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The MLB Winter Meetings opened Sunday at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., and while D-backs GM Mike Hazen isn’t about to guarantee anything, he said he thinks we could be in for a busy week.

“I’m assuming a lot is going to happen,” Hazen said late last week. “It seems like there is a lot set up to happen. Not specific to even free agents, just there’s been a lot of trade activity conversations happening all the time. I think those conversations can start up more aggressively at the Meetings.”

Hazen is referring to all of baseball, not the D-backs specifically, but he did indicate they could be busy, as well.

“It’s hard to say exactly where we fit into any of that right now,” Hazen said. “We’re having a lot of trade conversations about various things and obviously very active in the free agent market. It’s hard to know how that will come together. I’m sure we’ll have meetings with agents and some face-to-face meetings with teams. It’s hard to say if that makes a difference in getting trades done.”

In recent years, the D-backs have not been big players in the free agent market, so they’ve had to wait for that market to shake out before teams were willing to get serious with them regarding trades.

Coming off a World Series appearance, though, and having some money to spend, the D-backs are in a different spot this time around. That doesn’t mean they’re going to be in the bidding for Shohei Ohtani, just that they won’t necessarily be waiting for the scraps to fall to them at the end.

“We’re engaged in the market more aggressively,” Hazen said. “It's not to say that something’s going to happen involving us there, but I think we’re probably in a little different spot than we have been in the past going into the Winter Meetings is how I would characterize it.”

Unlike last year, when the D-backs had a surplus of outfielders to deal from with Daulton Varsho going to the Blue Jays in exchange for Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno, Arizona seems unlikely to trade off its Major League roster.

“I’m never going to say never, but it’s more complicated now for us,” Hazen said. “Trading off your Major League team when you win 72 to 74 games, I think, has a different feel to it. It’s not that you shouldn’t do it if it’s the right decision, but just coming off the season we did, I think there’s a little bit of a difference. You know that the team you have can win. The players on your team are geared around winning. So taking people off of a team that went to the World Series, I think, is a little heavier than doing it off a team that missed the playoffs and came in fourth place.”

The D-backs’ top priority is finding a pitcher to slot behind Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and perhaps Brandon Pfaadt.

Even though the D-backs added a right-handed power bat in Eugenio Suárez already this offseason, they would like another right-handed bat to replace the loss of free agents Gurriel and Tommy Pham.

That could come in the form of an outfielder, but Hazen is open to a full-time designated hitter.

In the past, the D-backs have liked to rotate different players in the DH spot as a way of giving them a partial day off, but if they can land the righty hitter like J.D. Martinez or Justin Turner, they are open to have one person handle the position.

“I think a right-handed bat is [a need],” Hazen said. “I wouldn’t say a right-handed-hitting outfielder. A right-handed bat is somebody that would help fill out our lineup. There are options and various places to get that. Depending on who that was, where that landed, how that fit, I think we would have more flexibility for how the rest of it would come together.”

For the 10th year, Major League Baseball and its teams have organized a charity auction during the Winter Meetings to benefit a special cause close to the game, supporting Stand Up To Cancer.

The auction, which went live today, includes three experiences related to the D-backs.

“The Torey Lovullo VIP Experience” will allow one winner and three guests to experience a day in the life of Lovullo, who loves to play basketball and spend his down time in the swimming pool. The winning bidder and his guests will get a pregame basketball shootaround game of HORSE on the field, a chance to swim in the Chase Field pool, tag along with Lovullo for his pregame media availabilities, watch batting practice from the field and enjoy the game with premier seats.

There is also an experience with NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll that includes a chance to meet him, get your photo taken with him and receive his autograph. There’s also another experience with Carroll, Gallen and Geraldo Perdomo.

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