It is the baseball offseason. The cold begins to set in, the ground becoming hard and unforgiving. Lemonade is replaced with warm cider, and beer is replaced with... well, people still drink beer. Baseball followers move on from discussing current roster construction to future ones. The promise of next season is one of the best parts of the offseason.
But the winter break can be a good time for reflection as well. Sometimes to fully grasp and appreciate the possibilities for a Carlos Martinez, we need to look to the past at the fully realized potential of a Bob Gibson.