Now that the season has ended for the White Sox it's time for the organization to start looking towards 2009. Sure, the team won the AL Central this season, but their series against the Tampa Bay Rays helped expose quite a few flaws that the team had, and some changes will need to be made if the team is going to get back to the playoffs again next year.

Of course, if you're going to bring in new players that means you have to get rid of the ones you have. Whether or not Ken Griffey Jr. is one of the players to go, or if he'll be back remains to be seen, but we can be pretty sure Junior isn't going to retire and make the decision easy.

''I'm not retiring. I have things to do,'' Griffey said, already at 611 home runs and turning 39 next month.

''I'd like to come back [to the White Sox],'' he said. ''It was a great ride. A lot of fun. I've had more ups than downs. The city, the fans, it's been great for me. This team fought all year. They were fun to be around. We'll see what happens.''

Well it's nice that you want to come back, Ken, but I can't say I want you back. Seeing Junior play just about everyday for two months helped me see just how far he has fallen from greatness. I knew he wasn't the same player anymore, but I had no idea how bad things had gotten.

The truth is, Griffey is exactly the kind of player on the White Sox roster they need to replace. They have enough concrete footed sluggers in their lineup, and really, Griffey isn't much of a slugger anymore anyway.

The White Sox rode the left arm of John Danks to stay alive in their ALDS series with the Rays. Today, we see a matchup of two talented pitchers making their playoff debuts: Andy Sonnanstine for the Rays, Gavin Floyd for Chicago.

Who cracks? Who shines? Is this series going back to the Trop, or do the Rays start scouting that Angels/Red Sox game tonight? Find out along with us in a very special "FanHouse Live Chat"!

The Minnesota Twins may have come up a run short of winning the AL Central this year, but it was still a pretty successful season for the team. After all, nobody expected them to be competitive this season after losing both Torii Hunter and Johan Santana, yet there they were challenging for another division title.

Another reason that the Twins were a surprise this year is that they played the majority of the season without right fielder Michael Cuddyer, and though Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau get most of the attention in the Twins lineup, Cuddyer has always been a dangerous presence. His absence turned out to be a bit of a blessing though as it allowed Denard Span to get playing time, and Span took advantage of it to emerge as the team's lead-off hitter of the future. Which is why it's entirely possible that Delmon Young will be traded this winter after only one season in Minnesota.

The Twins won't talk about it, but it's expected that Delmon Young, the left fielder they obtained from Tampa Bay before this past season, will be made available on the trade market.

Seeing as how Cuddyer signed a three-year $23 million extension before the season, it's unlikely the Twins will want to move him, so Young seems to be the most logical choice, Delmon didn't really produce as much as the Twins would have liked when they sent Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza to the Rays for him, yet he still has enough value to bring back a third baseman or shortstop for next season.

Well that was an interesting little flap that happened during the White Sox-Rays Game 1 tilt. And it came seemingly out of nowhere in the top of the seventh with the bases loaded, two outs and Orlando Cabrera up with the White Sox down three. Reliever Grant Balfour threw a pitch outside for ball one when Cabrera kicked dirt in Balfour's direction, and seemingly told Balfour to throw it where he could hit it.

Why Balfour would do that is beyond me ... but he went all Rick Vaughn on Cabrera's Jack Parkman and threw fastballs at him in a location where Cabrera could hit them. Only Cabrera didn't hit them, he struck out swinging. Balfour let out primal screams, the Rays bench let Cabrera have it, Ozzie Guillen raced out to face trouble, Dave Martinez yelled at Guillen, Willy Aybar chirped at A.J. Pierzynski, and the crowd all grabbed torches in anger and Tropicana Field burned to the ground.

All right, maybe not that last part ...

The question that everyone has been asking about the Rays prior to these playoffs is whether or not their young roster can overcome their lack of experience to perform well in their first postseason appearance. Those questions won't go away no matter how they perform in the ALDS, but Evan Longoria went a long ways towards answering them this afternoon when he whacked a home run on the first playoff pitch he saw.

He didn't stop there either; he homered again in the third inning and doubled in a run in the fifth to give him a 3-for-3 day with 3 RBI in his first career postseason game. In case you've somehow forgotten, Longoria's 22 years old and had a total of 881 minor league plate appearances before being called up to the Rays this year. So much for experience, because Longoria is just good.

Maybe Longoria's just too young to understand the pressure, or maybe he's just this good. Some of the other young Rays struggled today (B.J. Upton was 0-for-5 and the team only managed eight non-Longoria hits), but Longoria provided enough offense on his own to help the Rays out of an early 3-1 hole and to a 6-4 Game 1 win. Underestimate the talent of the Rays all you like, but they certainly don't seem to be intimidated.

The 2008 season is one that the Detroit Tigers would like to put behind them as soon as possible. A team that many picked to win the AL Central, and likely go to the World Series with their murderer's row of a lineup, ended up finishing in last place instead. Behind the Kansas City Royals of all people.

Of course, just because his team bombed out this year, manager Jim Leyland wouldn't have minded getting one of them there contract extensions. Now he says he's disappointed, and though he'd like to stay in Detroit, he's not going to stay anywhere he's not wanted.

"I have not been extended," Leyland told Albom, "and I'm not gonna be extended. ... There was some sense of an offer that I did not accept.

"I'm not afraid of anything. I want to manage the Tigers. I have every intention of managing the Tigers. I'm disappointed that I did not get an extension, but I understand. - well, maybe I don't understand, but I can live with that.

"I'm certainly not somebody that's going to sit around and worry about that. I made it perfectly clear that I wanted to manage the Tigers. I think we had a great year (in 2006). I think we had a good year (in 2007) and then we had one disastrous year (in 2008). Overall, we've actually done pretty well."

While there were plenty of big plays to go around in last night's AL Central playoff game, the one most people want to talk about today is the play at the plate in the 5th inning. After Michael Cuddyer doubled to start the inning -- it was Minnesota's first hit of the evening -- he moved to third on a fly ball to centerfield.

Apparently this was enough to convince Cuddyer that he could beat Ken Griffey Jr, so a few pitches later on a pop up to shallow center, Cuddyer decided to test Griff again. Griffey's throw home beat Cuddyer, and despite Michael's best efforts to take A.J. Pierzynski out, the lovable Sox catcher held on to the ball and Cuddyer was out. Considering the final score was 1-0, it turned out to be a pivotal play, but not one that Cuddyer regrets.

"Obviously once (Griffey) caught that ball it was a play we had to make," Cuddyer said. "We had to take a chance right there. We weren't getting much done offensively, we were at the bottom of the order. We had to take a shot. ... Unfortunately A.J. made a hell of a play. I don't know how he held onto the ball. I thought I knocked his arm off, not just the ball, but he made a great play."

I understood the Twins logic in sending Cuddyer then, but I still don't agree with the decision. Griffey's arm may not be what it once was, but most MLB outfielders will throw you out from that depth, so I thought it was a mistake. Not one I minded of course.

Now, about A.J. showing Cuddyer the ball afterwards...

It's only been a couple of days since the smoke cleared and Detroit's last-place finish was cemented in stone, but already the team is making moves to prepare for next year. Without making a single roster move they significantly upgraded their defense by announcing that Brandon Inge, a Gold Glove-caliber fielder, would return to third base, mercifully ending the Carlos Guillen experiment. Guillen, who's been shifted from shortstop to first to third in the past year, is now expected to take over in left field.

Inge's return to the hot corner won't be the only change to the left side of the infield -- Dave Dombrowski also announced Monday that Edgar Renteria's 2009 option would not be picked up. Given Renteria's struggles at the plate (84 OPS+) and the field, this was a no-brainer, especially when you consider the Red Sox are the ones on the hook for Renteria's $3 million buyout.

Four days ago, I wrote this:

"It isn't certain, but the 2008 White Sox are probably done. It's tough to feel too bad for a team that won the World Series three years ago, but it's easy to feel bad for Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jim Thome."

At least once a year, baseball takes me from concrete and pragmatic to dumb and happy. This was that.

Tonight's Dugout is after the jump.

Apparently 162 games weren't enough for the Twins and White Sox, they're going to play one more tonight with the AL Central and a date with the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS on the line. The Twins took three from the White Sox last week, but that was in Minnesota. Tonight, the White Sox ride their stomping of the Tigers in yesterday's make-up game into a home game tonight at US Cellular as they try and clinch the division they've lead for most of this year.

John Danks and Nick Blackburn are taking the mound at 7:30 tonight and I'll be liveblogging and chatting below with a host of my FanHouse compadres. Follow along after the jump to help us celebrate an early start to the baseball postseason.