Winter winners: M's, Phillies, Cubs top list of movers

It's not always about the players you sign.

When a Rangers official was asked a few days into the offseason what his biggest need was, he quickly responded: "An owner."

Now we're heading into February, the month when spring training begins, and the Rangers are well on their way to acquiring an owner. It's enough to get the Rangers on this list of the teams with the most successful winters:

With the addition of Cliff Lee, the M's make steps to change their image. (AP)

1. Mariners. There are legitimate questions about the team the M's have put together, starting with where the offensive production is going to come from. But in taking Chone Figgins away from the Angels, adding Cliff Lee to Felix Hernandez at the top of the rotation and then getting Hernandez signed to a long-term deal, general manager Jack Zduriencik took three more huge steps in changing the image of the franchise.

It's hard to think of anything that didn't go right for Seattle this winter, starting with Kenji Johjima's announcement that he would opt out of the final two years of what had become a very bad contract. Later, the M's became the beneficiary of the Phillies' desire for Roy Halladay, which allowed Seattle to pick up Lee for a very reasonable price.

The way things are going in Marinerland now, maybe even Milton Bradley will be happy there.

2. Phillies. Yes, there are plenty of critics who say they should have kept Lee, either instead of trading for Halladay or to team with Halladay at the top of a monster rotation. But the way the Phillies see it, they have the ace they really wanted (Halladay), and they have him signed through 2013. Not only that, but they have almost their entire team signed through at least 2011. Instead of worrying that their window to win would start closing after the 2010 season, they've extended it by at least a year or two.

They love this group of players, and they love having Halladay. And they've totally changed the image of their franchise, to the point where there's no doubt that the Phillies are the dominant team in the National League.

3. Cubs. Their biggest player move was a dump, getting Bradley off their roster and out of their sight. The lineup has the same issues it did last year, and the only reason to think that the Cubs will be significantly better is that it's hard to imagine their star players underperforming as badly as they did in 2009.

So why do the Cubs make this list?

Simple. Just like the Rangers, the Cubs needed an owner, and now they have one. Not only that, but the Ricketts family is getting rave early reviews, both from the fans (who gave them a standing ovation at the Cubs Convention) and from the front office.

The early moves the Ricketts have made with the Cubs sound a lot like the early moves Arte Moreno made after taking over the Angels. They've already significantly improved employee benefits, and when they showed up at the organization meetings, they impressed everyone by staying for dinner and showing interest in every part of the organization.

There's a new and improved feeling around the Cubs these days, and it's not just because a certain grumpy outfielder is finally gone.

4. Rangers. It's too early to say if the Chuck Greenberg group will have the same impact in Texas that the Ricketts family is already having in Chicago. But after a year of paralysis under the underfunded Tom Hicks, and after months where every financial decision had to be approved directly by the commissioner's office, the Rangers are just happy to (nearly) have a real owner.

It's also too early to say whether Greenberg and frontman Nolan Ryan will trust the good work done by general manager Jon Daniels and his staff, but Daniels and crew should be able to convince them by pointing to young talents like Elvis Andrus and Neftali Feliz that were added to the big-league club in 2009.

The Rangers believe that there's a lot more talent coming, but with the prospect that Greenberg's group gets approved in the next few months, they're also hopeful that if the team is in the race this July, there will be money available to allow them to add at the trade deadline.

5. Cardinals. They had one huge offseason task, to re-sign Matt Holliday. They got it done.

Obviously, it helped that the Yankees never got involved at all, and that the Red Sox turned their attention to pitching and defense. Obviously, it won't mean much if the Cards aren't able to get a new deal done with Albert Pujols sometime before his contract is up at the end of 2011.

But the Cardinals knew that Holliday was the guy they wanted to hit behind Pujols, and they knew they had to find a way to keep him.

And they did.

6. Red Sox. We all thought the Red Sox's winter would be judged on whether they kept Jason Bay, or perhaps on whether they signed Holliday to replace Bay, or perhaps on whether they were able to trade for Halladay or Adrian Gonzalez. Instead, they signed neither of the big bats and made neither of the big trades, but added the biggest arm on the free-agent market, John Lackey. They've improved their defense with Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro, and by adding Lackey to a rotation that already included Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, they've put together the best front three in the league.

Not bad.

7. Orioles. Millwood might have been the perfect pickup for a team that has talented young starters and needed a veteran to lead it. Miguel Tejada should be a help, now that he has accepted a move to third base. This still isn't a team that can win in the American League East, but it does feel more and more like one that is moving in the right direction.

8. Nationals. The Nats will actually be worth watching this spring, if only to get a look at Stephen Strasburg and fellow 2009 draft pick Drew Storen. The performance of Strasburg and Storen in the Arizona Fall League had scouts talking, and helped the Nationals start the winter well.

Signings of Pudge Rodriguez and Jason Marquis didn't hurt, and all of a sudden rival teams in the National League East are starting to pay attention.

It's been a long road back from the dark days of Jim Bowden, but at least the Nationals are on that road.

9. Yankees. This isn't like last winter, because Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez won't excite people the way Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia did. But the Yankees still have Teixeira and Sabathia (and Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera et al), so they were able to mostly sit out what they saw as a mediocre free-agent market.

And they still have the most talented team in the game.

10. Tigers. Give them credit, because they did what they said they would. There was no fire sale, and by trading Granderson and Edwin Jackson, they acquired younger (but still big-league ready) players and also freed up enough money to sign closer Jose Valverde. And the best news of all was that Miguel Cabrera has faced up to and started to address his problem with alcohol.

The Tigers still need a lot to go right for them to have a chance to win. But without making the moves they did, they knew they basically had no chance.