On offense, the Rays are young but not as young as they used to be. Pena is 31 and next year Barltlett will be 30, Gross with be 30, Zobrist will be 29, and oh yeah Burrell will be 33. Not too old by any stretch, but not the spring chickens they once were.

As long as they have such high payrolls, the Yankees and Sox have to be the favorites. As was proven in 2008 they won't win every year but I can't see any reason not to pick them 1-2 next year and every year in the foreseeable future.

Boston and NY have nothing locked up. The Yankees have a lot of older players who could all decline too. Tampa Bay still has a nice group of players and more on the way. Baltimore has a bunch of hitters entering their primes; if their young pitchers should all manage success next season (unlikely), who knows? I can't even predict Toronto since they have about 37 pitchers on the DL and I'm not sure who's coming back and in what condition.

No argument on that point, although there is the chance that the Red Sox age catches up to them.

"I predict that during this off-season we'll see some better name free agents go to some smaller market teams and a little bit more balance then we've seen in the past."

I predict the opposite will happen. The worsening economy hurt the small and mid market teams much more than the big boys. I think we'll be seeing the Yankees-Sox yearly one-up-manship result in a bunch of 2nd tier guys getting 1st tier money. The smaller market teams will once again scavenge through what's left and offer 3rd tier guys 4th tier money.

"But because there aren't as many impact players available and all revenues are down, I think we might see teams like the Royals and Pirates dip into free agency and get some of the better players for smaller dollars."

Basically, here's how I see it. Every team needs players. The large market teams will battle amongst themselves for the best players available (no matter if they're great, good or average). The small market teams who can normally join into one of these bidding wars each year by offsetting the pay difference with the addition of years, have even less money to work with this time around. The fact that the free agent class is so weak means that everybody is going to get paid more than they're worth. There's even less of a chance of getting a steal this year. I foresee the parity gap growing.

You cite a lot of stats but they are cherry picked. In Nady's last full season (2008) he had an OPS+ of 128 in 148 games. With production like that, he could be a starting corner outfielder on many teams. Moreover, these decisions are not only stat-based.

"With Jed Hoyer, a former assistant GM in Boston, now running the show in San Diego, the trade of Gonzalez to Boston is as much of a lock as any possible trade"

Right, so the Red Sox will just ship 6 of their incredibly overrated pitching prospects plus Lars Anderson who has been exposed for Adrian Gonzalez. Ok, that's a lock.

They could trade for him, but there is no way it is a "lock." There's also no way they're dumping Ortiz. He showed enough life in the second half, plus it'd be bad for PR. I used to think the Red Sox simply didn't care about PR after running cornerstones like Nomar, Pedro, and Manny out of the city, but after the Varitek mess and continuing to run Ortiz out there when he was below replacement level has made me reconsider.

"In the case of Damon, the question will probably come down to whether Xavier Nady will be back in 2010, ready to take over in the outfield."

This is a joke, right? There's no way Nady is coming back. He probably wants to start or have the chance to start, and he frankly is not good enough to be starting on the Yankees.

LF for the Yankees is basically down to 3 options

1. Damon back for a year
2. Sign Holliday
3. Trade for a guy like Josh Willingham

If Nady comes back he'll be a bench guy. That's it.

"I would not be surprised to see Lidge bumped to middle relief and Myers (a free agent) back as the closer"

Myers. As in BRETT Myers? The guy Ruben Amaro told would not be back on the team in 2010, the guy who ha a 4.84 ERA, 6.14 FIP, and a -0.5 WAR? That's right, negative .5. No chance. If they do anything they'll grab some cheap relievers and make Madson or Lidge the closer.