Rankings/List

A wise man once said that when your team sucked last year, change the roster. That man was so wise that he didn't tell me his name.

But fogetaboutit.

The point is that when teams suck and no top-tier free agent wants to go to a losing team—probably because they have already played on a losing team for most of their career—they then need to make trades so that they start winning again.

But for some reason the trades that need to happen sometimes never do, for one reason or another.

While all of the big chips in free agency have fallen this season, a team looking to make a big splash will need to turn to the trade market, and there may be no more intriguing trade chip than Prince Fielder.

Whether he is traded in the offseason or at the deadline, it seems a foregone conclusion that Fielder is on his way out of Milwaukee with the Brewers unable to re-sign him.

So here are eight deals that make sense, not only for the team acquiring Fielder, but also for the Brewers, as they look to bolster their pitching and fill what will then be a hole at first base.

MLB trade rumors have been flying around like crazy since Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies, which probably explains why most of them involve pitchers.

Zack Greinke has been on the block seemingly ever since the last out of the World Series was squeezed, and Carlos Zambrano is also rumored to be on the block.

But Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder's name has been bandied about pretty consistently the entire offseason, and he could still move before spring training starts.

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.

It's no question that the best rotation in the MLB belongs to the Philadelphia Phillies.  They started this offseason with Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.  Now, the Phillies have lured Cliff Lee into their rotation.  Does this give them one of the best rotations of all time?  Let's take a look at baseball's greatest rotations, and you can decide for yourself.

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As the baseball offseason continues, teams are signing players in an attempt to improve their clubs. In a sport where one signing can turn an entire team around, there just aren't as many high-impact players available this offseason.

Jayson Werth (seven years, $125 million) signed with the Washington Nationals. Carl Crawford (seven years, $142 million) signed with the Boston Red Sox, who also acquired first baseman Adrian Gonzalez from the San Diego Padres via trade.

Cliff Lee was officially introduced as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies this afternoon in a press conference at Citizens Bank Park. 

Given the extreme interest in the pursuit of Lee, the offseason's most prized free agent, this comes as huge news to fans of the Phillies and Major League Baseball. 

With the way Lee's five-year, $100 million deal went down, there were plenty of things to learn in the official introduction of the star left hander.

Here's what we learned: 

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.

This season the Washington Nationals shocked the baseball world by doling out an enormous seven-year, $126 million contract for Jayson Werth. The Nationals finished last in the division and, desperate to stay relevant, paid top-tier money to a second-tier star.

With Stephen Strasburg injured and Bryce Harper still years away from the show, GM Mike Rizzo was looking to maintain fan interest in the interim by signing this offseason’s No. 3 prize. But was it really worth it?

Every season, the MLB Winter Meetings give rise to dozens of fascinating rumors about blockbuster trades or surprising free-agent signings. Some come to fruition, but the majority of them leave us wondering who on earth ever thought such a thing would actually happen.

Trade rumors sometimes spring fully formed from the heads of sportswriters. At other times, teams make cursory inquiries on players they have no real intention of acquiring, and writers misunderstand.