Somebody mentioned this a day or two on Twitter, but it goes without saying: The baseball off-season develops far slower than the off-seasons of other sports. When free agent time in the NFL or NBA comes around, there is rapid-fire news of signings, several days in which you can’t turn on ESPN without Adam Schefter showing up to tell you the latest. Really, does that guy ever sleep?

But in baseball… it’s a slow burn. Oh, there is often some early jolt like the Joe Maddon and Paul Molitor hirings, but the players take awhile. It’s likely we won’t see a large number of signing for another month, around the winter meetings, and some players might not be signed until spring training has begun.

So, much like an actual stove, you have to give the hot stove some time to heat up before you can cook.