"As the calendar flips from 2011 to 2012, baseball stirs from its holiday hibernation with a similarly notable transition.

This is where the Hot Stove season morphs into the Hot Scott (Boras) season.

The agent with the most influence and biggest clientele in the sport has spent the offseason's first couple of months coiled in the grass -- two-year deals for Willie Bloomquist and Bruce Chen here, one-year pacts for Andruw Jones, Gerald Laird and Andrew Brackman there -- and now is ready to spring.

Boras may not have exactly cornered the free-agent market, but he definitely has a huge share of the block, going forward. Of the fewer than 100 remaining free agents -- counting those non-tendered contracts in mid-December -- 13 are Boras clients, including five who appear on everyone's best-of lists.

The cream of the crop obviously is Prince Fielder, the first baseman who remains unsigned nearly a month after Albert Pujols presumably defined the market with his 10-year, $254 million agreement with the Angels. "