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  With August only 2/3rds through, and September and October to come, Bloggers Domain MLB contributor yankeeslifer* is doing what he has to do, since his yanks will falter and will not be playing postseason baseball, and paying attention on to which pitchers will be available this offseason.  My opinion is that not many of these names are not worth looking at considerably.  They are mostly old and past their primes, with the exception of maybe Isringhausen.  Oh, and an update, I am on vacation, but have access to a computer, so feel free to send me fanmail.

With the recent towering deal that the Cubs and Carlos Zambrano agreed on (5 years, 91.5M), I began thinking...who is left? Here are a few of the remaining names among pitchers that will be free agents after the 2007 MLB season:

-Curt Schilling (40 years old, lost much of his effectiveness).

-Jason Jennings (29 years old, but has a career 4.70 ERA).

-Freddy Garcia (31 years old, but already losing some of his playing ability. Has been dreadful this year. Might still be best on this list, though).

-Kenny Rogers (42 years old...coming off an injury, but may still have something left).

-Jason Isringhausen (34 years old, but still pitching very well this year).

-Bob Wickman (38 years old, won't give you more than one good year at best).

-Mariano Rivera (37 years old, will likely still be effective but will also likely be resigned by the Yankees).

-Joe Nathan (32 years old, having a great year as usual).

-Scott Linebrink (31 years old, if in need of a setup man...).

-Jon Lieber (37 years old, had a likely career-ending injury this year).

-Bartolo Colon (34 years old, still has some juice left).

-Livan Hernandez (32 years old, 4.86 ERA this year, may be losing it).

Other names include Carlos Silva, Josh Fogg, Jeff Weaver, Brett Tomko, Kip Wells, Odalis Perez, Kyle Lohse, and Randy Wolf.

Note also that many if not most of these guys will be snapped up by their current clubs. Which means...

...we're gonna have a lot of teams in trouble. Expect even more prospects called up next year than this year, expect many trades involving pitching. But this could still mean trouble for teams. Who wants prospects to be in their rotation and closing their games? But, as always, bad news for some is good news for others (and vice versa). Pitchers on the market (and hitters to a lesser degree) are no doubt inwardly celebrating the lack of pitching on the market. Watered down rotations will certainly be welcome among hitters, and more money for low-grade pitching is a plus for those that ARE low grade pitchers.

Of course, if your team is among the clubs that are in desperate need of pitching, be sure to place yourself in the "unlucky" group, as your team may be facing some trouble come April 2008.