LET THE HOT STOVE BURN!

The World Series is over, and with that so is the '09 Baseball season. Congratulations again to the New York Yankees for winning the championship. The parade was nice, but now the attention moves to handing out the individual awards, and more importantly, the tweaking, fixing, or rebuilding of team rosters for the 2010 season. With the Internet, regional networks, and the MLB Network, Baseball, these days, is really a year round sport. The players may be off, but the GM's and agents are hard at work in what we affectionately call the Hot Stove season.

The burners started early this year as teams didn't even wait for the Series to culminate before moving pieces. The Rays shipped Akinori Iwamura to the Pirates, Kansas City traded Mark Teahan to the White Sox, the Red Sox acquired Jeremy Hermida from the Marlins, and the Twins and Brewers swapped Carlos Gomez and J.J. Hardy. With that preopening salvo fired, it's easy to tell that this maybe a Hot Stove of bigger trades than signings.

The economy, while a bit better, still isn't what it was, and you can be sure that ball clubs will be using that to their advantage as they once again try to get players on the cheap. How will agents deal with this in year two? My initial guess will be that they will advise their guys to take any arbitration given, exercise any option they may have, just don't leave cash on the table.

Manny has already exercised his option with the Dodgers, Bobby Abeu has worked a two year extension with the Angels, and today Tim Wakfield has a new, cheaper, two year deal with Boston. Last year's affect is definitely lingering in the player's minds. Likewise, teams know when they have a good thing, and the Phillies and Diamondbacks wasted no time in exercising the options on Cliff Lee and Brandon Webb, even though the latter was out last year.

The only ones who should remain unaffected are the three elite players on the market: Matt Holliday, Jason Bay, and John Lackey. Some mid-tier guys may do OK like Johnny Damon, Chone Figgins, Marco Scutaro, Mark DeRosa, WS MVP Hideki Matsui, Jermaine Dye, and Vlad Guererro; although the latter three join a glut of free agent DH's.

So in the next few months, as we wait for pitchers and catchers to report to Spring Training, I'll break down whats going down on the Hot Stove, look at some teams in depth, and give my honest opinions on how its all rounding out.