Every year at the beginning of winter, a flock of dri-fit quarter zippers descend on a giant, labyrinthine hotel to whisper, whine, schmooze and drink.
These are the winter meetings of the MLB, an annual jamboree of handshaking, deal-making and general industry banter. If you’re a casual baseball fan, you’ve probably heard that the meetings are a place where business is done in the offseason. That is somewhat true. The event – this year’s edition takes place from Sunday to Wednesday in Dallas – is both much more and much less than that.
It’s best to think of the meeting as the annual convention of the baseball world.
Besides the All-Star Game and the World Series, this event is probably the stretch of the calendar that draws the largest number of baseball people to one place. Those people include the bigwigs: team owners, executives, agents and the occasional baseball player. However, there are rarely, if ever, highly sought-after players present. They’re usually lower-level free agents or established veterans with offseason homes in the area who stop by to say hello.
The winter meetings are also a place to ask questions about a job, apply for a job or accept a job. An army of energetic, wide-eyed young people, eager to work in baseball, will line the lobby and hand out dozens of resumes. Some of these hopefuls have scheduled meetings with potential employers, but many do not.
Officers meet with teams throughout the week. Companies meet teams. Teams meet other teams. Teams meet each other. These sit-down meetings take place upstairs, in hotel suites, out of view of the media. Meanwhile, fans in the host city wander the halls hoping to catch a glimpse of something interesting. Their best bet is usually the hotel bar, where a retired baseball player or two can often be found having a drink.
Every now and then a news breaks, causing large numbers of reporters to rush to their laptops. For a major transaction or signing, a personal press conference may be necessary. Normally there’s about one a year, in addition to the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee announcement sending a few more people to Cooperstown. In 2023, Jackson Chourio and the Brewers announced his contract extension during the winter meetings. In 2017, Giancarlo Stanton appeared on stage in pinstripes less than 48 hours after the Marlins traded him to the Yankees.
In recent years, the MLB Draft Lottery has also taken place during the meetings. It’s quite a strange sight: representatives of the league’s worst teams are waiting on the podium, hoping that the odds will fall in their favor. There are no ping pong balls, but it’s still quite entertaining. The Rule-5 draft also takes place on the final day, with teams hoping to discover underrated minor leaguers trapped in other teams’ farm systems.
But actually it’s a lot of waiting, chatting and chatting. As Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Arthur Daley wrote in the December 11, 1947 New York Times:
“The baseball meetings never seem to change from year to year. Also, no one in the cast of characters seems to have aged a day. Maybe that sedentary life keeps them young because they’re the damnedest collection of lobby sitters you’ve ever seen.
The winter meetings began out of necessity. Before cell phones, computers, fax machines and the like, the most convenient way for baseball managers to meet in a central location once a winter to communicate and transact off-season business. The first edition took place in 1876, when the National League met to expel two clubs for refusing to make the final road trip of the season.
As the sport grew over time, the event became a hotbed for transactions, with executives working out the details over a few drinks in the hotel lobby. Another Daley New York Times article from 1950 tells a story of Leo Durocher, skipper of the New York Giants, strolling through the Lord Baltimore Hotel shouting to no one in particular, “Anyone want to trade? I am willing.” And when free agency took the league by storm in the 1970s, agents flocked to meetings to negotiate on behalf of their clients.
Nowadays, the real work happens out of sight. Some executives avoid lobbying to avoid being attacked by media members and job seekers. Others enjoy the banter and have been known to linger in the hotel bar well past last call.
Some years the meetings are a snoozefest. Last December, reporters wandered aimlessly around Nashville’s comically large Opryland Resort, waiting for Shohei Ohtani’s signal. He didn’t do this until the following weekend, turning the meetings into an arctic freeze. There was a Juan Soto trade, but that deal didn’t close until everyone left Nashville. The actual largest transaction of the meeting turned out to be the Yankees-Red Sox Alex Verdugo transaction.
But sometimes the annual meeting produces drama of the highest order. In 2022, an erroneous report claiming that free agent Aaron Judge and the San Francisco Giants had agreed to terms sent the entire conference into an uproar. In 2019, agent Scott Boras completed huge signings for Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon and Gerrit Cole on three consecutive days. During the 1992 rallies in Louisville, a young baseball player named Barry Bonds signed a groundbreaking, six-year, $43 million deal with the Giants. In 2011, the last time the winter meetings were in Dallas, a guy fell into a water feature in the lobby. Also in Dallas: Alex Rodriguez signed his huge deal with the Texas Rangers in 2000.
This edition could be tough, depending on when Juan Soto, this winter’s biggest fish, signs a contract that will undoubtedly break a record. Nothing is in the works, but the consensus around the game is that the meetings won’t end with Soto still on the open market.
In fact, all signs point to a relatively high volume of transactions happening in Dallas. Baseball is known to move slowly during the offseason, with the top free agents holding out until early spring. People don’t think that will be the case with this relaunch, which could mean a very enjoyable and eventful winter meeting. Fingers crossed.
