Underground culture of baseball’s Winter Meetings
Analytics help open door for fresh-faced college graduates staking out MLB’s top executives
Far below the posh hotel suites, where executives try to trade millionaires, a bustling subculture of the Winter Meetings lies in wait.
The Lobby Dwellers arrive early and stay late. They do so because they are dedicated and because they often have no place else to go. The Lobby Dwellers are fresh-faced college grads in new suits waiting for someone such as a Billy Beane or a Theo Epstein
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to make the mistake of strolling through the hall.
A quick word could be their big break.
And, crazy as it sounds, sometimes it works.
“I’m particularly sensitive to help,” Beane, the A’s executive vice president, said. “In many cases, this is their first job opportunity. I probably spend more time down there when I walk through than most because I have a daughter that age. I can imagine her being in that situation.”
The Lobby Dwellers are sewn into the Winter Meetings fabric, as much a part of the scene here as juicy rumors, Scott Boras press conferences and the Rule 5 draft.
This year, the sprawling lobby here at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort, offers an ideal setup. For one thing, it offers a centrally located watering hole where alcohol flows late into the night. It’s like a singles bar, but with doubles, homers and on-base percentage, too.
“You want to meet someone, but you don’t want to come on too strong,” Michael Plaisance, 22, of Alameda said. “That could easily turn them off. They could completely block you out.”
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