Joe Sheehan picks through the remaining free agent crop. The big names and potentially useful players left include Carlos Delgado, Magglio Ordonez, Alex Cora (maybe off the market already), Ben Grieve (nice OBPs and, in keeping with the recent family trend, his dad is former major leaguer Tom Grieve), Steve Reed (count the sub-100 ERA+ seasons on zero hands) and Esteban Loaiza. Sheehan sees it more from the players' perspective, but for GMs Loaiza is the Abject Lesson for players coming off career years. Any team interested in Jaret Wright or Adrian Beltre should have been forced to watch, or re-watch, every inning Loaiza pitched for the Yankees this season.

Looking at those names and looking at the Cardinals roster, the bulk of Jocketty's work is probably done for this offseason. They still have to polish off the arbitration-eligibles' contracts, maybe an extension to Carpenter or Isringhausen, but that's mop-up stuff from a fan's perspective. It looks like we're headed into a dead period until spring training.