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If you left the country for a few days and didn't look at the Internet while you were gone, you might be puzzled by the look of your new team. With teams like the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays battling for division crowns, teams in both leagues must have felt like the playoffs were up for grabs. How else could you explain the unbelievable amount of movement leading up to Thursday's trade deadline?

And it wasn't a matter of teams adding a middle reliever or a utility infielder player with DH potentials. This season, unlike almost any other in the history of the game, big names were on the move all over baseball. Not just big names, Hall of Fame type names: Pudge Rodriquez, Manny Ramirez and Ken Griffey Jr. And that's just the Hall of Famers. Add to that mix All-Stars such as C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. Those are names that teams usually build around, not trade away in mid-season.

With several contenders around the league getting serious makeovers, what happens next is anyone's guess. But let's take a look at what went down and where that might leave a few teams.

In one of the ironies you can always expect in sports, Manny Ramirez, who made a career for himself killing the New York Yankees, will now be a headache of a different sort for former Yankee skipper Joe Torre and his Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers offense has been anemic this year, outscoring only four other National League teams to this point. Fortunately for them, two of those teams are in their division (San Diego and San Francisco), and the division leading Arizona Diamondbacks have never really fielded a strong hitting team and are averaging less than half a run a game better than the Dodgers. How Manny fits in to the clubhouse, let alone an already crowded outfield will be anyone's guess, but you can not doubt the pop in his bat.

Torre's old team the Yankees looked like a joke for most of the early part of the season, but they have been on a tear of late, almost catching the Boston Red Sox and within striking distance of the Rays, whom everyone assumes has to collapse at some point. Just having Ramirez gone from their rival would have been a trade deadline boon enough, but at the deadline they have added reliever Damaso Marte, who has a 3-to-1 K/BB ratio, Xavier Nady and his .328 average in the outfield and just when things were looking bleak with the loss of one of their team leaders, Jorge Posada, they grabbed one of the greatest catchers of all time, Rodriguez. I imagine the Rays and Sox will not be sleeping as well this weekend as they did in April and May.

While the Yankees added some smaller names that could provide some big help, the Sox lost the biggest name of the trade season and one of the biggest names in Sox history. Losing the Man Ram drama should make things a little less chaotic around the clubhouse, although teammates and management have always known what to expect with Ramirez, a circus. They may not miss his attitude and antics, but they will miss his bat. The Sox acquired Jason Bay, whose numbers this year stack up against Manny's average numbers for this season, but let's face it, Bay is no Ramirez. He's not Yankee killer, no fan favorite and no post-season hero of the highest order. Bay could make people forget Manny pretty quickly if he stays hot through the season and comes up clutch in the playoffs, where the Sox should definitely end up, but he will be doing it with a whole lot of eyes on him.

Among the teams that were supplying some of the names to other teams was the Pittsburgh Pirates. Although they are on pace to win 75 games this season, which is remarkable for them, the Pirates, who have not had a winning season since Barry Bonds left town, are constantly rebuilding, but did add some decent prospects in Daniel McCutchen and Ross Ohlendorf. Whether those guys and the additions of Craig Hansen, Andy LaRoche and Brandon Moss will get them back to the playoffs anytime soon is doubtful

When all of the dust finally settled, and Griffey was wearing White Sox uniform for the other division leading team from the Windy City, the two teams mentioned at the top of the column were left shaking their heads. Despite very small payrolls, the Rays and Marlins have been right in the thick of things and were hoping to add some pop of their own in the form of Manny. Both teams tried their hardest to bring a player making more money than the entire Rays roster to the Sunshine state, but neither was successful. While fans and owners who would like to sell more tickets might be heartbroken over the uneventful flirtation with Man Ram, when it comes down to it, they can take some solace in the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." As for the team that tried to fix themselves, we'll just have to wait till October to know how it worked out.