Winter Meetings

The Winter Meetings are an annual event, held each December, in which representatives of all 30 Major League Baseball teams and their 160 minor league baseball affiliates convene for four days to discuss league business and conduct off-season trades and transactions. Attendees include league executives, team owners, general managers, team scouts, visitors from baseball-playing countries, trade show exhibitors, and people seeking employment with minor league organizations. The Rule 5 draft, in which minor league players who are not on a team's 40-man roster can be drafted by a major league team, is held on the last day of the meetings.

In 2015, the 114th annual Winter Meetings were held from December 7 to 10 in Nashville, Tennessee. The 2016 Winter Meetings were held from December 4 to 8 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

The tradition of baseball holding off-season meetings during December dates back to 1876, the first offseason of the National League. At the 1876 meetings, William Hulbert was selected to be the league's president, and two teams (the New York Mutuals and Philadelphia Athletics) were expelled from the league for failing to play all their scheduled games. The Winter Meetings became an annual event in 1901.

The Winter Meetings attract several thousand participants; in 2014 organizers anticipated 3,000 attendees. These include team owners, field managers, team scouts, players' agents, lawyers and accountants specializing in baseball, and visitors from baseball-playing countries. Baseball players generally do not attend, although free agents come to introduce themselves to many teams. At the 2014 Winter Meetings in San Diego, an estimated 750 media personnel received press passes.

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