With MLB's winter meetings starting Sunday night, let's look at where all 30 teams stand. Below we examine each team using five categories: their biggest needs, the current free agents they could be interested in, players they might be interested in trading for, their notable acquisitions to date and their "aggressiveness scale," which is how aggressive we expect each team to be during these winter meetings on a scale of 1-10 from least to most aggressive. I communicated with 27 of the 30 general managers, so the biggest team needs in most cases came directly from them, while the free agents and trade targets came from a combination of baseball people on both sides, from agents to club executives of various levels and even directly with some players.
Based on those contacts here is this year's winter meetings checklist for all 30 clubs:
American League
Biggest team needs: An experienced catcher, a left-handed hitter, and a right fielder.
Free agents they could be interested in: 1B/OF Mark Trumbo, CF Dexter Fowler, OF Michael Saunders, OF Angel Pagan, UT Ian Desmond, OF Carlos Gomez.
Trade options: OF Jay Bruce, OF Carlos Gonzalez, OF Adam Eaton, OF Jayson Werth.
Notable acquisitions to date: RHP Logan Verrett
Aggressiveness scale: 7
Biggest team needs: DH, bullpen depth, elite starting pitcher.
Free agents they could be interested in: DH Carlos Beltran, LHP Rich Hill, LHP Boone Logan, RHP Brad Ziegler, RHP Sergio Romo, RHP Santiago Casilla, LHP Travis Wood, RHP Neftali Feliz.
Trade options: LHP Chris Sale, RHP Justin Verlander, LHP Jose Quintana, DH Victor Martinez, 1B Eric Hosmer, 1B Jose Abreu.
Notable acquisitions to date: None.
Aggressiveness scale: 8