Jim Thome

All eyes will be on Albert Pujols for the next few days until he reports to Spring Training.

If his self-imposed deadline for a new contract comes and goes without an extension being reached with the St. Louis Cardinals, he will rule the headlines for the duration of the season.

Everywhere the Cardinals go, the top questions asked will be, “Where do you see yourself playing next season?” and “is your contract status a distraction?”

In this day and age, everyone always mentions who has cheated the game of baseball rather than those who followed the rules.

Understandable as it might be, some of these tainted sluggers probably made others succumb to their lowliness by peer pressuring them into trying it.

Nowadays all we hear about are the users, and often times we do not recognize those who have never been mentioned in the steroid talks.

Since I put "cleanest" and "active" in the slideshow's title, you will obviously not see the likes of Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz or Miguel Tejeda.

When defining this offseason, I think we will define it as a player’s market. We have seen aces, pseudo aces, mediocre bullpen guys, and not quite superstars get paid like superstars.

It seems like everyone at every position has made out this offseason. Every position, that is, except DH.

With a renewed emphasis on speed and defense that has taken place over the past couple of seasons in baseball, DH’s are no longer getting the love they used to.

Jim Thome came to an agreement to return to the Minnesota Twins for another season, Friday. The slugger agreed to a one-year, $3 million contract which is double what he made in his first season with Minnesota.

Spring training is getting closer. Top players have switched teams and fans patiently wait for America's favorite past time to get started. 

There's a lot of buzz going on right now as some recent deals have occurred. Clubs are signing key players and some are losing them.

Let's take a look in to how these deals affect certain teams. As well as the latest rumors in the Major League Baseball world.

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After much speculation on whether or not the Minnesota Twins would bring back designated hitter Jim Thome for a second season, it appears that a resolution has finally been reached.

ESPN.com's Buster Olney is reporting that the Twins and Thome have agreed to terms on a one-year deal worth $3 million.

Before the 2010 season began, the Minnesota Twins took a conservative approach when signing Jim Thome to a one year $1.5 million contract. After all, it would be hard to conceive a scenario where a team would pay anywhere near the $13 million that Thome was paid in 2009.

Thome would outperform his contract by leaps and bounds in 2010 as the slugger batted .283, slugged .627 and hit 25 home runs while driving in 59 runs.

The Designated Hitter—home of the offensively talented and the defensively challenged players. By not having to play the field many players have been able to prolong, or even make, a career through offensive contributions alone. 

I thought I'd take a look at which players had the best decade in several key areas of the game. I don't really care who hit the most homers or had the highest batting average.

While those statistics are useful, they are talked about a bit too much at the expense of some others. So let's take a look at some other things.

Note: my decade doesn't include 2000.

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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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