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Baseball’s offseason hot stove continues to heat up as MLB’s annual winter meetings in Orlando, Florida roll right along.

As always, super agent Scott Boras has landed some monstrous deals for his clients, with outfielders Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford each garnering seven-year deals worth well over $100 million.

And with former Cy Young winner Cliff Lee yet to sign on with a club (i.e. the Yankees), Boras’ busy winter is far from over.

Of course, Boras isn’t the only agent with clients on the move. He just so happens to be the most powerful.

Either way, there’s still plenty of action yet to take place and plenty of mega-millions yet to be wasted…errr…spent before the start of spring training. In that spirit, let’s have a look at the biggest deals of the offseason so far and the most intriguing ones yet to be made.

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Since signing Carl Crawford to a seven-year deal worth $142 million, last the Boston Red Sox have been the talk of the town. This massive signing comes on the heels of yet another blockbuster deal – one that sent Adrian Gonzalez to Boston in exchange for a trio of top prospects. 

The addition of these two all-star players to an offense that ranked second in runs last season makes Boston one of the top offenses in baseball. But are they the best?

Here we take the time to examine all 30 line-ups based on opening day projections. Although it is impossible to compare an NL team to their AL counterpart, please enjoy this list of the MLB’s top offensive line-ups.

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Like so many years past, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim began the offseason with a hole in their roster and a high-profile player in line to fill it.

And like every other year, they came up short.

Carl Crawford agreed to a seven-year, $142 million contract with the Boston Red Sox this week, marking the sixth time in as many years that the Angels failed to acquire their primary offseason target.

Last year, Angels fans witnessed an epic collapse when the team failed to re-sign John Lackey and successfully trade for Roy Halladay, a deal in which the Angels were considered the front-runners to complete.

While Lackey’s usually stellar numbers dropped off in Boston, Halladay cruised to his second Cy Young Award and helped lead the Philadelphia Phillies into the playoffs.

In 2008, the Angels made Mark Teixeira a sizable offer, but angrily yanked it back when it became apparent they would have to enter a bidding war with the Red Sox and New York Yankees. Tex eventually went to New York where he won his first World Series championship.

I’m sure the Angels had a nice view of him lifting the trophy from their moral high ground.

That same year, C.C. Sabathia was also on Anaheim’s wish list, but they again lost him to New York after placing a foolish 24-hour deadline on their offer.

Before that, the Yankees outbid the Angels for another superstar infielder, inking Alex Rodriguez to a new 10-year deal. A-Rod continues to get booed in Anaheim for his decision, even though he was never close to making the trip out West.

Of course, New York isn’t the only city to beat the the Angels off the field as well as on it. Chicago teams have also swiped superstars out from under Anaheim, with Paul Konerko returning to the White Sox five years ago and Aramis Ramirez re-upping with the Cubs.

That’s six—count’em, six—players the Angels made a high priority and failed to sign. Absolutely pathetic, and there is no indication that this will be the end of the pattern.

Which target will they not sign in the future? First basemen Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder could both hit the market after next season. Maybe the Angels will excite fans with those names before crushing their hopes and dreams yet again.

What of Jered Weaver? The major league strikeout champ will be a free agent in two years, and agent Scott Boras isn’t likely to negotiate an extension. He prefers his star clients to test the free agent market while he drives up the asking price to ridiculous proportions, which often rules out teams like the Angels.

If it comes down to it, would Reagins and owner Arte Moreno be willing to compete for his services? Recent history says no.

The last offseason to see Anaheim successfully woo a good player came in 2007 when Torii Hunter reportedly agreed to a five-year, $90 million deal at a local Del Taco.

But to find the last great player, the last true superstar to don a Halo, you have to look back seven years when the Angels locked up both slugger Vladimir Guerrero and ace Bartolo Colon.

Despite never making a World Series appearance, the pair helped transform the Angels into a consistent threat in the American League. In 2004, Big Daddy Vladdy won the AL MVP; the following year, Colon earned his first Cy Young award.

Those were the good old days.

Now fans are just as likely to see their club refuse to do what it takes to bring in the talent they need to win again. Perhaps even more disturbing, in failing to reach the stars they seek, they also overlook other talented role players.

In 2010 alone, they’ve missed out on catcher/first baseman/DH Victor Martinez; infielders Ty Wigginton, Juan Uribe, and Adrian Gonzalez; and pitcher Jorge de la Rosa. All were available, and all were snatched off the market while the Angels fought against history and the AL East to land that one big fish.

This is becoming a disturbing trend. The Halos are quickly sliding down toward that tier of inconsequential clubs that make a bunch of non-impact moves.

Like the Baltimore Orioles trading for J.J. Hardy or the Kansas City Royals signing Melky Cabrera, the Angels are left with ho-hum deals that excite no one and change nothing about their current standing. The kind of deals you skim past while reading up on the day’s transactions.

Alberto Callaspo was one of those moves, a trade deadline acquisition last season that neither benefited the Angels nor the Royals; it was merely a shuffling of the Titanic’s deck chairs.

After losing out on Crawford, the Angels are expected to turn their attention to Adrian Beltre, the only high-profile free agent left even though he is a player with two good seasons and a whole host of bad ones to his name.

Boras, Beltre’s agent, is sure to demand a salary similar to the one he got from the Seattle Mariners six years ago in the hope the teams will forget he wasn’t worth the paper that contract was printed on during his tenure in Washington.

In a spacious ballpark like Anaheim, away from the hitter’s delight of Fenway Park, Beltre will doubtlessly underperform again.

Crawford, meanwhile, is not just the next stop in a continuing history of failure for the Angels, he’s also the next for fans to boo vociferously. But maybe fans should aim those boos at the sky box that houses Tony Reagins, the man who is as reluctant to sign highly valued free agents as he is to talk about them in the media.

He is, after all, a graduate of the Bill Stoneman “Take Phone Calls and Sit on Your Hands” school of business management.

Yes, Reagins has a had a couple of good pickups over the years. But he is also directly responsible for at least three of above-mentioned blown deals. He was only given a free pass on the Teixeira mishap because of the rise of Kendry Morales, not that the Angels brass had any idea he’d be this good.

The fact that they offered Tex an eight-year, $160 million deal tells you all you need to know about what they though of Morales’s future at first base.

At this point, the most anyone can say for Reagins is that there are still four months to go before Opening Day. The Angels’ fallback targets are few and far between, though, and it will take a lot of work to buck the trend of history this time.

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Carl Crawford, the best-ever Tampa Bay Ray is gone. He’s now with the Boston Red Sox.

The Rays will never need a team cardiologist. Boston has the Rays’ heart.

The Rays won’t need a team chaplain. Boston has the Rays’ soul.

To put it in the easiest terms, Carl Crawford was simply the heart and soul of the Tampa Bay Rays. He was their all-time best: best player, best teammate, best guy with the fans.

Tampa Bay’s loss is Boston’s gain.

They’ll love him in Fenway Park. He’ll hit for power and average. He’ll light it up with singles, doubles, triples, whatever is needed. Gold Glover, Silver Batsman. Base stealer extraordinaire.

The bad news is he’ll help beat his old team. The good news is he’ll help beat the Yankees.

While Crawford was getting a free dinner out of Yankee General Manger Brian Cashman on Tuesday night, Theo Epstein was working out the details of Crawford’s seven-year, $142 million deal. Yow-zer!

While the Yankees push all their chips to the middle of the table in the Cliff Lee poker tournament, the Red Sox added a great guy and super teammate, someone the fans can wrap their arms around and welcome with a smile.

Crawford is that kind of guy. He’s paid his dues. He toiled in the early futile years of his career on a Rays team that was simply dreadful with an awful owner named Vince Namoli. At least in the end he enjoyed success with the Rays, with two AL East titles and a World Series appearance.

Terry Francona called Crawford “a game changer.” He is that and more. He can be a one-man wrecking machine and a terror on the bases. He’s a worker and expects his teammates to be the same way.

Throw him in with Jacoby Ellsbury, newly-acquired Adrian Gonzalez, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and Big Pappi and you’ve got yourself some serious bats and talent, something to make the Yankees take notice.

Which means Cashman’s all-in on Cliff Lee and perhaps then some.

Doesn’t matter.

The Red Sox have some real heart and soul, straight from the Tampa Bay Rays.

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Petco Park will no longer restrain Adrian Gonzalez from becoming a fantasy monster.

You can just picture him ripping the chains away from Petco Park in a surge of glory. He is free at last.

It has long been the hope of those who owned Gonzalez in a keeper league for him to be dealt to another team. Almost any team. Even in non-keeper leagues, people have been waiting for him to be dealt just to see how he will produce.

Despite the fact that his home park has held him back, Gonzalez has still managed to produce Top 30 numbers.

It’s not just Petco, either. He has been the centerpiece of a very weak lineup since arriving in San Diego. Because of this, Gonzalez rarely saw anything worthy of hitting and he was often pitched around.

Opposing managers won’t have the same luxury of pitching around him in a loaded Red Sox lineup. He could very well be in for a career year.

In 2009, Gonzalez finished the year with 40 homeruns and a .277 batting average. He hit twenty-eight of his 40 homeruns on the road. His batting average away from Petco was .306 and he finished the season with more walks (119) than strikeouts (109).

The splits between home and away tell the story.

So how much better can a career .284 hitter get?

It’s easy to get carried away making gaudy projections for a guy like Gonzalez.

Gonzalez will play pepper with the Green Monster and rack up doubles. The short porch in right field (302″ down the line) is a slugging left hander’s dream and it could increase his homerun totals. He’s not a dead pull hitter, but 22% of balls in play to the outfield go to right field, according to Inside Edge.

He was already an RBI machine in San Diego, averaging 104.8 RBI the past four seasons in a mediocre lineup. His RBI totals could approach the 140-150 range with the Red Sox.

We’re talking about a potential MVP candidate for 2011. Gonzalez flies under the radar in San Diego, but his keen batting eye and mighty bat should almost certainly make him worthy of a first round selection.

How high do you draft him?

Last season, Gonzalez had an average draft position of 29.1 in ESPN leagues. That placed him as a late second-early third round choice at first base.

Notable first basemen who were selected ahead of him were Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Howard, Mark Teixeira and Prince Fielder. Gonzalez was the sixth first baseman off the draft board in an average draft.

I rate Gonzalez as the third best 1st baseman now—even ahead of Joey Votto. It’s close, though.

I would have no problems drafting Gonzalez late first-early second, even with first base being a deep position. He’s going to produce—there’s no question about that.

What Does This Mean for the Rest of the Red Sox Lineup?

The Red Sox lineup was already quite beneficial to the fantasy game, but it has quickly turned into a gold mine with the recent signing of Carl Crawford. 

It remains to be seen if the Red Sox will keep Jacoby Ellsbury around, but Crawford will certainly hit near the top of the lineup and score a ton of runs.

Dustin Pedroia will also reap the benefits of hitting at the top of the lineup as well. He has yet to top a .300 average since his first two full seasons in the majors, but I can certainly see him going over .300 in this lineup—so long as he stays healthy.

I think the biggest beneficiary of the Gonzalez trade will be Kevin Youkilis. He will gain third base eligibility early in the season and that will give him a spike in value. He’ll be a nice option to consider on draft day, especially given the possibility of a discount due to his injury shortened 2009 season. What’s not to like about .300-25-95-90 from a third baseman?

The 2011 Boston Red Sox lineup will be a fearsome foe, of which I daresay cannot be matched.

2011 Forecast for Adrian Gonzalez: .310 / 40 HR / 125 RBI / 100 R

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment box below. You can e-mail me suggestions or questions at jtmcadams@aol.com. Follow me on Twitter @JoeSportswriter.

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It begins already.

As soon as the Boston Red Sox signed Carl Crawford to an absurd seven-year, $142 million contract, ESPN delegated the team as a “bunch of grinders.”

Grinders don’t make $142 million.

Grinders don’t make $68 million like Josh Beckett or $82.5 million like John Lackey, $70 million like J.D. Drew, $62.5 million like David Ortiz, $41.1 million like Kevin Youkilis, $52 million like Daisuke Matsuzaka or $40.5 million like Dustin Pedroia.

A team of grinders is not worth $165 million.

Stop trying to paint the Red Sox as some sort of winning with a small market team like the Tampa Bay Rays, the Minnesota Twins or the Oakland Athletics, so that fans of the other 29 teams won’t hate them as much.

They are not.

Granted, I will give Theo Epstein the benefit that he spends money on the right players with a mixture of home-grown players and trades for prospects far more than the New York Yankees, who simply overpay the biggest name on free agency, no matter who it is or what their history.

Or in this year’s case, the Yankees overpay old way past their prime guys rather than focus on what’s good for the team.

Although, some times the best name on free agency fits that description, so it wouldn’t be the first time the Yankees have done that.

Epstein is arguably the best GM in baseball, but don’t act as though he has nothing to work with. He is basically Billy Beane with $100 million more.

Since 1999, the Red Sox have been in the top five in payroll every year except 2003 when the team was sixth, including second-place finishes in 2001, 2002, 2004 (yes, that team of “grinder idiots” got paid), 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 and soon to be 2011.

So please, don’t paint this it’s us against the world picture or that rooting for the Red Sox is like cheering for the middle class.

Red Sox, you are just as bad as the New York Yankees, but just a tad smarter. Although, looking at those contracts for Lackey and Dice-K may say different.

And no, this isn’t “Red Sox hate”, but rather a plea to stop trying to get other fans to root for the Red Sox and hate the Yankees, when they both have a monopoly over baseball.

Here’s to an Oakland Athletics versus Pittsburgh Pirates World Series for those of whom want to cheer for the real little guy.

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Carl Crawford has agreed to a seven-year, $142 million deal with the Boston Red Sox. But what does that mean for Boston’s AL East rival, the New York Yankees?

Well if nothing else, we now know the Red Sox have big league money and are willing to spend it.

Just last weekend, Boston traded for San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez. The first baseman is expected to get a deal worth an estimated $154 million over seven-years.

No doubt now the Yankees are pressing to sign Cliff Lee and make a splash of their own this offseason.

After all, the Red Sox are on the verge of becoming the Miami Heat of the 2011 MLB season.

New York has a stellar team, there is little doubt. But can they really afford to sit back and watch the Red Sox reel in all the available talent?

Is the Yankee pitching staff good enough to carry them past Boston’s newly acquired sluggers in a seven game ALCS?

No one can answer these questions with a confident and definitive “yes.”

Thus making it essential to the Yankees’ future success that they sign Cliff Lee before someone else does.

Lee would solidify New York’s starting rotation and make them the odds on favorite to win the AL East in many minds.

The Yankees have six-year contract, which they increased to seven years following the Crawford signing, worth between $140-150 million on the table for Lee, but will he bite?

No one knows for sure yet. Lee likes living in Arkansas and maybe he doesn’t need another Escalade. Either way we will find out shortly.

But perhaps more intimidating than who they Red Sox signed, is how they signed them. Boston’s total disregard for it’s bank account has to be somewhat frightening to the Yankees’ front office.

Boston has laid out all the chips in order to win and now it’s New York’s turn to make a move.

Patrick Clarke is a student at Towson University and a writing intern for Bleacher Report.

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The MLB winter meetings have a lot of fans glued to their technology of choice. Twitter, ESPN, XM Radio, the Internet in general are all being utilized to absorb every nugget of info on the dealings going on in Orlando. 

So, lying in bed last night, with my headphones on pumping MLB Network Radio into my ears and my smart phone in my hand to comb tweets, I was made aware of the Red Sox stunning signing of Carl Crawford almost as soon as it happened. 

The next thing I was aware of was that if there was a trophy for winter meeting dealings, the Sox would have it on a truck to Boston by sun-up. 

Sleep would not come easily.

Even though the Yankees are about to sign Cliff Lee (after breaking their own promise to stay at six years or less by offering a seventh in response to the Crawford signing), the Red Sox have blown away the league with their two gigantic acquisitions of Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez.

A change in the years offered to Cliff Lee may come with an increase in the dollars, but that has not been mentioned so far. 

Assuming Lee signs with the Yankees, he could conceivably be the highest paid number two rotation guy in the history of the sport—assuming that the Yanks do the smart thing and keep the incumbent CC Sabathia in the ace spot. 

With a contract length of seven years, Cliff Lee will turn 39 in his last season.  While it is certainly possible that he’ll still be a good starter by the time the contract nears its end, the likelihood that he will still be worth the $23 million plus that he’ll be getting is extremely small.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, assuming the seven year extension that has been mentioned to be in the works for A-Gon, would have him under contract until 2018 and Crawford until 2017, meaning that each would turn 36 in the last year of their respective deals.

The Yankees have pushed Lee’s offer to seven years in part to deal with the he two Red Sox acquisitions, who also happen to have a history of faring well against Cliff Lee. In ten at-bats, Gonzalez is hitting in impressive .700 with an OPS of 2.00. Crawford posts only a .222 career, but almost half of his at-bats Lee were in 2010 where otherwise he has a .364 average and a .909 OPS.

Some more statistical info:  Cliff Lee, since 2008, posts an average 3.5 WAR (wins above replacement player).  For the same time period, Crawford posts a 3.83 WAR and Gonzalez comes in with a 5.4 WAR.

Combine this with the idea that Lee (like most hurlers) is a bit less proficient in Fenway and Yankee Stadium and that Crawford and Gonzalez will, by most expert opinions, thrive in both of those southpaw friendly parks, the balance of power in the AL East has shifted toward Bean Town—at least on paper.

Reports say that there is a deal in principal with Gonzalez for a seven year extension worth about $154 million.  There has been some conjecture that the Crawford signing might affect that plan, but it has also been reported that both Gonzalez and Boston have expressed great interest in making the relationship last.

Assuming that New York makes the playoffs, which is a safe bet, their having picked up Lee will be of more benefit.  Lee’s performance in the post season has been markedly better than in the regular season—almost a full two runs lower in terms of ERA.

Rumors abounded that the Yankees back-up plan was to scoop up Crawford in the event they lost the Lee sweepstakes.  Now that this “plan B” is gone, it is wonder that they have stepped up the offer to the left-hander.

Also left in the cold by the Red Sox late Wednesday move are the Anaheim Angels.  They had been considered the front runner to get Crawford.  With both he and Jason Werth signed, the Angels will now have to settle for some player that most consider a step or two down from Crawford—Adrian Beltre’s name has been mentioned.

It has been a good few days for Boston fans who had been sharpening pitchforks and lighting torches, ready to storm down Yawkey Way during Sunday evening’s hiccup in the Gonzalez negotiations.  They are now ready to nominate  Sox GM Theo Epstien for Man of the Year.

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Free agent Carl Crawford signed a monster deal yesterday with the Boston Red Sox.

Crawford signed a seven-year, $142 million deal, a huge move for Boston who recently traded for first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.

With Crawford off the market, who will be the next big name free agent to sign?

Jon Heyman of SI.com is reporting that the New York Yankees have offered starter Cliff Lee a seven-year deal. The Yankees originally had a six-year deal worth roughly $140 million.

After the seven-year deals Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford received, teams do not have much of a choice but to offer Lee the same type of deal.

Lee has been on the Yankees radar since the midpoint in the regular season and they are not about to let their top priority get away from them, especially since the Red Sox locked up Carl Crawford.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has reported that Lee will sign with a team by Sunday.

Also around the league, the Baltimore Orioles are working on a trade for shortstop J.J. Hardy, and the Milwaukee Brewers are trying to improve their pitching staff by signing Carl Pavano.

The two sides have yet to reach an agreement as the Brewers do not want to sign Pavano past two years.

Also in the National League, the Chicago Cubs have reportedly contacted the Tampa Bay Rays about pitcher Matt Garza, according to ESPN Chicago.

There are plenty of big moves being made and still some big names available. Expect a few signings and trades over the weekend.

Source: Jon Heyman on Twitter, ESPN Chicago, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports

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In the wake of Red Sox GM Theo Epstein channeling his inner Daniel Snyder and finally winning an off-season I find it interesting how investing somewhere around $300 million in your offense can make your fans forget what the real problem was last year-pitching and defense.  

While it’s exciting to see the likes of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez being brought to Boston—two players I’ve personally speculated for the last two seasons about seeing here-their presence does nothing to solve the real problems of last season-pitching.

Following the addition of John Lackey last off-season, creating what was supposed to be one of the strongest 1-2-3 punches in the league in terms of starting pitching, the Red Sox saw a decline from the prior season in the following statistical categories: Runs and runs allowed per game, complete games, shutouts, walks issued, and strikeouts.  To be fair another category also increased from ’09 to ’10; errors, which increased by 45 over the season before last.

What’s truly scary about the addition of Gonzalez and Crawford is the perception that offense was the problem in Boston last season, when in fact not much could be further from the truth. In the AL last season the Red Sox ranked second in runs scored, home runs, and RBI’s, trailing only the Yankees in runs and RBI’s and the Blue Jays in home runs.

While the best hope for a return to glory might seem to be hoping that John Lackey improves upon the third lowest ERA he’s ever posted (4.44), or that Josh Beckett can get away from posting the lowest strikeout total in a season since 2002 when he was 22 and only won 6 games for the Marlins, adding players of the caliber of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford that can help all over the field-and not just in the batter’s box-certainly can’t hurt.  

Of course neither can replacing Adrian Beltre and his team’s second worst 19 errors essentially with Gonzalez -who has posted double digits in errors in a season only once-probably won’t hurt either as the defensive prowess Beltre was supposed to bring to Boston never really materialized.

At the end of the day I think I speak for all Boston fans when I say: Welcome to Boston Carl and Adrian, it’s great to have you here.  Just so long as those same Boston fans don’t forget where our actual problems were last year…

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