Baseball Winter Meetings

The normal routine for the baseball off season is that trade activity and free agent signings are fairly limited until the biggest name signs a deal. Well, the largest target (figuratively and literally) this off season was C.C. Sabathia. Sabathia has long maintained that he wanted to sign with a west coast team to be near family and he desired to play in the National League so he could bat. So, this morning we wake to find that the closest thing to an NL team in California Sabathia could find was the New York Yankees. Huh? Wonder how that happened? Oh yeah, they offered a butt load of money.

Now that C.C. has signed the other dominoes start to fall and we will likely see most of the remaining top tier free agents put ink to paper within the next week. Here is a quick run down of top guys and potential destinations.
Frankie Rodriguez - Signed with Mets to be their new closer.
Kerry Wood - Close to signing with the Indians to close. Considerable injury history.
Mark Teixeira - Biggest bat on the market (sorry Manny). Orioles, Nationals, Red Sox, Angels, Yankees are all interested. Rumors so far have Nationals offering highest contract. I expect the Angels will make a strong push to re-sign him. If the Red Sox win out on Tex then they would need to move Mike Lowell.
Manny Ramirez - His agent is saying four teams have shown interest. I doubt they are showing the kind of interest the agent would like in length of contract. Yankees or Mets could step up late in the game, but I expect he'll stay in LA.
Raul Ibanez - With his past few season spent in the northwest city of Seattle, people don't realize how good a player Ibanez has been. For the last three years combined he has more RBI than Teixeira or Manny. I see him ending up with the Cubs.
Pat Burrell - No idea. A bat like his should be able to find a home, but teams with the need may not have the budget space for the contract he may want.
Adam Dunn - I assume an American League team will sign Dunn with the thought of DH'ng him.

I'm sure there are names I missed. By the end of this weekend we should see most of the players signed. I wouldn't be surprised to see several players take a one year deal and hit the market again next year hoping to see better economics lead to better deals.