January is all wrapped up after today, and with that just 11 days separate us from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring camp. The month saw the team make their biggest move of the offseason, securing Cody Bellinger’s return on a five-year deal, though the inevitability of said deal after being discussed as the frontrunners for his services all winter and the fact that he’s a returning player rather than a new addition took some of the wind out of those sails. Nevertheless, the lineup looks a lot
more complete with him in it protecting Aaron Judge, and soon enough we’ll see them both getting their timing down in the batting cages as pixelated videos of pitchers tossing bullpens slowly trickles onto our feeds. Sign me up.
Birthdays are the name of the game on the site today, with Matt celebrating Duke Maas’ day before capping off our first month of the series by intersecting it with his All-January birthday team roster. Afterwards, Josh shares his thoughts on the coverage of the game during the offseason, peeling back the curtain a bit to discuss the difficulty of a one-note winter and the further troubles that lay ahead in the upcoming offseasons.
Questions/Prompts:
1. Entering February, who would you predict to be your 2026 playoff teams as things stand?
2. Brian Cashman has called getting Gerrit Cole back an acquisition in and of itself, a phrase we’re all too familiar with at this point. What kind of statline do you expect the former Cy Young winner to put up this year?
