll want to clear up a crowded rotation situation before the start of the season, and there may not be a better time to trade the veteran right-hander. 

The blockbuster trade that sent Prince Fielder to the Rangers and Ian Kinsler to the Tigers was one of the offseason's first landscape-changing transactions. There have been relatively few swaps since then, with the Diamondbacks-Angels-White Sox three-way deal leading the way, but perhaps the winding down of the free-agent market will spell the re-opening of the trade market.

As the year that saw the Boston Red Sox win their third World Series Championship in 10 years winds to a close, fans and analysts are wondering what the franchise will do to back up their crown in 2014.

Boston has been relatively quiet this offseason, as shown by the team's transactions provided by CBS Sports.

The holidays have nearly run their course, but MLB hot-stove action is still going strong and figures to play out weeks into the new year. Offseason dealings can bleed into February, so this isn't entirely novel, but this year's strangely forming market can be attributed mostly to the circumstances surrounding Japanese ace Masahiro Tanaka.

While there are still a number of MLB free agents available, most of the top options are already off of the market. This has caused teams around the league to look toward trades to improve the roster for next season.

Of course, franchises are smart enough to avoid giving away a player for nothing. This will keep potential deals from moving quickly as the negotiation process continues through the start of the regular season.

It's still too early to declare a team as a "winner" or "loser" at this point in the offseason. Because there's still plenty of time left for them to make trades and several impact players still available on the free-agent market, the perception of how a team's offseason has gone can change in a moment's notice. 

A lot has happened, though, and there are teams that have certainly established themselves as having had a successful offseason and those who have either made enough questionable moves or non-moves to give their fanbase a reason to be disappointed. 

The top names like Robinson Cano, Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, Shin-Soo Choo and Brian McCann have been signed. The biggest trade we're likely to see this offseason—Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler—has been completed, too.

So what's left?

There's an old saying that says don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see. That might not be any more true than when it comes to the art of MLB "rumor mongering." In this business, negotiations and posturing often play out in the media, and it's up to us, the readers, to make sense of it.

You can't always discern which reports are legit and which are likely to look silly in a matter of days or weeks, but if you are mindful of a team's needs, its budget and its recent history, it goes a long way toward figuring out what makes sense and what doesn't.

Attention, holiday shoppers: If you're a general manager of a Major League Baseball team, there may not be much available in position players anymore, but they're not quite sold out just yet, and there still are pitchers galore ready to be plucked from the shelves in time for the new year.

As the calendar gets ready to flip, here's a rundown of the top names who remain up for grabs as either free-agent factors or trade targets.