Opinion

Late last night, news broke from Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports that longtime Baltimore Orioles second baseman and fan-favorite Brian Roberts was "likely" to sign a deal with the New York Yankees.

The old adage of "you win some, you lose some" sure rings true when it comes to the moves the Oakland Athletics have made so far this offseason. Assembling a bullpen of this caliber could be an A+ by itself. But the A's failed to fill crucial holes with big trade chips.

The starting rotation is young and talented.

Bartolo Colon was the lone veteran of the staff, but he became a free agent. Rather than look internally, the A's filled Colon's spot in the rotation with another free agent.

With the large amount of turnover the New York Yankees are experiencing this offseason, general manager Brian Cashman is continuing to piece together the 2014 version of the club.  As he does so, the batting order that skipper Joe Girardi writes down on his lineup card for Opening Day gradually becomes clearer.

At first glance the numbers seem preposterous; $400 million for a single player? 

Not even Alex Rodriguez's gaudy $275 million figure comes close. Not a single player in Major League Baseball history has ever even cracked the $300 million mark.

In fact, Rodriguez ranks both first and second when it comes to all-time record salaries. His previous 10-year, $250 million contract comes in second.

The Cleveland Indians came into the 2014 offseason with some glaring needs in the bullpen, starting rotation, on the bench and also at third base.

The team was able to remedy some of those needs by signing the likes of John Axford, Shaun Marcum, David Murphy and Jason Giambi among others.

The MLB rumor mill is still kicking as we head toward 2014.

Both the free-agent and trade markets still figure to be busy until the holidays and will pick back up again in January as teams try to round out their rosters for spring training.

Losing Robinson Cano was a big blow to the New York Yankees, not only because he is a great player, but because finding a quality second baseman on the open market is not easy. 

Let's pretend for a moment that each MLB team's offseason was evaluated in a way similar to that of a college football or basketball program. Free-agent signings and trade additions would be assigned a rating from 1-5 on the "star" scale, and the complete class of new additions would be graded from there.

Rather than assessing how well needs were filled or how much money was spent by each team, the focus would solely be on how much overall talent was added to the roster.

If the Hot Stove is your thing, it's been a fun offseason. Many of the premium free agents are off the board now, but the good news is several still remain. As you'll see in this piece, there's still a few big trade pieces who could further shake things up.

Matt Kemp, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers

At times, it seems as if the only way to score that major free-agent signing is to pay way more than the player's estimated value.

This is an obvious consequence of the nature of the open market. Teams bid against each other and the price rises as a consequence. It is not surprising that this happens, but it sometimes leads to players who are paid an awful lot more than they’re worth.