Cranking Up the Stove

When the weather gets cold and the days get shorter, it’s sometimes hard to get excited about baseball. After all, pitchers and catchers don’t report for another 76 days, but who’s counting? The uninformed fan may think that baseball hibernates all winter, and wakes up refreshed each spring.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is this time of year when baseball operations staff are hard at work. They are reviewing scouting reports and summaries of players within the Diamondbacks minor league system, attempting to determine which of their farm hands have leapt up to become tomorrow’s prospect.

They are looking at each level of player, identifying holes in rosters and anticipating where the organization may have a surplus at a specific position. This information is filtered up to the front office to help them determine which players could be used as trading pieces to make the major league club stronger.

Teams are also scouring reports on other organizations, hoping to find pieces they can trade for or hidden diamonds that can be uncovered in the Rule 5 Draft.

From a fan’s perspective, this is a time to dream about all the “what-ifs."  What if our team signs the prized free agent? What if the young core of players come together and finally reaches its potential? What if that player who had the down year rebounds and becomes a superstar?

For a baseball fan, this is the equivalent of dreams of sugar plum fairies. I’m guessing with that last statement, as I have no idea what a sugar plum fairy is, and I’d be scared to death if I started dreaming about them.

But with Christmas coming soon, I plan on writing to the jolly old elf and putting in a few requests of my own during this Hot Stove season.