Top 10 Pitchers Not Named Roy Halladay Still on the Market

The Winter Meetings are all but over, and a myriad of top arms moved during the annual MLB swap meet. Randy Wolf signed with the Milwaukee Brewers for three years and just under $30 million. Andy Pettitte, the second-best left-handed starter on the market (after Wolf), returned to the Yankees on a one-year deal. The Orioles acquired Kevin Millwood from the Texas Rangers.

Relief pitchers Matt Lindstrom, Chris Ray, LaTroy Hawkins, Brandon Lyon and (apparently) Rafael Soriano all found new homes. Rich Harden and Brad Penny signed identical one-year, $7.5-million deals, with the Rangers and Cardinals, respectively. Carl Pavano returned to the Minnesota Twins by accepting arbitration, while Rafael Betancourt did the same with the Colorado Rockies.

Despite that flurry of signings and trades, however, the market for pitching remains strong as the baseball world looks toward the holidays, and the three months of bitter winter that still remain. Obviously, Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay remains very much on the market.

In absence of any concrete rumors there, however, here are ten other pitchers who are either current free agents, or whose teams have shown some intent to trade them before Opening Day of 2010, that could provide meaningful upgrades to many teams in either the rotation or the bullpen:

1. Javier Vazquez: Vazquez will turn just 34 next summer, and he has 2253 career strikeouts. By the time his career (marked by remarkable durability) is over, he has a handsome chance to find himself among the top ten whiff men of all time, and an outsider's shot at the top five.

His continued inability to find a team that wants him long-term is baffling, and the fact that Atlanta wants to move him this winter (after a career year in 2009, which saw him strike out 238 against just 44 walks in just under 220 innings) id downright nonsensical. Nonetheless, if he goes, the return will be hefty, and the buyer would receive one of the truly dominant and underrated starters in the league.

2. Derek Lowe: Of Lowe and his Braves teammate, Vazquez, only one will be moved; Atlanta has an excess of starting pitching, but not one that big. Lowe's 2009 failed to match up to his sparkling work the previous year, as his walk rate rose, his strikeout rate fell and his ERA ballooned to a very human 4.67.

At 35, however, Lowe has a long and well-established track record of Major League success, and his career ground-ball to fly-ball ratio of 3.14 is hard to ignore.

3. Josh Johnson: Johnson has youth on his side: He will be just 26 next season. Unfortunately, health has been an issue in his past, and he has very little big league experience from which to project his 2010 value.

He had a very impressive 2009, striking out more than three times as many batters than he walked and winning 15 games. He'll draw interest from a number of teams, but the Marlins might do well to hang onto him and see if his 2010 campaign further augments his value.

4. Jose Valverde: Valverde will not be back in Houston, for whom he has toiled the past two years and with whom he won his second consecutive saves title in the National League in 2008. Wherever he does land, he will bring along a career strikeout rate of nearly 11 punch-outs per nine innings, and a fiery temperament to match his 98 mile-per-hour heat. Valverde could become the bargain of this off-season.

5. John Lackey: For teams with more money than young talent to burn (and there are a handful of them), Lackey is by far the most attractive free-agent option. He has a skill set that projects well in any environment: relatively neutral ground-ball tendencies, solid control and the ability to punch out hitters when he needs to.

What he does not have, though, is Vazquez or Lowe's durability: he has started two consecutive seasons on the disabled list. In absence of any special, spectacular ability, Lackey finds himself nonetheless comfortably situated to make eight figures annually for the next four to five years.

6. Kevin Correia: Correia will be non-tendered by San Diego if they cannot trade him by Saturday, according to multiple reports. Correia discovered his curveball in 2009, throwing it over three times as often as he ever had before. The results were immediate and drastic: he threw 198 innings, struck out 142 and walked just 64.

He will not earn half as much in 2010 as free agent Joel Pineiro, yet his career path is strikingly similar to Pineiro's by age (Correia is two and a half years Pineiro's junior).

7. Aroldis Chapman: Like most Cuban (and Japanese) transplants to the Major Leagues, the 22-year-old Chapman is something of an unknown quantity. One thing is not unknown: the velocity on his fastball, which hovers around 98 miles per hour. He complements that pitch with a good slider, but will have usual rookie struggles until he better develops his third offering. 

8. Francisco Cordero: It's no secret that the Cincinnati Reds are looking to dump payroll, and as long as that's true, they will at least consider moving expensive closer Cordero, especially if they can get a young hitter or two in return. If a team can afford to pay the $12 million Cordero will earn in 2010, he would make a fine addition to any team in need of a closer upgrade: in the past three seasons, he has racked up 117 saves.

9. Joel Pineiro: Under the tutelage of pitching guru Dave Duncan, Pineiro rediscovered the magic that made him a promising youngster in Seattle a half-decade ago. Duncan taught Pineiro the value of simplicity, as evidenced by the frequency with which Pineiro threw his fastball: 71 percent of the time in 2009, after never exceeding 61.7 percent in seven previous years.

Unfortunately for whichever team lands him, Pineiro's heater simply isn't exceptional in any respect, and so he figures to come down to Earth in a big way in 2010. Still, his 2009 effort merits a spot on this list.

10. Erik Bedard: Two straight seasons with exactly 15 starts have suppressed Bedard's value enormously, but he actually hasn't lost any of the acumen that made him one of the league's best southpaw hurlers in 2006 and 2007.

If he stays healthy next year, he will provide extraordinary value to whatever team takes a flier on him. If he doesn't, the soon-to-be 31 year-old may be near the end. That would be sad: his career strikeout-to-walk ratio is 2.46, and he has 801 punch-outs in 822 innings.

Wherever these ten land, they stand an excellent chance of having a positive impact. The Hot Stove does not cool after the Winter Meetings, at least not for good, and the next month will tell us a great deal about the upcoming 2010 season.