The meetings come to a close today and the news out of Indy is that the Nationals took Jamie Hoffmann in the Rule Five draft. Ned told the media today that he’d be comfortable with a healthy Jason Repko as the fourth or fifth outfielder and I know there are a lot of Repko fans in LA, myself included. He’s a great kid with a lot of talent and hopefully he’ll be healthy in 2010.

Back in Los Angeles today, Matt Kemp and Ramon Troncoso are attending our holiday party for local underserved youth, which is a tradition that goes back about a quarter century. I’m bummed to be missing it, as it’s always a very cool thing to see these kids’ faces light up when they might not otherwise get to experience the holidays in this fashion.

My next post will be back when I get to Los Angeles but I wouldn’t worry too much that no moves got made at the meetings. I know how much everyone loves to see their team make moves at this time of year, but in general, it was pretty quiet for many teams. But, a lot of groundwork gets laid here and acted upon in the coming weeks. The important thing to remember, as far as I’m concerned, is that we’re not re-creating a whole team. We’re trying to add a pitcher or two and perhaps a second baseman and we’ll be right back to where we were last season – competing for the division title and hopefully, taking the next step to advance past the NLCS and into the World Series. And as you recall, the second baseman and pitcher that we’re trying to replace were signed in February/March last year, so there’s still plenty of time before the Opening Day roster will be complete.