It’s an ailment that baseball fans suffer from during the cold winter months. We become agitated, fidgety, and many often find that they cannot get a peaceful night’s sleep. There is no known cure, as the cause of this short-lived, yet debilitating disease occurs yearly when December arrives and every MLB team meets for off-season talks.

Winter Meetings Hysteria.

It’s rare that my TV is tuned to MLB Network 24/7 in the off-season, simply because there isn’t enough news to keep my ADD brain amused. But when winter meetings come around, it almost feels like baseball season again, just without any actual baseball games.

Eh… details. We’re barely a day and a half into the meetings, but it certainly feels like no less than a week.

First of all, I’m pretty sure only a few teams ACTUALLY showed up to winter meetings: Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins, and I think the Milwaukee Brewers are hanging out somewhere near the hotel bar. Everyone else is completely MIA.

Second of all, the question that is slowly eating away at EVERYBODY’S mind… what gold mine did the Marlins hit to be able to afford players like Jose Reyes, Heath Bell, and possibly Albert Pujols? Are you missing any money right now? Seriously, look around. If you can’t find that crisp 20 dollar bill you stashed in your wallet, you aren’t crazy. Their front office has to be collecting spare change from the couch, because otherwise I’m going to have to assume they’re printing their own money in some hidden underground factory.

Sidebar: Don’t believe anyone who says Albert is at home sleeping. Do not fall for this trap. The moment you go to sleep, Ken Rosenthal is going to tweet that the Angels or Rangers or whoever just signed him for 25 years and 800 million dollars. 

Seriously, if the Fish filled a seat for every time someone said ‘making a splash this off-season’, they’d definitely break their franchise record of how many fans attended a game. I mean, they’d only need like 100 people.

What would King Albert signing with the Marlins mean for the NL East? Besides 18 games a year of terror and nerve-wracking at-bats for the Phillies pitching staff, essentially it could set off a chain reaction. The Cardinals will look for another marquee-type player, but since they already have Lance Berkman who can play 1st base and he’s already locked up, Jimmy Rollins could pop up on their radar. Then the Phillies will need to pull Plan B out of their pocket…

You see where I’m going here.

All of the free agent madness is coming to a head this week, there’s no doubt about it. Not everyone is going to get signed during winter meetings, and with a surprise offer from mystery team Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to fuel the Pujols fire, I’ll be surprised if MLB Network even announces any other moves.

Sorry this post was so long, but it’s not like you’re going to sleep anyway. You’ve been infected with Winter Meetings Hysteria. What else do you think will go down this week? Comment below! Keep the TV on, the Twitter open, and the coffee pot stocked.

Let’s sign some ballplayers.