If the Winter Meetings begin in Lake Buena Vista, and no free agents are left to sign, does anyone make a tweet?
Jayson Stark provides a Winter Meetings Forecast. Stark surveyed baseball execs and found that folks believe Jeff Samardzija is most likely to be traded, while Shin-Soo Choo is mostly likely to sign over the next few days.
CBS's Matt Snyder provides the storylines to watch this week. Storyline No. 1: Boredom. At least we'll have the mental image of Jon Daniels, A.J. Preller, and Thad Levine skipping around The Most Magical Place On Earth.
However, Craig Calcaterra, in his Winter Meetings preview, writes that we shouldn't expect to read about Brian Cashman and Jack Zduriencik hanging around playing chicken fight with Andrew Friedman and Theo Epstein just because of the accelerated offseason.
The local scribes were busy reenacting 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' (With Evan Grant as John Candy and Jeff Wilson totally Steve Martin) just to get from frozen Texas to tropical Florida. Grant filed a piece about the front office hoping this offseason mirrors the one that followed the 2010 season.
Wilson writes that the Rangers remain leery of losing draft picks and even consider re-signing Nelson Cruz a surrendered draft pick since they won't gain one like they would if he were to sign elsewhere.
In an ESPN Insider piece, Jim Bowden links the Rangers to David Price, Matt Kemp, and Billy Butler among his eight names who could be traded.
Also in an ESPN Insider piece, Buster Olney looks at the biggest need of the top contenders and that includes the left field situation in Arlington.
Finally, in not an ESPN Insider piece, David Schoenfield asks three pressing questions for each American League West team. For the Rangers, it's basically: So, you're signing Shin-Soo Choo, right?