Hope Springs Eternal

If Mauer does become a free agent, he'll be part of a once-in-a-generation crop next off-season that could also include pitchers Josh Beckett, Cliff Lee and Brandon Webb and offensive stars Lance Berkman, Carl Crawford, Adam Dunn, Victor Martinez, Carlos Peña, Jose Reyes and Jayson Werth. Perhaps the game's richest clubs were merely biding their time this off-season, waiting until next winter, when they will, like crazed competitive eaters, devour a smorgasbord of stars that will only widen the gap between baseball's haves and its have-nots. And perhaps, once again in 2010, a lower-revenue club will contend and permit itself to dream of a parade and embroidered championship gear, only to have those thoughts quickly snuffed out by one of the game's economic giants. The clear Vegas favorites to win the World Series, after all, are the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies, each of whom will have a payroll that ranks it in the game's top six.

Even so, says Jocketty, "To win a title, a lot of things gotta go right for a club, whether it's in a big market or a small market. There's no exact science to this, so you have to have a plan, stick with a plan and hope it works." That plan, for the Twins and the Reds, and other smaller market clubs—the Rays and the Rockies, the Rangers and the A's, the Diamondbacks and the Nationals—seems as if it is closer to working this year than in any recent season. The current might have abated. A World Series title, that distant green light, might finally be drawing near.

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Read Tom Verducci's forecast of pitchers who could stumble this year at SI.com/baseball