It was a curious week for the Boston Red Sox, even if the biggest news to trickle out of Fenway Park was an announcement regarding bullpen walls.

Down south, a division rival appeared content to reassemble the Sox, circa 2004—Tampa's offer to Mark Bellhorn has yet to be confirmed, by the way—while in New York, the general manager publicly panned the team's most significant offseason maneuver.

The 2010 season for the Boston Red Sox was riddled with injuries and inconsistency. The club struggled to an 89-73 record and a third place finish in the competitive American League East. 

The Sox front office looked to revamp their rosters, and create a buzz around Boston, with an offseason spending spree. With the additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford the Red Sox will enter 2011 with the highest payroll in all of Major League Baseball.

Offseason transactions through the history of baseball has often caused a hype for a team's favor before the season even starts.

Sometimes this hype over a team is created by these transactions, and sometimes this hype can come just from the team's performance the year before. Sometime it is the combination of both these factors that lead to a mania in favor of one team winning the World Series. We have seen that beginning this year with the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies who acquired Cliff Lee this offseason.

Just as often as I admit I was right about a prediction or something I wrote about, I admit when I was wrong about something. And I have to admit, I was dead wrong about C.J. Wilson last season.

This offseason, the Mets have seemingly been acquiring potential options to be their everyday second baseman, from selecting Brad Emaus in the Rule 5 Draft to trading Michael Antonini to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Chin-lung Hu. 

It’s a wide-open competition, so let’s take a look at all the options the Mets have and handicap who fantasy owners should want to see:

Luis Castillo

Fantasy owners continue to wait for Billy Butler to develop power.  After hitting 21 HR in 2009 (along with 51 doubles) there was hope that he had turned the corner.  There was hope that he was on the precipice of becoming one of the elite first baseman in the game.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.  In fact, it wasn’t even close.  The 2010 season, while solid in many ways, fell well short of expectations:

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

Despite the fact that pitchers and catchers report in less than a month, there is still plenty developing and remaining to be decided for a number of teams across Major League Baseball.

Players are still out there looking for jobs, and general managers are still trying to fill in holes via a key free agent signing or trade. 

This week saw some big names catching on with new teams, so now is as good a time as ever to take a step back and try to rank some offseason winners and losers based on the moves they did or didn't make during the Hot Stove season.

There are rumors swirling around the Baltimore Orioles this weekend that there is an imminent deal involving them and free-agent designated hitter Vladimir Guerrero.  Vlad is a solid hitter when he is healthy, but he is about to turn 36 years old and would be the opposite of the direction these Orioles are going in terms of age.  Not to mention, they already have Luke Scott at DH and a crowded outfield situation, so unless they plan to trade Luke Scott there really isn't a place on the roster for him.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are planning to start Jay Gibbons and Marcus Thames in left field to open the 2011 season. 

No, that’s not a typo. 

It is the same Jay Gibbons who was out of the league in 2008 and 2009 only to resurface in Los Angeles in 2010 and hit .280 with five HR in 75 AB.  It is the same Marcus Thames who has never had more than 348 AB in a season and is a career .248 hitter.