A busy winter?

There's a decided trend thus far in the early offseason. The Rays have traded Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates for a cost-controlled young reliever, despite a big talent gap between the two players. The Brewers traded their best trade chip, J.J. Hardy, to Minnesota for Carlos Gomez, a young player who's cost-controlled for one more year before hitting arbitration, rather than addressing their much more desperate need on the pitcher's mound. The Reds are now making rumblings about cutting back payroll in a dramatic enough manner that it might mean trading off Brandon Phillips. If teams are cutting back on payroll now, it's probably a sign to come for the free agent market. That means that some top-tier free agents may not be offered arbitration and some prices may fall to the point that free agents will have to start considering destinations that they might not normally be interested in. That means that if you're a small market club with a decent amount of money to ...