Paul Konerko

When Chicago White Sox GM Kenny Williams needs some talent, he's proved that he'd rather harvest players from other clubs than go the home grown route.

Williams' strategy over the years has been to use Chicago's farm system to pick up more experienced commodities.

Look at how the current roster is constructed.  Mark Buehrle is the only starting pitcher that came through the White Sox system.  Of the everyday starters last season, just Gordon Beckham was drafted by the team and was developed in the minors.

The Chicago White Sox General Manager has some tough choices in the coming months.

The White Sox, who currently have a payroll of over $105 million, have nine free agents and four arbitration eligible players on whom decisions will have to be made. Some will return to the fold in 2011, while others will be wished the best and sent off to seek different Major League employment (or start exploring that life after baseball thing).

Life is full of tough choices; let's start making some.

Grow the arms, buy the bats.

That's what Andy MacPhail has preached since taking over as the Baltimore Orioles' President of Baseball Operations midway through the 2007 season.

The Orioles have traded away many veterans over the past few years to acquire plenty of young pitching, and drafted young arms as well.

Now it's time to live up to your trademark quote, Andy. Now it's time to buy the bats.

First base is as deep of a position as any in baseball, though there are injury concerns hanging over a few of the best options in the game.  Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis, Kendry Morales and Justin Morneau all have questions due to various injuries.  

How does that affect the rankings?  Let’s take a look at how we currently stand:

The Orioles will go into this offseason happier than any 90-plus loss team has in the history of baseball.

They might have ended the season with 96 losses, but they were 34-24 in August, September and October and under new skipper Buck Showalter, the young players that the organization was beginning to worry about, stopped the regression that was frustrating every fan in Baltimore.

Because of this recent play, general manager Andy MacPhail will almost certainly make a bigger splash in the free agent market this year.

358 home runs and 1,127 RBIs over 12 seasons in a White Sox uniform ought to be enough for any player to be beloved by the entire White Sox Nation.

However, for reasons I can't pin down, Paul Konerko is not revered universally by White Sox fans the way someone like Frank Thomas is.

With Konerko's free agency on the horizon there has been a lot of talk about resigning the 34-year-old first baseman not because of his stellar 2010 season, rather because he is the "face of the White Sox."

While the playoffs are now on the front burner, in the back of every baseball fan's mind, or the front if your team has been eliminated from contention, is what moves the team will make this offseason.

Free agency is always a hot bed for debate, and every year there will be a fair share of diamonds in the rough as well as big time busts. Often times, contracts are a sign of the free agent class as a whole and not necessarily what the player is worth. Once the top tier guys start to get signed, teams that missed out often overpay for second tier guys, and so on.

Though the Sox exceeded the expectations of many pre-season predictions, they still finished a distant second to the Twins and enter the off-season with some work to do.

Before we even talk about making any upgrades to the roster, the Sox have several major decisions to make regarding their current players. The team already has a number of sizable salary commitments and would need to make a few more to keep this same core together.

Money will be a big theme this off-season, and Kenny Williams will probably have to creative to improve this team.

Probably not, but I figured someone owed Paul Konerko some publicity since ESPN often either forgets to do actual reporting and research or simply forgets to be logical.

As of Wednesday, Miguel Cabrera is out for the season due to a sprained ankle, so his numbers are concrete at .328 BA, .420 OBP, .622 SLG, and a 1.042 OPS to go along with 38 home runs, 126 RBI, 111 runs, and three stolen bases in 150 games played.

 
The 2010 MLB season has been the year of the pitcher. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been plenty of elite performances on offense.
 
Home run totals may be down across the board, but there have been plenty of players that have a legitimate argument for MVP.
 
The list is very exclusive—all of these players should receive at least a few MVP votes. Some of these players have carried their respective mediocre team for the majority of the season. Others are leading the way into the postseason.