Kuzul

The Chicago White Sox, at this point, is like the friend begging for a slice of a pizza he did not pay for. Basically, they are out of money or over budget or in need of a bailout or some kind of term involving spending too much or not having enough money.

Then again, everyone thought that was the case before the Sox signed middle reliever Jesse Crain to a three-year, $13 million deal.

OK, after that deal the Sox are officially done, right? The team is already near a franchise-record payroll, sitting close to $120 million with $121 million in 2008 being the record.

Rumors have begun to surface that the Sox may still be in the hunt for free agent closer Rafael Soriano, who is rumored to enjoy the idea of playing for Ozzie Guillen.

Sidenote: Sox fans seem to forget, although Guillen brings a lot of extra baggage (his son, Oney, puts the “twit” in Twitter) with his antics, a lot of players seem to be enticed to come to the team to play for him.

Although some abnormally large players, who shall remain nameless, seem to enjoy leaving on a ridiculous note, complaining about having to compete for a role they were terrible in the year before. We’ll call this player Bobby J. No, better yet, let’s call him B. Jenks.

But back to business, rather than talking about two people who are not even part of the Sox organization arguing back and forth in the manliest of fashions, via a microphone and a Twitter account.

The Sox would certainly go over the team’s record payroll, if they were to sign Soriano. Soriano made $7.25 million last year and even though the market for the 31-year-old closer has been quiet, one has to think Soriano is looking for a multi-year deal.

After 45 saves, a 1.73 ERA, 57 strikeouts in 62.1 innings last season with the Tampa Bay Rays and 27 saves, a 2.97 ERA, and 102 strikeouts in 75.2 innings with the Atlanta Braves in 2009, wouldn’t you?

If the Sox did want to swoop in and steal Soriano from the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels and the Baltimore Orioles, they should do so quickly. As soon as Brian Fuentes gets his multi-year deal, worth probably five million per year, Soriano’s demand will skyrocket. After all, Soriano had a better season last year than Fuentes and he is the only Type A closer on the market.

Soriano would most likely step right into the closer role for the Sox with Matt Thornton, Sergio Santos and Crain filling out the bullpen, leaving the option of moving Chris Sale to the fifth starter spot if Jake Peavy’s return takes longer than expected.

But there’s no way the Sox can afford Soriano…can they?

Like the friend who doesn’t order anything and waits for the scraps, the Sox could be asking the American League East, “Are you finished with that?”

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It’s been an eerily quiet offseason for most clubs.

While teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers have all been among the most active thus far, most have remained rather inactive in the early part of the free agent season.

With so many long-term contracts in the past that have proven to be a burden to clubs down the road, general managers aren’t spending lavishly like in previous times.

It’s a bad time to be a remaining free agent, because the amount of money left to spend is shrinking by the day. 

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While most of the winter’s biggest prizes have been snatched up (Cliff Lee and Carl Crawford to name a couple) and delivered as early Christmas presents to franchises, there still remains a solid group of free agents who can impact the upcoming season for many prospective teams. In the spirit of the New Year, let’s countdown from the Type Bs to Type As remaining on the Free Agent landscape and where they will land in 2011:

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I have mentioned this a few times already, but he is worth the attention again.
 
Rafael Soriano is still a free agent, available and on the market. Whatever it is shocking considering he was the AL’s dominate closer in 2010 with the Tampa Bay Rays.
 
Even before Cliff Lee’s decision, Soriano as a player would have been more than enough for the New York Yankees to walk away with heads high.
 
Soriano was the best closer in the AL in 2010, leading the league with 45 saves, posting a 1.73 ERA, striking out 57 in just shy of 63 innings. Soriano was named to the 2010 All-Star team, won the 2010 AL Rolaids Relief Man Award, finished eighth in CY Young and 12th in MVP voting respectively.
 
Soriano will cost his new team two-draft picks as he falls into the Type A free agent category.
 
Yes, he will not come cheap especially considering his agent is Scott Boras, but it would be money well spent.
 
Boras makes any team pay no matter what, but the greediest agent has some tainted history with the Yankees, which might drive the price up some.
 
Look it is no secret the Bombers are a tad desperate, whether GM Brian Cashman and the little Steinbrenner’s care to admit it, fans know it, the players know it and Boras knows it.
 
Soriano’s role would change, as he would set-up to the great Rivera. Soriano was in the bullpen for the majority of his early pro-years.
 
He just turned 31 years old, and giving a pitcher of Soriano’s stature three years with a fourth year option is not a bad idea.
 
Soriano is in his prime and would make Mo’s departure at least less stressful, as it will already be beyond sad and something I can’t even think about (tears).
 
Look, Soriano will make the New York Yankees better and isn’t that the point?
 
Cashman and co. better make sure our rival Red Sox’s or player favorite Phillies don’t acquire Soriano or get ready for some big trouble in the Bronx.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The latest MLB rumors on Adrian Beltre, Rafael Soriano and Derrek Lee are here, and Bleacher Report has the inside track on where these players may be headed, for how many years and for how much. 

Beltre leads the class of remaining free agents, and although there are only a few teams reportedly in the sweepstakes, there may be a few dark-horse candidates that no one else is talking about.

As for Soriano, he represents the best remaining relief pitcher on the free-agent market, yet his name hasn’t appeared in many Hot Stove reports. While pitchers like Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler have found new homes, Soriano remains available.

Derrek Lee talks have heated up over the last week or so, and it appears he may be the closest to signing with a new team. 

All these discussions, speculations, predictions and more are in the latest addition of MLB Rumors.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Many of the big names in MLB free agency have already signed with teams, and as widely reported, the Yankees haven’t had their usual success.

A few names still float out there.  Mostly aging or battered pieces, but there is still intrigue with some of them.

Should the Yankees give Manny Ramirez and Rafael Soriano a look?  Some evidence suggests that maybe it could work out, but a lot of it points in the other direction.

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Brian Cashman and the entire Yankees organization are still hiding under the covers. It’s been a rough offseason for New York; not necessarily because they missed out on talent, but because the organization was continually embarrassed.

It started, of course, with Cliff Lee. After we were led to believe that Lee would be a Yankee without any kind of disturbance, the Phillies walked in and lit the Yankees desires on fire. No big deal, everyone said, the Yankees just didn’t want to spend that kind of money. That’s fine, but maybe we should have heard that earlier.

Derek Jeter also earned a spot on this list as well. As if it wasn’t ridiculous enough for Jeter ask for five or six years, his agent decided to take it to the next level and call the Yankees actions “baffling.” The Yankees won that battle without ever shedding a drop of sweat, but an embarrassing result for Jeter is an embarrassing result for the Yankees

Then, to add insult to injury, Kerry Wood decided to sign with the Cubs for a fourth of the money he could have made with the Yankees. I want to be a Cub for life, he said. Don’t ask me what’s going through his mind.

The Red Sox also did a small number on the Evil Empire. In an attempt to swarm the tabloids of the baseball world, Theo Epstein decided to take a shot at signing Mariano Rivera. Although Rivera swept it off with virtually no thought, the last thing the Yankees needed was to be on the wrong side of a joke.

To top it off, another small Yankee dream was diminished. The Yankees missed out on Zack Greinke, mostly because they didn’t want to give up their entire minor league system, but also because they were never too excited about bringing him to New York.

Here are the two ways to look at the Yankees’ 2010-11 offseason: (A), the cynical view, would be to say the Yankees two best additions are Russell Martin and Pedro Feliciano—not too inspiring; (B), the optimistic and realistic view, would be to say the Yankees will enter the 2011 season with the same team that won the 2009 World Series.

Ultimately, this offseason was hyped up beyond belief for the Yankees. But the problem was that the actual Yankees organization had different plans. Cashman would have loved to add Lee or Crawford, but evidently he wasn’t too eager to sign either of them; at least for the prices the market demanded.

However, that is not a reason to let this offseason slip away. A couple weeks ago, the Yankees were hit with their lowest luxury tax since 2003. Clearly something is missing. Not to say the Yankees should spend for the sake of spending, but there is still room to improve.

By now it is quite obvious that the Yankees are not going to improve their starting pitching. If, by some miracle, Prior can help this team, the Yankees will have a great pitching staff; but don’t count on it.

As it stands, the Yankees starting rotation is projected to have a higher WAR in 2011 than it did in 2010, so the Yankees can feel comfortable entering the season with C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes, Ivan Nova and a fifth starter of their choice. (The Yankees still await a verdict from Andy Pettitte.)

But with the remaining money the Yankees have left on the table, they can still make significant improvements to their bullpen.

If the Yankees want to take a risk, they can go with a young Chad Cordero or a much older Brian Fuentes. Both can be labeled as “very high risk, very high reward.”

If the Yankees want to make a big splash, they can strike a deal with the Royals for Joakim Soria. But after the Yankees listened to ridiculous offers for Greinke, it is unlikely that these two teams can work anything out this offseason.

Then, there is Rafael Soriano. The Yankees have been clear throughout that they do not want to spend the money he will demand. But if things get too close to the finish line, it wouldn’t hurt the Yankees to spend some of their extra cash on a guy who had 45 saves last season.

When I heard that the Yankees were having “internal conversations” about Manny Ramirez, it became evident that the Yankees just weren’t taking this offseason seriously. There are plenty of places to improve, and it’s time for Cashman to wipe away the tears and get something done.

Listen to Jess on What’s on Second: The Seamheads.com Radio Hour Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET. Follow him on Twitter @jesskcoleman or send him an e-mail at jess@jesskcoleman.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Heading into the offseason, the Yankees considered themselves favorites to land Cliff Lee, and the Rangers definitely thought they had a chance. The Angels though they could sign Carl Crawford, and several teams around the league believed they could bring in Zack Greinke.

With all three players off the market—Lee in Philly, Greinke in Milwaukee and Crawford in Boston—GM’s around baseball are scrambling to find that backup plan, fill their budgets and put a competitive team on the field heading into 2011.

Some backup moves work out. But when teams panic, things rarely go well.

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With Christmas just around the corner, and the Winter GM Meetings already a thing of the past, Major League Baseball’s Hot Stove league is well underway.

Going into this offseason, there was much talk about guys like Cliff Lee, the one true ace available, Jayson Werth, considered the best offensive threat on the market, and Carl Crawford, the superlative all-around threat coming off of arguably his best season.

Now, all of those names are spoken for with nine-figure contracts.  Lee has taken his talents back to Broad Street, Werth won’t get to reunite with Lee as he bolted for the Nationals, and Crawford will be fronting a revamped Red Sox lineup that will also feature Adrian Gonzalez, acquired in a trade with San Diego.

So where does that leave everyone else? 

There is still plenty of talent left out there, and a number of teams looking to fill holes going into 2011.  Well fear not, fearless reader!  In this feature, we count down the top ten remaining free agents, and predict where they might be headed.  So read on to make sense of the free agent landscape as it currently stands.

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MLB free agency is in full swing with a lot of the top free agents already off the board.

Teams that missed out on the best available will be scouring the open market, looking for an extra bat or arm to give their team a boost. While the pickings are fairly slim at this point, there are still a couple of big names out there that could make an impact.

Of the available free agents, which are the best ones available?

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