Getting burned by that Hot Stove

In baseball parlance we’re in the middle of Hot Stove Season. That’s the time during Major League Baseball’s offseason (even the sport that plays 162 regular season games takes a break) where teams trade and acquire players and fans keep the ember that is their love of baseball warm by talking about all the mistakes their team is making and dreaming of a pennant in the coming year.

Must you gather around a hot stove in cold weather to conduct these discussions? No. Is it more fun that way? Absolutely.

My oldest and I indulged in some Hot Stove talk around the firepit this winter and it made me realize we need this in our family. Not the chatter about how we can’t believe Kyle Tucker is going to the Dodgers or that the Mets let Pete “Polar Bear” Alonso get away but we need a Hot Stove Season for the kids.

I mean, look, we managed a great team in 2025 and we put up a good showing there during the summer, but we didn’t make it to the championship. The top of our rotation is strong but the bottom of the lineup has some opportunities.

We’ve got pitching-in covered but need more players willing and able to pick up after themselves. As a team, we can hit for power but we lack control.

What we really need is a locker room guy. In baseball that’s an experienced player whose standout value isn’t what they do on the field so much as how they bring the team together behind the scenes.

In the kids’ case the locker room is the bathroom (or their bedroom) and we need a hygiene booster instead of a morale booster. Are there any free agents out there with experience leading a team to bathroom care excellence? How about even bedroom orderliness mediocrity?

That’s the real holdup with kids Hot Stove Season. There’s a lack of free agents. All the kids having a full no-trade clause means there isn’t a market to pick up that closer you think could really put your team on top.

Baseball has a lot of good analogies for fatherhood, even if most of them break down rather quickly. The baseball seasons (Hot Stove, spring training, summer ball, and October baseball) do correspond well with the sorts of seasons I go through as a dad. I’m optimistic in spring training that I’m preparing the kids for a good year. As things move into the summer there are bad calls, grand slams, close plays, and memorable moments.

The big challenges are the postseason and like most teams we don’t often knock it out of the park in the fall. Before you know it, we’re back in Hot Stove Season. And I’m equally ready to trade all the players or declare with confidence: next year is our year.