NASHVILLE -- Omar Minaya doesn't need a hotel room at the winter meetings.

He needs his own convention center.

	Omar Minaya, left, will be a busy general manager at this weekend's winter meetings.

His official title is general manager, Montreal Expos. But these days, he seems more like the head auctioneer at Omar's Auction House.

Twenty-nine other general managers come to the winter meetings and meet with their hometown media in the privacy of their suite. But Friday night, baseball's PR honchos had to lead Minaya to his own personal media briefing -- at the podium inside the sprawling Delta Ballroom.

Not to suggest that the list of those attending was slightly larger than the usual Montreal media suspects -- but the crowd at the briefing might have been larger than the crowd at a lot of his team's games this year.

"Hmmm," Minaya said, after sitting down at the podium and surveying the mass of inquisitive humanity in front of him. "Did I make a trade or something I don't know about?"

The correct answer to that would be no -- for now. But give him time.

He's now conducting his business inside the gargantuan Opryland hotel -- a mini-city under glass, filled with giant lighted wreaths and humongous inflatable Christmas decorations. But at least for this weekend, no one and no thing in Opryland is bigger than Omar Minaya. He burst through the revolving door of the Cascades Lobby a little before noon. By 8:30 p.m., he had already met with the Braves, Phillies, Mets, Diamondbacks and Cardinals. He had meetings scheduled later with the Yankees and Red Sox. And before he spins out the revolving door Monday, "I may end up speaking to 15 teams," he said. "Or 20."

Hey, why not? Since being told by Major League Baseball they would wind up $13 million to $15 million over budget if they kept their team together, the Expos have made it clear they have something for just about everybody.

Their array of starting pitchers ranges from acehood (Bartolo Colon) to possible near-term-future acehood (Javier Vazquez) to an ace-type arm still under construction (Tony Armas Jr.).

Or, if you need a position player, they can show you something in a second baseman (Jose Vidro), a shortstop (Orlando Cabrera), a third baseman (Fernando Tatis) or a catcher (Michael Barrett). And for those who really like to dream, they'll at least listen on the most spectacular Expos player of them all -- Vladimir Guerrero -- even if it's hard to find anybody who thinks they would actually trade him.

	“	I hope to have more than one trade done here. But I'm not going to make a trade just because I'm at the winter meetings. I don't have to get down to payroll by Tuesday. I have to get down to payroll by Opening Day. ”
		— Omar Minaya, Expos GM

Minaya won't trade all of them. In fact, he would prefer to trade as few of them as possible. But he came with no clear vision of whom he would or wouldn't be able to move. So for now, he's all ears and no action -- until someone says the magic words.

"I don't feel obligated to listen to every trade proposal from every team," he said. "But I know some clubs were mad in the past that after I made some deals, there were complaints from some general managers that they didn't know my players were available. So I've been saying publicly that I'm willing to listen to any team.

"If somebody is aggressive and puts the right deal in front of me, I'll make that trade. But before I make a deal, I want to have as many options as possible in front of me."

So in they troop, one after another. We suggested to Minaya he set up one of those gizmos they have in your local deli -- where everybody takes a number and waits their turn. But Minaya says one-time White Sox GM Roland Hemond claims he already beat him to that one. So maybe next time.

However he handles it, though, he'll be a busy man these next three days. And maybe beyond.

Clubs that have spoken with the Expos report they've been told -- or at least gotten hints -- that these are the ground rules and likely scenarios: