Homegrown talent like Cam Schlittler still surest way to build a champion

This is the silly season, in so many ways. It will be truncated this year. We are less than three weeks from reaching the moment when baseball will push the button that’ll incinerate the hot-stove portion of the offseason and everything else, the lockout landing like an anvil on the head of the sport formerly known as the National Pastime.

So if anything, business is even crisper, earlier than ever before. Which teams will make trades? Which teams will be active in free agency? Will the Mets finally be able to survive a staredown with the Dodgers and get Tarik Skubal to sign on the line which is dotted? On and on.

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And yet for a brief sliver of sanity early Wednesday evening, we were reminded that sometimes the smartest course of action, even in 2026, even with billions of dollars being tossed about inside the baseball playpen, is the most basic and time-tested course of action, divided into three parts.

1. Find the right player.