Last year’s Winter Meetings. KNBR
The hotel is now a Zoom screen. Attendees now can trade checking their number of steps for their number of phone calls and texts.
The Winter Meetings are back and different than ever.
Baseball’s annual weekly convention in which executives converge on one city, which was supposed to be Dallas in 2020, has turned virtual like so many other highly trafficked events this year. Farhan Zaidi and Scott Harris still will be working the phones trying to get deals done, free agents will be signed, a Rule 5 draft will be conducted and the around-the-corner Starbucks will be dashed to far, far less.
The Giants have been open about their needs throughout the offseason, and perhaps one or two can be addressed this week. At least one lefty bat and perhaps two would be welcomed, holes both in center field and for a flexible second/third baseman type. They’ll require two starting pitchers and probably more for depth reasons, even if the additional ones are more fliers than sure-things. They could use at least one veteran righty reliever, a free-agency bin that is pretty filled.
They also could use clarification about whether there will be a National League designated hitter next season. Zaidi said last week the club has been told to plan as though there will be no universal-DH carryover from last season, which makes constructing a lineup a bit more difficult. A player such as Marcell Ozuna would be less attractive on the open market. Still, nothing has been made official, and there’s reason to believe a change can be made, with both the Players Association and MLB incentived for an NL DH.
Zaidi has said they’ll have to hedge their bets, and he and Harris & Co. now begin a busy week from their couches.
“We’ll miss the chance to see our friends and colleagues with other teams in person, to be able to spend time with the great people we have in our minor-league affiliates,” the president of baseball operations said on the Giants’ YouTube show last week. “But we’ll still be churning away at home on all the wonderful Zoom calls we get to be on these days.”
He’s now used to the Zooms, though this week will be more about texts and phone calls. Reporters will mourn the loss of the traditional Winter Meetings, no longer happening upon GMs and agents in the lobby, no longer crowding around Scott Boras as the super-agent pontificates about birds or ice cream in a way that is somehow related to his clients.
But for baseball’s decision-makers, who just made their tender/nontender decisions, who have intel from last month’s Instructional League, who are trying to build rosters as half the clubs shed payroll, perhaps this week can be active.
“I think we’re going to get a lot of free-agent and trade activity because of the timing of the calendar,” Zaidi said, while conceding, “We’re not going to get the reports from the lobby that fill up a lot of airtime.”
Monday started with a few news trickles: The Reds and Angels agreed upon a trade that sent closer Raisel Iglesias to California; righty pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano reportedly has been posted by the Yomiuri Giants, another starting pitcher option for the Giants that won’t be settled until early January.
Awards will be dished out, starting with Monday’s Roberto Clemente Award (won by the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright), on Tuesday the Hank Aaron Award for the top hitters in each league, Wednesday the All-MLB team.
Thursday will be the Rule 5 draft, from which the Giants protected three prospects.
“I think it’s going to be a pretty active Rule 5 draft,” Zaidi said about the draft in which big-league clubs can grab eligible minor leaguers from other teams, provided the player remains on the big-league roster the whole following season. “The looks that scouts got in Instructional League are going to be fresh in everybody’s mind.”
The Winter Meetings have begun. Hope everyone’s figured out Zoom’s mute function by now.