Into the Winter Meetings

The baseball world gathers this week in San Diego for the annual winter meetings.

The Twins go into the giant trade convention with a full 40-man roster and a desire to reshape the pitching staff.

Just as I believe they took the wrong step in addressing their outfield questions by signing the aging Torii Hunter, I suspect they will do the same on the pitching.

Terry Ryan has spoken in necessarily vague terms about looking for "innings," code for veteran starting pitchers who would fill out the rotation. As I see it, that's what Ryan has behind Phil Hughes and (maybe) Kyle Gibson at the head of the rotation. Ricky Nolasco, Tommy Milone and Mike Pelfrey are not high-ceiling guys.

Ryan would do better, in my view, to move one or two of those guys out of the way of Alex Meyer and Trevor May. I want to see at least one of those two in the rotation this spring. I doubt I will get my wish.

Other things to watch for this week:

• The Hall of Fame veterans committee votes today on the 10 finalists for this year's time period. Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat are among the 10, and Tony-O is widely seen as one of the most likely to be selected.
• The Toronto Blue Jays are looking for a new team president, and Ryan's name has come up. He declined to pursue a Toronto job back in 2001, and I suspect he'll not jump ship now either. 
• The Twins last winter stayed out of the Rule 5 draft for the first time in years. Unless they move somebody off the roster this week, they'll be out of the picture again this year. Rule 5 is generally the closing act of the meetings, so they have time to do something there.