If you know how the free-agent market will shape up this offseason, print up 30 business cards and pass 'em out to baseball's GMs. They'd love to hear from you.

	Barry Bonds Left fielder San Francisco Giants Profile
	2001 SEASON STATISTICS G AB H HR RBI Avg. 153 476 156 73 137 .328

Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and the rest of the Class of 2001 could go forth into the greatest of unknowns. First, there's the ever-dicey labor situation, which could produce anything from changes to the free-agency/arbitration/luxury-tax rules to a signing freeze to the status quo for another year. And regardless of all that, the sputtering economy could make corporate ownership as spendthrift as monks on Rodeo Drive.

"We're not sure how to prepare," one American League executive said. "Nobody really knows."

Added an NL counterpart, "With the economy, lots of companies are making 20-30 percent cuts. That affects sponsorship and advertising revenue. It's going to affect the bottom line of clubs. We're driven by what revenue will be. If your revenue is down 20 percent, it will affect payroll similarly ... I've had agents call this the nuclear winter. Especially players who don't make a big difference -- they're nice to have, but not necessary. They don't want to be out there this winter."

	Jason Giambi First baseman Oakland Athletics Profile
	2001 SEASON STATISTICS G AB H HR RBI Avg. 154 520 178 38 120 .342

While most executives maintain that this is a down year in terms of talent available, that may be a blanket negotiating ploy to dampen expectations. This could be the first winter in which both MVPs (Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, favorites for the awards) are on the open market. And even if those players re-sign with their respective Giants and A's, a significant possibility, this list of 10 others isn't so bad:

Moises Alou, of
Bret Boone, 2b
Johnny Damon, of
Juan Gonzalez, of
Chan Ho Park, rhp
Jason Isringhausen, rhp
Tino Martinez, 1b
Jason Schmidt, rhp
Aaron Sele, rhp
John Smoltz, rhp

Uncertainty or not, teams are preparing all sorts of contingency plans for when free-agent season begins next month. The consensus is that the pitching depth isn't strong -- there's no Kevin Brown (1998) or Mike Hampton (2000) to start a feeding frenzy -- but Park shows electric stuff occasionally while Smoltz looks completely reborn in the closer's role. Besides, Schmidt said, "There's always gonna be people who want pitching no matter what."

For now, though, the focus will be on the two Bay Area sluggers, Bonds and Giambi, who are appearing more and more likely to test the waters, though they could still very well return to their clubs. Both were their league's most dominant offensive players in 2001, each leading in on-base and slugging percentage by wide margins.

Bonds is a fascinating case: His unfathomable .328-73-137 season came at the seasonal age of 36 -- he turned 37 on July 24 -- and there's debate about how many more years he will stay anywhere near so productive. The most comparable case could be Hank Aaron, who had his career year of .327-47-118 for the 1971 Braves at age 37; he played four more near-complete seasons, one of them excellent, one very good, one good and one poor. Though Bonds is in fantastic shape he assuredly will decline.

GMs don't want to pay for that. Alex Rodriguez got his $25.2 million per year in large part because he was just 25, with his best years ahead of him. Bonds offers no such promise. Since Bonds and agent Scott Boras will certainly demand at least $20 million per season, most executives surveyed said they'd offer only three years. That means you can bet someone will step forward with at least four.

Could the Giants? Probably not. GM Brian Sabean eschews the idea of concentrating as much as 25 percent of the payroll in one player, and with a preliminary budget of $70 million that means even $18 million would cross the line. "It all comes down to what his monetary demands are," owner Peter Magowan said. "At a certain level, the demands would be at a level where we could not have as good of a team even with Barry. We wouldn't be able to put good enough support around him."

Bonds has expressed the warmth of an hour-old burrito at remaining in his home area of San Francisco: "I wanna stay," he said, "but I'm not gonna beg." And it's hard to see Boras -- who craves record deals like pumas do steaks -- not pushing toward a considerably higher offer elsewhere, perhaps from either of the New York clubs or Atlanta, all of whom seek power-hitting left fielders. The Giants will surely be emboldened by Seattle's success after losing Ken Griffey Jr. and then Rodriguez.

"I just wrote up Bonds," one NL scout said, "and I don't think he's as good a defensive player as he was, but he's awesome offensively. Awesome. I think he'll give you three years of elite performance. But tell him he can't do something, and he'll do it. If I say three, he'll prove me wrong."

The A's made a huge mistake by scuttling a six-year, $91 million deal with Giambi this spring over their refusal to give no-trade clauses. GM Billy Beane indicated earlier this week that they now will include one, but it may be too late: With another fantastic season under his belt the price for Giambi might have risen from $16 million per year to $20 million, which would be almost prohibitive considering the A's $34 million payroll this season.

(Talk of $22 million and even $25 million seems way high -- Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are young shortstops, for crying out loud. Any non-Yankee GM willing to pay freakish young shortstop money for an elite yet soon-to-be-31-year-old first baseman is asking to finish in third place for a long time.)

Giambi has talked pretty tough all season -- "They ain't getting a better deal than they got in spring training," he said -- and spoke glowingly of playing in New York during the playoffs, leaving his teammates preparing for the unthinkable. Said third baseman Eric Chavez, "I don't want to have to think about it. I know we have a lot of young and talented guys, but with him we wouldn't (have been) successful. He's such a luxury for us to have. I don't think there's anyone capable of replacing him."

Though he remains close with Giambi, Beane scoffs at such talk. "We lost Mark McGwire in '97 -- maybe the greatest power hitter until this year in the past 30 years -- and we weren't supposed to exist as a franchise," Beane said. "It's an overwritten subject."

Perhaps. But for Oakland and San Francisco there soon won't be a sports subject more important.

Alan Schwarz is the Senior Writer for Baseball America and a regular contributor to ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.