From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

While they have a pretty solid franchise in place and several other stars (including former MVP Justin Morneau), Joe Mauer is the Minnesota Twins. He was born in St. Paul, Minn. His senior year, he was selected by USA Today as the National Player of the Year in both baseball and football for Cretin-Derham Hall High School (St. Paul), in addition to being an All-State basketball player. Then, in the 2001 MLB draft, Mauer was picked first overall by his hometown Twins over more ballyhooed prospects Mark Prior and Mark Teixeira.

It didn't take long for Mauer to reach the majors. He hit .308 in 2004 as a 21-year-old rookie. Since then, he's made three All-Star appearances and won two Gold Gloves and three Silver Sluggers all while racking up a .327 career batting average and .408 on-base percentage. He can run, handle the pitching staff and has added power to his repertoire. In 2009, he won his first AL MVP. And he's still only 26.

Simply put, Minnesota's favorite son is well on his way to a Hall of Fame career. What a shame it would be if he played part of it away from the Twin Cities, a possibility with free agency on the horizon. He's only under contract through 2010 and if the Twins can't lock him up long term before he hits the open market, they'll likely be buried in the bidding process by the Yankees or another large-market team.

Many players who have the talent to be considered Top 100 prospects just don't quite have the seasoning or experience to crack the list. These players certainly have the talent to make such a list in the near future, however.

So, who might we see on the Top 100 list in 2011, or even 2012? Many of those players are yet to be drafted or signed, but some are waiting right now in the low levels of the minor leagues. We'll take a look at a handful of young stars who could find themselves high up on future Top 100 lists.

Tom Glavine still doesn't know what he's going to be doing for work in 2010, though he seems to have a pretty good idea what he won't be doing, and that's donning a major league uniform and heading out to the mound anytime soon. Glavine is aware that his playing days are likely over, yet like Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas, he has yet to officially announce his retirement.

So if he has a future in the game of baseball it's going to be serving as a coach, a member of a front office or maybe in a television broadcast booth. All opportunities that Glavine is currently mulling over with the franchise he spent the majority of his career playing for, the Atlanta Braves. Neither the Braves nor Glavine are sure just what he'll be doing for them, but it seems that an announcement is just around the corner.

He may have only played in 14 games with the St. Louis Cardinals last season, and he's only played first base six times in his 12-year career, but the Atlanta Braves have decided they'd rather have Troy Glaus playing first base next season than pay Adam LaRoche.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that the Braves have signed Glaus to a one-year deal to play first base next season after Glaus missed most of 2009 due to shoulder surgery.

The Yankees are truly relentless. While most teams would be pleased with their recent acquisitions, New York continued to upgrade as it shipped Melky Cabrera plus two other pieces to the Braves for Javier Vazquez and reliever Boone Logan. Vazquez is the second former Yankee to return to New York in recent days, joining Nick Johnson for another stint in the Bronx.

Atlanta was not fleeced here, but this is a major victory for the Yankees. Given that Atlanta could not reach a new deal with the 33-year-old right-hander, they figured to lose him to free agency after 2010, so receiving an experienced outfielder like Cabrera, and two power arms like Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino has to be considered a victory for them as well.

The Yankees have made a deal to shore up their pitching staff, the team confirmed.

The defending world champions have traded Melky Cabrera, Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino for starting pitcher Javier Vazquez and relief pitcher Boone Logan. Coincidentally, Vazquez, 33, and Logan were traded together last offseason as well -- from the White Sox to the Braves.

SI.com first reported the trade Tuesday morning.

This will be Vazquez's second stint with the Yankees, as he went 14-10 with a 4.91 ERA in 2004 for them. He was subsequently shipped to the Diamondbacks for Randy Johnson. Throughout Vazquez's career he's been a considerably better pitcher in the National League (his ERA is a half run better when pitching for an NL club). The Yankees are likely hoping he can build upon easily the best year of his career, even if it was in the NL.

Last winter, the Atlanta Braves desperately needed to reshape their starting rotation. There were many more questions than answers and they weren't sure a few younger arms were ready to take a step forward in time to compete in 2009. Not content to simply rebuild, the Braves traded for Javier Vazquez, signed Japanese import Kenshin Kawakami and inked veteran hurler Derek Lowe -- who signed a four-year, $60 million contract.

In terms of pitching, many things went right for the Braves during the season. Vazquez pitched well enough to garner a Cy Young vote and Jair Jurrjens worked 215 innings and posted a 2.60 ERA. Rookie Tommy Hanson took the league by force while Tim Hudson returned from surgery. Kawakami was serviceable, with a 3.86 ERA in 156 1/3 innings.

This left Lowe, the highest-paid member of the rotation, as its least productive member. Only you can't count this group as a rotation, because there are six guys. The Braves were presented with a nice problem, which is too much starting pitching. It's only logical that they'd be trying to deal the least productive pitcher who just happens to be the most expensive. So when Lowe's name surfaced on the trading block this offseason it wasn't all too surprising. Still, Lowe is peeved, and he's not mincing words.

Monday was one of those Hot Stove season days that make you forget all of the other ones when we are sitting around and pondering the significance of Pedro Feliz. The MLB landscape shook, with signs pointing to the movement of three top-of-the-rotation starting pitchers, and one over-the-hill-but-interesting outfielder/designated hitter.

There are still some physicals to be passed and an extension to be reached, but it looks like Roy Halladay is going to the Phillies in a three-team deal that will send Cliff Lee to the Mariners and prospects to Toronto; Meanwhile, John Lackey will wind up with the Red Sox and Hideki Matsui to the Angels.

Some of the names of the prospects being moved in the Halladay-Lee deal have yet to be confirmed, but we can still draw a few conclusions from the day's big headlines.

Shoring up a trouble spot in the back end of their bullpen, the Tampa Bay Rays have traded reliever Jesse Chavez to the Atlanta Braves for reliever Rafael Soriano. The deal, which was supposed to finalized on Thursday, didn't become official until Friday afternoon as one of the doctors that was needed to sign off was in surgery on Thursday.

The Rays were looking at the possibility of handing ninth inning duties to either Dan Wheeler or J.P. Howell next season. Howell blew eight of his 25 save opportunities for the Rays in 2009, and Wheeler only converted two of his six attempts. Soriano brings a whopping 87% success rate -- compared to Wheeler and Howell's combined 61% success rate -- in converting saves, closing 27 of the 31 games he was given a chance to save in Atlanta .

In addition to providing a statistically more reliable option for the ninth inning, Soriano did his new team a favor earlier this week when he agreed to accept arbitration from the Braves. Tampa Bay won't be required to relinquish a first-round draft pick in this situation because they aren't signing a Type-A free agent, they are trading for an arbitration-eligible pitcher. They would have had to give up that pick if Soriano had not agreed to arbitration and signed with the Rays on the open market.

On Thursday, The Rays signed Soriano to a one-year deal worth $7.25 million and according to a major-league source, Soriano's no-trade policy will remain in tact through June 15.

Placing the statistical upgrade and the fact that the Rays get to keep their first round draft pick aside, remember that Soriano doesn't arrive in sunny Florida without baggage. He is going to cost the Rays more money then they would have liked to spend on a back-end option for their bullpen. He's also somewhat of an injury risk, having missed the majority of three of the last six seasons to elbow problems while never in his career throwing more innings than he did last season.

In Chavez, the Braves get a 26-year-old workhorse who appeared in 73 games last season for the Pirates and Rays. He'll slot into the middle of the Braves bullpen and, if all works out for Atlanta, continue to provide tons of relief innings for the pitching staff.

Most important to the Braves is Chavez is a very low-paid pitcher. The salary that Atlanta dumped when they traded Soriano will be put to use as the team tries to fill other holes in their lineup -- like a power hitting outfielder or first baseman.

INDIANAPOLIS -- This was one of the busiest divisions in baseball before the Winter Meetings, with the additions of Placido Polanco, Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito.

Yet there's still plenty to do. The Mets came to Indianapolis to add, the Marlins to subtract and the Braves to do both -- and none of the three made a great deal of headway.

Atlanta got sidetracked when reliever Rafael Soriano accepted its arbitration offer. The Mets are flirting with the major free agents, but no one knows if it's just a tease to New York fans. And the Marlins shed arbitration-eligible reliever Matt Lindstrom but not the bigger name, second baseman Dan Uggla.

And who added a potential Hall of Famer? The Nationals, with catcher Ivan Rodriguez.