I watched in envy as the San Francisco Giants captured their second World Series in the last three years with a convincing sweep of the Detroit Tigers a few weeks ago. Even though that moment officially ended the baseball season, another season is in the process of getting ready for action: The hot stove season.
Much of the Rangers success from 2010-present has been due to brilliant offseason moves by general manager Jon Daniels around this time of year. JD seems to thrive in the hot stove spotlight. We've seen it pay off in recent years: signing Yu Darvish and Joe Nathan last offseason; Adrian Beltre before 2011; Vladimir Guerrero and Colby Lewis before 2010.
Following a wild-card flame-out after an otherwise solid 93-69 regular season, it seems like JD will be shuffling the deck quite a bit this postseason with many Rangers players hitting free agency.
