FanHouse Aroldis Chapman

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.

Take your hat off to the Angels for the way they weathered the dual gut punches of Nick Adenhart's death and a raft of early-season injuries to advance all the way to the ALCS this year. The biggest reason why was an offense that defied its reputation for playing small ball all the way to a franchise-record 883 runs. That, in turn, led to a much better than expected record and helped hide the fact that their pitching staff was fairly average.

That makes two straight years where the Angels wildly outperformed expectations, and general manager Tony Reagins will be hard-pressed to put together a team that does it a third time. Chone Figgins, Vladimir Guerrero and John Lackey are all free agents who figure to have a lot of callers in a weak year for free talent, which means that the team will likely be dealing with at least one significant change to their core group.

With the Rangers on the rise, the AL West could be ripe for a changing of the guard in 2010.

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CHICAGO -- On a day this week when the stock market had one of the encouraging spikes investors have enjoyed more frequently over the past few months, Kenny Williams let out a sarcastic cheer for what it meant to baseball.

"Let's go, let's party," he said. "We've got cash again."

Then, the White Sox general manager quickly returned to reality, at least the version of reality that he and his colleagues have been describing this week at the GM Meetings.

"I don't think it works that way," he said. "We might need to see six months of recovery before we buy into that. We need an advertiser or a sponsor or two to come back to us."

Poppin' out of the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

What a fantasy season it has been for Prince Fielder. Of course, we must thrown the "fantasy" before season, as I'm sure Fielder pictured himself squarely in the middle of a playoff race when looking ahead to September 21st earlier in the season, but his owners must be pleased by their second-round pick's production. Fielder launched his 40th homer of the season Sunday, making this year the second (2007) in which he's reached the 40-HR mark. His average is still trucking along near .300 (currently at .299), which is a pleasant surprise, and his 128 RBIs tie with Albert Pujols' total as the best mark in baseball.

For the most part, when Cuban baseball players defect from their country in the hopes of one day playing Major League Baseball, they usually end up in one of the many nations surrounding Cuba. That is not the case for recent defector Aroldis Chapman. After leaving Cuba's national team while they were in Holland on July 1 this year, Chapman has moved a bit further east to find his new home.

It's a long way from the island of Cuba to the tiny nation of Andorra, but the little European nation tucked between the borders of France and Spain is the new home of Chapman. He's established residency there already, which is a big first step towards getting to the United States. Even if it is a circuitous route.

July 2 is already an exciting day for prospect wonks, as it's the first day that teenage Latin American free agents are allowed to sign with major league teams. While waiting on official announcements for superprospects like Wagner Mateo and Miguel Angel Sano, some unexpected news broke today.

ESPN's Jorge Arangure relays a report from a Cuban website that 21-year-old Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman walked out of the Cuban national team's hotel room in Rotterdam, the Netherlands today and plans to defect to America to pitch in the major leagues in the near future. What happens next is all speculation at this point, but Arangure says Chapman is the best Cuban prospect since Jose Contreras and could command more than $30 million on the open market.