Dispatch from the Winter Meetings
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As I write this, I’m sitting in the lobby of the Gaylord Hotel and convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland at the MLB Winter Meetings. I just shook hands with Peter Gammons, had a great conversation with Craig Calcaterra, ate lunch next to the front office of the Modesto Nuts (I didn’t tell them that that I’ve made them a powerhouse in my OOOTP Rockies sim), and I’m pretty sure I saw Bryan Price on the escalator.
It’s all very cool in the nerdiest way possible.
Some quick takeaways:
- There are so many people that want to work in baseball. I stepped in to the Business of Baseball seminar and was shocked to see more than a thousand people in the room listening to a presentation about proper front office interview techniques. I spoke with a few of the guys wearing ‘Job Seeker’ badges. It was really interesting. Most of the people flew in or drove hundreds of miles just to hopefully get the chance to meet and interview with a team’s front office, usually just hoping to catch the ear of a decision maker with a minor league team. People I talked to are interested in baseball graphic design, minor leauge PR, baseball operations, and whatever they can get and are angling for an internship or $20k per year entry level position. Seems awfully stressful, but there’s no better place to find a baseball job than the #wintermeetings. (I will note that in addition to the $250 registration fee for the job fair, whomever organized everything was also making attendees pay $10 for a crappy ham sandwich, which is not cool)
- It’s very cool walking by people just talking in the hotel lobby and overhear them debating the Taijuan Walker- Jean Segura trade.
- Baseball people are kind of hard to identify without team hats. I’ve walked by about a dozen people I know I know but haven’t been able to place them.
- An older guy I’m sure I know just sat down next to me and took out a ‘Baseball Analytics’ textbook and opened to a bookmarked page in the middle. I love it here.
I’ll write again later with another update once some more things have happened. People seem to be arriving constantly now, I’ve seen a ton of team branded suitcases, so I think I’ll have a lot more to report in a little bit.
-Max Frankel
