Hot Stove Burns for 2010's Also-Rans

Think of the 2010 offseason as the Winter of the Also-Rans. If your team finished just out of the proverbial money this past season, chances are it shelled out some cash or cashed in on some prospects to try and make sure that doesn't happen again in 2011.

We know all about what the Red Sox have done so far this winter after finishing third in the AL East and six games behind the Yankees for the AL wild card with 89 wins. When Adrian Gonzalez's extension becomes official sometime in April, Boston will have traded four prospects and committed in excess of $300 million to remake a lineup that ranked second in the league in runs scored in 2010 and a bullpen that was a sore spot all season long. Their payroll, for now at least, looks like it will be higher than New York's.

But the Red Sox are hardly alone. They're merely the flashiest of the teams who spent big after finishing the year looking up in the standings.

In the AL Central, the Tigers splashed for a bat in Victor Martinez, spent what it took to keep Brandon Inge, Jhonny Peralta and Magglio Ordonez around and even splurged $16 million on Joaquin Benoit, a middle reliever. Their biggest losses: Johnny Damon, Gerald Laird and Jeremy Bonderman. The White Sox, meanwhile, allowed big pieces of their bullpen (most notably Bobby Jenks) to leave town, but also spent for righty Jesse Crain, kept A.J. Pierzynski, Alexei Ramirez and Paul Konerko on the South Side and spent $56 million on Adam Dunn, a slugger they have long lusted after.

Both Detroit and Chicago finished 2010 with 80-plus wins, but were left in the dust by the Minnesota Twins, who, relatively speaking, have been quiet -- landing Japanese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka and waiting patiently for a decision from Carl Pavano.

The picture is much the same in the AL West, where the Rangers have mostly lost talent (Cliff Lee) and the team that was closest to them in the standings -- the Oakland Athletics -- has made significant strides by adding three lineup fixtures for 2011 with the signing of DH Hideki Matsui and trades for outfielders Josh Willingham and David DeJesus.

Cruise over to the NL Central, and the theme holds true. The division-champion Reds have done next to nothing, while the pursuing Cardinals (Lance Berkman, Ryan Theriot), Brewers (Zack Greinke, Shaun Marcum) and Cubs (Carlos Pena, Kerry Wood) have undertaken significant financial commitments to try and catch them.

The Also-Ran Uprising doesn't hold quite as true in the NL's other two divisions. The Phillies' surprise swoop for Cliff Lee certainly trumped the Nationals' signing of Jayson Werth and the Braves' trade for Dan Uggla in the NL East, while the NL West has been quiet on the whole, but overall the gains have been impressive for pursuing clubs this offseason.

Consider the biggest names added by each of the playoff teams this offseason -- Rays (Joel Peralta), Yankees (Russell Martin), Twins (Nishioka), Rangers (Yorvit Torrealba), Phillies (Cliff Lee), Braves (Uggla), Reds (re-signing Ramon Hernandez), Giants (Miguel Tejada) -- and that picture becomes more clearly focused.

Maybe all of this shouldn't be a surprise. It stands to reason that teams who just missed out on the playoffs in 2010 would have the most to gain by spending big heading into the next season.

But surprise has been the overarching story of this entire Hot Stove season nevertheless. No one thought Lee would end up in Philly, Werth would head to Washington or Carl Crawford would sign up to patrol left field in Fenway Park, to say nothing of Greinke ending up with the Brewers.

Truth is, we're probably more used to the usual suspects -- regardless of their position in the standings year to year -- swallowing up elite free agents and trade targets than we are the generic contender trying to get over the hump by doing the same. That's true in AL East where the Red Sox-Yankees nuclear arms race requires always keeping ahead of the Joneses, but it's also true with other big-market teams for whom success is often less certain. Think of the Jason Bay band-aid the Mets applied last winter to a roster that was more riddled with bullet holes as a perfect example.

The forces at work -- and whether we should be surprised at how they're working -- don't really matter in the end. What does is that teams that ended 2010 in the chaser's role have, on the whole, made progress on the clubs they were pursuing.

There's still plenty of winter left, and enough free agents like Adrian Beltre and Rafael Soriano still out there to reverse the tide, but if you love a good pennant race, you have to like the chances of seeing several in 2011.

Baseball could sure use just that after the last few seasons.