MLB’s Winter Meetings begin Sunday: What should fans expect from the annual baseball gathering?

Every year in the early winter, a swarm of dri-fit quarter-zips descends upon some mammoth, labyrinthian hotel to whisper, whine, schmooze and booze.

These are MLB’s winter meetings, an annual jamboree of hand-shaking, deal-making and general industry jibber-jabber. If you’re a casual baseball fan, you’ve probably heard mention of the meetings as a place where offseason business gets done. That’s somewhat true. The event — this year’s edition will run Sunday to Wednesday in Dallas — is both a lot more and a lot less than that.

It’s best to think of the gathering as the baseball world’s annual convention.

Besides the All-Star Game and the World Series, this event is probably the stretch on the calendar that draws the highest number of baseball people to a single place. Those folks include the biggest of bigwigs: team owners, executives, agents, the occasional ballplayer. However, rarely, if ever, do highly sought after players attend. It’s usually lower-level free agents or established veterans with offseason homes in the area swinging by to say hello.

The winter meetings is also a place to ask about a job, interview for a job or take a job. An army of energetic, wide-eyed youngsters, eager to work in baseball, will dot the lobby handing out résumés by the dozen. Some of these hopefuls have meetings with potential employers lined up, but many don’t.

Throughout the week, agents meet with teams. Businesses meet with teams. Teams meet with other teams. Teams meet amongst themselves. Those sit-down meetings take place upstairs, in hotel suites, out of the media’s view. Meanwhile, fans in the host city wander the halls hoping to catch a glimpse of something interesting. Their best chance is usually the hotel bar, where a retired ballplayer or two can often be found nursing a drink.

Every once in a while, news breaks, sending throngs of reporters scurrying to their laptops. A major trade or signing can necessitate an in-person news conference. There’s typically about one per year, besides the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee announcement that sends a few more people to Cooperstown. In 2023, Jackson Chourio and the Brewers announced his contract extension at the winter meetings. In 2017, Giancarlo Stanton appeared in pinstripes at the podium less than 48 hours after the Marlins traded him to the Yankees.

In recent years, the MLB Draft Lottery also takes place during the meetings. It’s quite a wonky sight: Representatives from the league’s worst teams waiting on stage, hoping the odds fall in their favor. There aren’t any ping-pong balls, but it’s still pretty entertaining. The Rule-5 draft also happens on the final day, with teams hoping to uncover undervalued minor leaguers trapped in other teams’ farm systems.

Really, though, it’s a lot of waiting, chatting and ball-talking. As Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Arthur Daley wrote in the Dec. 11, 1947, edition of the New York Times:

“The baseball meetings never seem to change from year to year. Nor does anyone in the cast of characters appear to get one day older. Perhaps that sedentary life keeps them young because they are the darnedest collection of lobby sitters you ever did see.”

The winter meetings began out of necessity. Before cell phones, computers, fax machines and the like, gathering in a central location once every winter was the most expedient way for baseball executives to communicate and conduct offseason business. The first edition was held way back in 1876, when the National League convened to expel two clubs for refusing to make the final road trip of the season.

As the sport grew over time, the event became an incubator for trades, with executives working out details over a few beverages in the hotel lobby. Another Daley New York Times article from 1950 recounts a story of New York Giants skipper Leo Durocher strolling through the Lord Baltimore Hotel and hollering to nobody in particular, “Anybody wanna make a trade? I’m willin’.” And when free agency took the league by storm in the 1970s, agents flocked to the meetings to negotiate on behalf of their clients.

Nowadays, the real business happens out of view. Some executives evade the lobby to avoid getting slogged by media members and job seekers. Others relish the chatter and have been known to linger at the hotel bar well past last call.

Some years, the meetings are a snoozefest. Last December, reporters wandered aimlessly through the comically large Opryland Resort in Nashville, waiting for Shohei Ohtani to sign. He did not do so until the following weekend, which helped turn the meetings into an arctic freeze. There was Juan Soto trade scuttlebutt, but that deal wasn’t finalized until everyone had left Nashville. The meetings’ actual biggest transaction turned out to be the Yankees-Red Sox Alex Verdugo trade.

But sometimes, the annual get together produces drama of the highest order. In 2022, an incorrect report claiming that free agent Aaron Judge and the San Francisco Giants had agreed to terms sent the entire conference into a frenzy. In 2019, agent Scott Boras completed massive contracts for Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon and Gerrit Cole on three consecutive days. The 1992 meetings in Louisville saw a young ballplayer named Barry Bonds sign a landmark, six-year, $43 million dollar deal with the Giants. In 2011, the last time the winter meetings were in Dallas, a dude fell into a lobby water feature. Also in Dallas: Alex Rodriguez signed his enormous deal with the Texas Rangers back in 2000.

This edition could be spicy, depending on when Juan Soto, this winter’s biggest fish, signs what’s sure to be a record-breaking contract. Nothing is imminent, but the consensus around the game is that the meetings won’t end with Soto still on the open market.

In fact, all signs indicate that Dallas will see a relatively large amount of transacting. Baseball’s offseasons have been known to sludge forward, with top free agents holding out until the early spring. People don’t think that will be the case this go-around, which could mean a particularly enjoyable and eventful winter meetings. Fingers crossed.