Major League Baseball is polling team executives about canceling the annual Winter Meetings, currently set for Dec. 6-10 in Dallas, as COVID-19 concerns are forcing many execs to consider a virtual-only event.
The fall baseball event season has already been trimmed with Minor League Baseball opting to hold its annual Innovators Summit as a virtual event. There had also been widespread speculation in the industry that the annual Baseball Trade Show would be canceled as well before this report on SNY.
The Winter Meetings have been held since 1901. In the last half decade their purpose and scope have changed; once a gathering to celebrate baseball both on the MLB and MiLB levels, in recent years the Winter Meetings have devolved into two separate gatherings–MLB in one hotel, MiLB in the other–and with MLB general managers now meeting in a separate set of meetings, the Winter Meetings has not been the trade central it was back in the days when Rollie Hemond set up a table in the hotel lobby, announcing he was open for business when it came to trades. And it seems no one is eager to do much socializing in a year just jammed with bad news of all kinds.