January is a Depressing Month

The Holidays are over, the New Year is here, and it’s almost time to go back to work. This time of year always depresses me. January is usually a pretty slow month for baseball. The Winter Meetings are a distant memory and pitchers and catchers don’t report for more than a month. I hope I can think of a few things to write about during the upcoming month.

One thing I can talk about is the Giants signing of Barry Zito. Wow, what a surprise. I thought the Mets were a virtual lock to sign the southpaw. I thought the Rangers might be a darkhorse, but I never figured the Giants would even get involved. I mean, they haven’t done much of anything this off-season to improve their team, so I didn’t think they’d be willing to spend $126 million over 7 years on one pitcher.

One article I read indicated that the Zito signing is more for the future than for 2007. In 2007 the Giants will be saddled with Barry Bonds and his contract. But once he is gone, the team will have much more flexibility to build a winner. There might be something to this argument, but that doesn’t explain why the team didn’t do a better job with the money they did spend this off-season. Zito should be good, but I’m not convinced that his signing by the Giants makes much sense.

Now that the Mets have lost out on Zito, where will they turn for pitching? They will have Tom Glavine back at the top of the rotation along with John Maine, Oliver Perez, and the ageless El Duque. Pedro Martinez should be back around the all-star break, but who know if he will be able to ever pitch effectively again. It will be interesting to see what the Mets do to address their pitching holes. They’ve spent a ton of money on position players. They’d be foolish to just stand pat.