I don’t see them unloading Lowell WITHOUT paying $9M or $10M of his salary, but that’s a little less than they pay to have him not play in Boston.

Hermida? You have a somewhat brittle Drew and a 37 year old Cameron. Be surprised if he didn’t get 300+ PA’s. Huge upgrade over Baldelli. Varitek gets 35 or so starts at C. Hall and Lowrie are no great shakes, but nobody’s bench is. They can be adequate fill ins in small spurts as needed. If they lose one of their infielders for an extended period, they’ve got a little bit of an issue, but then again, so would the Yankees.

I’m just in shock over what they got for Edwin Jackson. He’s had one very good half season in his entire career and is making triple what Scherzer and Schlereth are making. To think that they essentially flipped Ryan Raburn for those two is amazing. Unless Scherzer’s arm actually falls off I can’t see this not being a big win for Detroit, and with a young rotation of Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer – my goodness, they are going to be a force for a while.

I don’t see how they’re going to unload Lowell before the season starts – and even if they do they are going to have to swallow at least 10 mil to do so (especially now that he’s failed his physical)

I like Hermida, but I don’t see when he is going to play. He’s left handed, just like Ellsbury and Drew and so the Sox aren’t going to use him in any sort of platoon, and they also aren’t going to platoon him with Cameron. Bill Hall has been awful the last few years, and I can’t believe Varitek is going to be the good solider all season while he sits – more to the point, I can’t see Tito sitting him all season.

My guess is that loyalty gets the best of Francona and we end up seeing a lot of Victor at 1b with Youk at 3rd and Varitek behind the plate.

1. Johnny Damon. We all know the reasons – could have had 2 years 20 mil, now will be lucky to get 1 year 5 mil. Also sharing this spot are Orlando Hudson, Orlando Cabrera, Jermaine Dye and Joel Pinero.

2. LA Angels. Lost their number one starter, starting 3b/leadoff hitter, and their top relief prospect to injury and have only added Matsui whom they are planning to play in the OF from time to time. This team has gotten very old in the outfield, and very young in the rotation. They have a weak pen and the Mariners have gotten much better. Not a great combination.

3. New York Mets. Signing Jason Bay was a plus, but they have not addressed their glaring need in the rotation, haven’t signed a catcher, lost thier best player before the season even starts to an injury that could keep him out until June, gotten into a controversy with that player, and still have both Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez under contract.

4. Washington Nationals. I like the signing of Marquis as a veteran leader on that team, but unless Jesus Flores has a broken knee and shoulder I don’t get the Pudge deal. He’s old, he’s not nearly the player he once was, and he’s not the catcher you want to have bringing along your young pitchers.

5. Texas Rangers. Trading Kevin Millwood was a good thing. Investing the money saved on Kevin Millwood in Rich Harden and Vladdy was not. Vlad’s going to hit, no doubt about it, but they are now a team that relies heavily on injury prone players. This was the year when the Angels were vulnerable, they should have gone after more sure things – the sale of the team does make it tough though.

6. Atlanta Braves. Instead of just bringing back Gonzalez and Soriano the Braves went to Wagner and Saito, older players who don’t have health on their side. They also went from Adam LaRoche to Troy Glaus, and surrendered their top draft pick to the Red Sox for Wagner. They also gave up their ace for a fourth outfielder, a prospect too far away to project and a relief pitcher who doesn’t throw enough strikes. Throw in the fact that for the second time they have been screwed by a player accepting arbitration (Soriano did it this year and they had to trade him for pennies on the dollar; Maddux did it once upon a time forcing them to trade Millwood) and this was not a good offseason for Atlanta. Oh yeah, and they are still overpaying Derek Lowe.

7. Teams trying to undo mistakes: Mike Lowell, Luis Castillo, Milton Bradley, Carlos Silva, Derek Lowe, Ollie Perez, Vernon Wells. All players that teams wanted to move to get their salaries off the books, some signed as recently as last year. The only ones to move were Bradley and Silva who were traded for each other. At some point teams will have to stop blaming the free agent system for not being able to compete and will start having to look at their own business practices.

8. Reds. I get the appeal of Aroldis Chapman, but in a winnable division you’re telling me that the Reds wouldn’t have been better off giving that money to guys who can contribute this year instead? And Scott Rolen’s a good guy and all, but giving him a contract extension to shave a couple of bucks off this year’s payroll is just nutty.

9. Boston Red Sox – they appear on both lists and not just because I don’t like Boston. They are better defensively then they were, no doubt. But Bay and Lowell out for Beltre and Cameron is a major hit offensively. Who knows what they’re going to get from Ortiz and Drew, they overpaid for Scutaro, they don’t have a great pen and were unable to unload Lowell or convince Varitek to decline his option and retire so now they are stuck paying the two of them a combined $15 mil to ride the bench.

10a. St. Louis – Getting Holliday’s supposed to be a good thing but there are a lot of negatives to the signing, now they have to figure out how to keep Pujols. They also blew their budget on Matt and could have spent that money on a number of players – they have no third baseman since both Glaus and DeRosa are gone, the rotation took a hit with the likely departure of Piniero, they are losing Ankiel as well and no money to fill any of those holes.

10b. San Francisco – a team in desperate need of offense and all they add are Mark DeRosa and Aubrey Huff? Really? Couldn’t have gone for Miguel Tejada, Johnny Damon, even Rick Ankiel here?

They signed a player with no other bidders, and upped their own offer (giving the largest contract in their club’s history) to sign Holliday. That’s not a high ranking offseason

Because free agency is 2 seasons away. The deal was supposedly 5 and $78M, which means the M’s bought out three years of FA. I’d be willing to bet the last three years of that deal are $20M each, which isn’t far off from what he’d see in the FA market. Some loyalty by Hernandez, but some security he can bank on too. Plus he’ll be able to enter free agency at basically the same age as Sabathia was when he did. That worked out reasonably well for him, no?

I’d argue that Hermida, Lowrie and Hall give them enough flexibility on their bench to start the year. Still think Lowell will be gone before opening day. Not really buying their offense took nearly the hit people believe either.

“9. Baltimore. They won’t make the playoffs but I like what they’ve done. They brought in a veteran (Millwood) to help bring along their young pitchers and also got themselves a good 3b in Atkins who is due to bounce back. At this point, I think they could be a sleeper to snag Damon if he wants to stay in the AL East. He would do well in that park and add some veteran leadership to their team.”

Wouldn’t necessarily say they had a good offseason, though the Millwood addition helps with the young pitchers like Matusz and Tillman. I just like the overall direction McPhail has been taking them since being there. So long as Angelos can stay out of the way, they stand to be a pretty good club, pretty soon.

Maybe they are just showing some loyality and if so that’s a great sign for the future of the sport.