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I’m looking at snow falling sideways across 1st Avenue, as an older couple 12 stories below tries desperately to hail a cab in a blizzard. Inside and warm, I’m fortified with coffee and half a very tasty morning bun from a local, longstanding bakery. “The dead of winter” has no real definition, but the morning of January 25, 2026 seems as good a marker as any.
We’re at the halfway mark of the offseason preview series, 15 down and 15 to go, starting to make the turn from winter to spring. I have Cactus League plans now, and I’m starting to look less at teams and more at individual players as fantasy draft season approaches. The latest Baseball Forecaster is the first of the new annuals to reach my doorstep, and the new Baseball Prospectus won’t be far behind. We’re long past the days of the Bill Mazeroski annual, or Street and Smith’s, but one late-winter tradition, Strat-O-Matic Opening Day, is just 26 days out. “Effectively Wild” will be launching its season-preview series soon. We’ve almost made it, folks, and if the scene outside my window doesn’t quite support the case, the book on my lap and the e-tickets on my phone and the podcast in my ears all tell me spring is coming.
