Light free-agent market could lead to major trades

	Barry Zito is the cream of the crop in a thin free-agent market. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images
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• AL teams call Bonds
• Meche, Lilly get early action
• More news and notes

The roster of potential free agents e-mailed last week to baseball insiders listed no less than 191 names. The last name on the alphabetical roster was one of the best, Barry Zito. However, the 190 names that preceded Zito was mostly a mix of middling pitchers, uninspiring positional players, marginal utility types and former stars.

There are a few power hitters ready to cash in (Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee and now Aramis Ramirez), plus a trio of all-time greats thinking about squeezing in an extra year or two (Greg Maddux, who'll likely go back to the Dodgers, Barry Bonds, who's drawing some early interest from American League teams, and Roger Clemens, who might keep the Astros, Red Sox and the rest of us waiting into July again).

Overall, though, the list falls well short of greatness. But the winter market won't necessarily fizzle. It could still be propped up by some monster trades if anyone's willing to pull the trigger. Potentially, the five biggest names who could hit the trade market are Alex Rodriguez, Vernon Wells, Manny Ramirez, Miguel Tejada and Mark Teixeira. Though it's much more likely that all five stay put than all five go, a quickie poll of executives suggests that the order of the likeliest to be traded, from most likely to least, may be: 1. Wells. 2. Teixeira. 3. Tejada. 4. Ramirez. 5. A-Rod.

What happens to these five special talents is one of the most intriguing storylines in a winter which will include a superb Japanese pitching import going to the highest bidder, the pursuit (or non-pursuit) of Bonds, a potentially "white-hot" market that might remind us of the overspending days of 2000-01 and a chance that best-buddy pitchers Clemens and Andy Pettitte return to their roots and wind up rivals.

Ramirez reportedly is seeking a trade for the third time (or is it the fourth?), and while his well-known quirks may be wearing on his employers and his contract no longer seems onerous with roughly $40 million remaining over two years, one major league exec pointed out, "Replacing Manny is not all that easy."

In some ways, A-Rod's situation is the opposite. While there's a long line of suitors (including the White Sox, Angels, Dodgers and Cubs) and plenty of time to change his mind, Rodriguez seems strongly against accepting a trade. The Yankees' public position is that A-Rod isn't going anywhere. And someone close to the superstar seconded that thought -- although, it can't be entirely ruled out; the phrase that accompanied that assertion was this: "for now."

But as one GM said regarding Ramirez and Rodriguez, "At the end of the day, to trade players of that caliber, there are significant hurdles to climb."

Tejada would have been gone by now if Orioles owner Peter Angelos didn't pull back, vetoing the perfectly good offer of Ervin Santana and Erick Aybar from the Angels at the July 31 trading deadline. But while the feeling still is that the Orioles might prefer to build around someone who's happier in Baltimore (and maybe someone who isn't suffering from diminishing range), there's no reason to believe that Angelos will acquire courage over the next few months.

A Tejada-for-Teixeira trade has been discussed, but the Rangers wanted Baltimore to sweeten the pot by including top young pitcher Erik Bedard. Teixeira's weak first-half performance has Texas at least considering whether to trade him rather than commit to a long-term contract that may approach $100 million. Some execs could see Teixeira going to Detroit for, say Jeremy Bonderman, who, like Teixeira, is two years away from free agency. But one executive said, "If I were Detroit, I wouldn't do that."

In Wells' case, it wouldn't surprise anyone if he eschewed his chance to stay long-term with Toronto, and while his value may be hurt by the general belief he'll want to go home to Arlington, Texas, in a year, Toronto may not want to lose him without getting anything. He'd surely draw heavy interest from both Los Angeles teams, the hometown Rangers and probably many others.

And here are more headline-grabbing storylines for the winter of 2006-07:

• Could best-buddy pitchers Clemens and Pettitte return to their roots?
Clemens and Pettitte may re-sign with the hometown Houston Astros. Or they just might wind up on opposite ends of baseball's biggest rivalry. Whispers around baseball suggest Clemens might consider a Red Sox revival while Pettitte might think about a return to the Bronx. Clemens' status the past few winters has been the subject of enough mystery and conjecture to be turned into a parlor game, and Pettitte potentially enters into a similar arena following the expiration of his three-year Astros deal.