To What End Offseason Coverage?

On account of you’re reading these words, you’re almost definitely aware that the World Series begins on Wednesday. What you might not have admitted to yourself yet, reader, is that, when the World Series is over — in a week-and-a-half or so — there will be no more baseball games to watch.

If this is the first you’re hearing of these developments, allow me to offer my condolences. It can come rather suddenly, this post-postseason, and is a bit like losing a limb. Except less painful, of course. And there’s no blood. And it’ll come back — the baseball season, that is — in like five months.

So, okay, it’s not like losing a limb. Not at all, really.

The thing that ought to be noted, too — before one plunges oneself into darkest despair — is that the offseason is actually kinda great. Just as the baseballing enthusiast has acquainted himself with — and maybe become tired of — each team’s roster, with the “identity,” as it were, of the season, the whole thing ends and is renewed, creating a thousand new things to be learned.

The question is — both for readers and writers of this site — is how best to “cover” the offseason. My colleagues here, as you’ll know, are pretty much excllent with regard to trade and free-agent analyses. Also, Dave Cameron presents his flawless organizational rankings, with which, as you’ll know, the entire readership agrees uniformly.

In any case, neither of those things are exactly what you’d call this author’s “area of expertise.”

And yet, reader, I feel like we’ve developed a relationship this season — with the One Night Onlys, I mean — maybe even (metaphorically speaking, of course) shared a bottle of Malbec together and done some inapporpriate things on a faux-bearskin rug.

Even if you don’t feel the same way I do, I am, at the very least, a dude with (a) the internet, (b) free time, and (c) like six or seven stock jokes that I’m prepared to make over and over again with only the very slightest variation.

So here’s the thing: there’s almost definitely a way to cover the offseason both intelligently and hilariously. I don’t know that I, personally, have come across what I’d regard as “perfect” coverage of the Hot Stove League.

But, look: if FanGraphs is dedicated to any one thing — besides preventing an entire generation of young men from reproducing, I mean — it’s dedicated to trying different things and seeing what works. That’s what I, personally, have attempted with the One Night Onlys series — that is, tried to see what a game preview could be. It’s been an incredibly satisfying experience — especially to share that with readers — and now I want to experiment with an offseason format.

So what matters in the offseason, to an “offseason notes”-type column? I don’t know — not entirely, at least. Below, you’ll find some sections that could appear in such a column, but I’m not married to any of them, really.

Mostly, I’m curious as to what the readership has to say about offseason coverage, what it ought to look like. Will I listen to every last suggestion? Absolutely not. But let’s start the conversation and see what happens.

So, like I say, here are some sections that might appear in an offseason-type column:

Fall- and Winter-League Notes
In which the author gets all intimate with some box scores.

Notable Projections/Projection(s) of the Day
In which the author looks into the future.

Rumors
In which the author copy-and-pastes notes from actual, legitimate news sources, and couples it with whimsical statements.

Transactions
In which the author forgoes actual analysis in favor of casual and offhand remarks.

Unsolicited Commentary
In which the author attempts to make order out of chaos — against the reader’s will.