Rafael Soriano

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.

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.

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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As the Derek Jeter contract negotiations degenerated into a very public he-said, she-said battle of egos, Mariano Rivera and his representation quietly went about the business of re-upping with the only team he has ever known.

The two sides soon agreed on a two-year, $30 million deal, the news made official via press release. Apparently, an awkward press conference where the player appeared to be wondering if he could choke his GM to death and get away with it was deemed unnecessary.

That man is smiling because Adrian Beltre is currently the "hottest" item left on the Major League Baseball winter stove now that Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, Jayson Werth, Victor Martinez and Adam Dunn have found greener pastures.

Or more luxurious estates with more elegantly manicured lawns amidst a community with higher gates.

You say potato, I say potato...

Ken Rosenthal has recently suggested that the New York Yankees take a run at free agent reliever Rafael Soriano.

After losing out on Cliff Lee, the Yankees have a lot of unused money laying around, and adding Soriano, along with Mariano Rivera would give them the best eighth-ninth inning punch.

What this essentially does for the Yankees is make the games shorter.

After Carl Crawford's surprise signing by the Boston Red Sox, MLB's free agent pool is slowly starting to dwindle down.

Cliff Lee is still out there for the New York Yankees' or Texas Rangers' taking, but there aren't a whole lot of other marquee names left.

As for free agent relievers, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim—not to be confused with all of the other Los Angeles residing in MLB—scooped up Scott Downs, the Philadelphia Phillies re-signed Jose Contreras, Joaquin Benoit went to the Detriot Tigers, and the Bronx Bombers kept Mariano Rivera.

With news that the Angels have signed free agent reliever Scott Downs, the Angels have been removed from the amazing Rafael Soriano race.

Now that the front-runners have ran off the track, which bullpen will the veteran closer join for the 2011 MLB season?

Here are 10 possible destinations for the rejuvenated Soriano.

MLB rumors continue to heat up the hot stove—or at least New York City—as we inch closer and closer to February.

And that magical date when pitchers and catchers report.

Around baseball, it's actually been a somewhat quiet offseason for player movement. No free agents of note have signed, with the exception of the reports that former Yankee Javier Vasquez will sign with Florida.

But not even the much-coveted Jayson Werth and Carl Crawford have been in the news as much as Derek Jeter's very public contract talks with the Yankees have been.

The 2010 ALDS was probably one that I will say I hadn't seen before for one reason alone. The home team didn't win a single game the entire series.

Texas took the first two games in Tampa and the Rays repaid them by taking two in Texas to bring the series back to their home stadium for game five. They still couldn't get it done as Texas took game five to move on to the ALCS.

It's widely known that the Rays' front office is planning on cutting payroll from this past year which means they will probably not re-sign a few of the free agents that are on their list.