What’s up at the MLB winter meetings?

This, right now, is the always the most interesting time of baseball’s off-season. Why? Because we have every team gathering at a nice hotel in a nice climate where they can discuss, amongst themselves or with agents, players on their teams and on their wishlists. Granted, there’s always a lot more talk than actual action, but at least we’ve seen a couple of big moves happen and more speculation than you can shake a stick at.
 
How about that ridiculous Jayson Werth deal? How does any team agree to pay a borderline star $126 million over seven years? Were the Nationals not paying any attention at all when the Giants inked Aaron Rowand to a big deal after flashing some nice numbers for the Phillies, like Werth just did? And did this just instantly become the worst deal in the sport? I’m saying probably, but with Werth setting the bar this high, this early, a team may be forced to grossly overpay later on this winter.

And believe me, if you don’t think that Carl Crawford is licking his chops over what Werth got, you don’t know how players and agents work. Any offer for the former Ray will have to eclipse that mark by quite a bit.
 
Then there was the Red Sox finally securing the player they’ve been chasing for months, Adrian Gonzalez. With Kevin Youkilis now moving to third base and Gonzalez at first, the Red Sox won’t be missing Adrian Beltre at all. With the Rays due to decline, the Sox shouldn’t miss the playoffs again this year.
 
That seems especially true with the Blue Jays dealing away one of their top-of-the-rotation guys in Shaun Marcum to Milwaukee. Getting back a prospect isn’t exactly the best way of following through on this supposed belief that they’re a team that’s a player away from being a contender for the post-season. That is, unless they can actually land Zack Grienke, the next huge name on the trade market.
 
And, while I know there was some drama going on between Derek Jeter and the Yankees, did anybody really ever expect the Captain to leave the Bronx? Jeter and Mariano Rivera were never going anywhere but back to the Yankees. They should also be joined by Cliff Lee any day now.