There is a sober wintertime axiom in baseball, both a balm for the spirit of the empty-handed and a warning to those whose cups runneth over with the spoils of trades and free agency, that fans everywhere surely know: you don’t get anything for winning the offseason.
While that is true enough in the sense that what you really want as a fan is for your team to win the World Series, I am here today to tell you that it is, in fact, quite good and fun to win the offseason by signing free agents and making trades that improve your team “on paper.