Victor Martinez

While the Florida Marlins may have their hands full with finding their next manager and signing Dan Uggla to a contract extension this offseason, they face an uphill battle in fixing what was broken throughout the 2010 season, bullpen aside the catcher position gave the Marlins headaches all season long. 

I'd compare it to the Marlins buying a brand new battery and having to change it every few days, which translates to every couple of weeks for the Marlins who went through an assortment of them this past season. 

Call it a transition year. Call it an unlucky year. Call it whatever you want, but the 2010 Boston Red Sox simply failed to meet the expectations of management, fans, and baseball pundits across the country.

There are a handful of factors worthy of blame here, including general manager Theo Epstein's reluctance to part with prospects to shore up the bullpen or acquire a top-flight pitcher like Cliff Lee. But pointing fingers is no way to win a World Series.

It’s never too early to start looking towards Draft Day 2011, is it? 

Let’s kick off our offseason rankings taking a look at my Top 15 catchers for 2011.

Keep in mind that these will be updated throughout the offseason, depending on player movement and finalizing my projections:

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.

The Seattle Mariners enter the 2010-2011 Major League Baseball offseason in dire need of some runs. The team did not merely take up the rear in American League run scoring: They finished with 100 fewer runs than the Baltimore Orioles, who finished second-to-last. The Mariners pitching staff had a 3.95 ERA, good for the fifth-best in the AL, but because of the dreadful, anemic, monumentally inept offense they put on the field, Seattle won just 61 games.

The Boston Red Sox missed the postseason this year for the first time since 2006, after injuries to key players like Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Josh Beckett derailed their chances at a good season.

But despite plugging up their lineup with an assortment of minor league veterans (Darnell McDonald, Eric Patterson) and rookies (Daniel Nava, Ryan Kalish), the Red Sox still managed 89 wins.

Not good enough for Red Sox Nation.

The 2011 season is finally over for the Boston Red Sox.

The upcoming months should provide a lot of intrigue.

A number of current Red Sox could be hitting the free-agent market: David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, and Bill Hall if their respective options aren't exercised. Also, the bullpen woes must be addressed. 

The Boston Red Sox are for all intents and purposes finished with their 2010 season. It has been a long and tough campaign which saw them virtually eliminated by their own inability to stay on the field.

Too many key injuries will derail any team let alone a team faced with a game of musical chairs with Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees.

The Red Sox still retain a solid core of players and with the chance that Tampa Bay may not be able to afford some its talent with expiring contracts, those Red Sox fans already moving onto the 2011 season have a few reasons to smile.

Throughout the 2010 season, the Boston Red Sox have been on the cusp of making  the playoffs. With Dustin Pedroia hitting the disabled list for the second time this season, it appears that it's finally time to throw in the towel. This team could still make the playoffs and Dustin Pedroia could be back by the end of September, but realistically, this is likely the end of the road.

It's just been a horrible year full of growing pains for the Red Sox. They lack an identity and they're not the team that we thought they were.

Due to the financial disarray created by the McCourt divorce, Russell Martin may be growing too expensive for the Los Angeles Dodgers to retain beyond this season, and the Boston Red Sox could try to "make a run" at the All-Star catcher, according to NESN analyst Peter Gammons.

While the Dodgers have indicated they are willing to spend at this year's trade deadline, their sincerity and ability must be questioned due to the financial gridlock caused by ownership's protracted divorce proceedings.