New Ulm Sports Central - Preserving and Sharing New Ulm Area Sports History

POSTED Thursday, December 10, 2009 by Buster Olney, Senior Writer for ESPN The Magazine as Major League Baseball winter meeting Rule 5 draft starts 9 a.m. today, Dec. 10. New Ulm's Jamie Hoffmann was scheduled to be included in the draft.

The wind here in Indianapolis shook light poles, and the snow rode the same horizontal plane as a Lincecum fastball. Winter meetings, indeed. But inside the lobbies at the Marriott, you began to sense the first seeds of optimism that blossoms fully by the start of spring training. You could feel it as Rockies manager Jim Tracy chatted about how much experience his bullpen will have going into next season, and how well Jeff Francis has done in his rehabilitation.

You could hear it as Diamondbacks general manager Josh Byrnes talked about what his rotation could look like, with Dan Haren, Edwin Jackson and a recovering Brandon Webb at the front, and Ian Kennedy perhaps working at the back end. You could see it in the assuredness of Yankees general manager Brian Cashman as he talked about Curtis Granderson -- who could be an exceptional fit for the lineup of the defending champions -- and in the hopefulness of the Rays, as they moved to add Rafael Soriano, the kind of reliever they so desperately lacked in 2009.

And then there were the Dodgers.

There were trades and more than a dozen signings here. New GM Alex Anthopoulos impressed his peers with the way he is preparing for a trade of Roy Halladay. Almost 200 free agents are looking for jobs. But the Dodgers are really the biggest story of these winter meetings, by doing nothing. "It's incredible that you have one of the most storied franchises in all of baseball, and they're not even involved in talk for the best free agents," one agent said wistfully.

Imagine Bill Clinton going into a conference on health care and saying nothing. Imagine Al Gore going to a summit on global warming and uttering no words. Imagine George W. Bush at a round table on terrorism and remaining silent.

That's the Dodgers at these winter meetings -- frozen in inaction.