Boston Red Sox

Coming off a last-place finish last season, their third in the last four years, and armed with a new leader in the front office, next week’s winter meetings figured to be a playground for the money- and prospect-rich Boston Red Sox. 

David Price's path began in Tampa Bay, and it has since passed through Detroit and Toronto. Along the way, he's made five All-Star teams, won a Cy Young and has been generally awesome.

Managers love to talk about the flexibility of not having a full-time designated hitter. They can use the spot to give players rest, giving them in effect a half-day off. They can keep guys in the lineup when a minor injury may keep them from effectively playing in the field.

It's all true and it's all great, but there's a much better way to build an American League team:

Have a DH like David Ortiz.

Feliz cumpleanos, Big Papi.

The Boston Red Sox have already pulled off the biggest blockbuster trade of the still-young offseason. In so doing, they sacrificed quite a bit of their prospect depth and financial flexibility.

And yet, that might not have been the end of the Red Sox remaking themselves via blockbuster trades. That might have only been the beginning. 

Three-time World Series champion and Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz is  planning to retire from baseball after the 2016 season.

Ortiz confirmed his decision on Wednesday in a video for The Players' Tribune:

Given his history of wheeling and dealing, it was a matter of when, not if, Boston Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski would make his first big winter trade.

As it turns out, he didn't even wait for winter to officially begin.

Free agency is hogging most MLB headlines with players eligible to sign with teams as early as Friday, but there is still plenty of buzz on potential trades that could contribute to the personnel shifts among the baseball landscape.

Here is a glance at the latest names rumored on the trade market in the young offseason.

There's an old—and erroneous—cliche about the Chinese symbol for "crisis" being the same as the one for "opportunity."

In the case of the Boston Red Sox, truer words were never spoken.

Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell has been away from the team since Aug. 14 after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but terrific news trickled in Thursday when the organization announced his cancer is in remission.