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? While the uninformed fan may think that baseball hibernates all winter sealing 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 players identifying holes in rosters and anticipating where the organization may have a surplus at a specific position. This information is filtered up to e 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 reach their 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.
So what are your the changes you would like to see