NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Baseball’s annual winter meetings are underway at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, where there’s a ludicrous amount of room for the hot air to bounce around an obscenely garish venue.

The Toronto Blue Jays contingent (which includes GM Alex Anthopoulos, assistant GMs Tony LaCava, Jay Sartori and Andrew Tinnish, special assistant to the GM Dana Brown and pro scouting director Perry Minisian) mostly arrived Sunday afternoon, sat down for a group dinner together, and finalized some details on their strategy having already done their heavy lifting for the winter.

Refreshingly different is that the others in the American League East are chasing the Blue Jays, who raised the stakes in a most intriguing fashion by raiding the Miami Marlins for Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio and John Buck and signing free agents Melky Cabrera and Maicer Izturis.

At the same time their rivals have mostly spun their wheels, although you’d figure that at some point changes.

The aging New York Yankees, who already had holes to fill in their rotation and outfield and questions about Derek Jeter after his ankle injury, have more issues amid multiple reports that Alex Rodriguez needs hip surgery again.

The Boston Red Sox have money to spend and catching depth to deal after signing David Ross, but so far have only added outfielder Jonny Gomes, and reportedly came to a deal withit of catcher/first baseman Mike Napoli on Monday.

The Tampa Bay Rays locked up third baseman Evan Longoria for the next decade but have done little so far to build up an offence in need of help around him, although they have pitching to deal and James Shields may very well be in play.

And the Baltimore Orioles have yet to make a move of significance to upgrade a team that surprised its way to a wild card berth last year, and needs both rotation help and a first baseman/DH after non-tendering Mark Reynolds.

So while those teams still need to do major work, the Blue Jays are mostly putting finishing touches on their club, in search of depth for the rotation, a piece or two for the bullpen (clarity on Darren Oliver’s status would help but the left-hander remains undecided about playing another season, according to a source), and just maybe if something presents itself a positional upgrade.

But given what transpired during a miserable 2012, the priority should be building up rotation depth, and the ideal candidate for that would be Carlos Villanueva, who did just that last season while logging important innings in the Blue Jays bullpen as well.

AA says he spoke to Carlos Villanueva post-Mia-trade, he still wants to start but is a bit more open to competing for rotation spot w#Jays

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) December 3, 2012

The right-hander is a free agent and is looking for a team to make a commitment to him as a starter. He should have no trouble finding one to do that. But during the summer he also said he would consider returning as a swingman if he was paid as a starter, and that may be the compromise needed to keep him in Toronto.

As a starter, was 5-7 with a 4.50 ERA over 16 starts, a rough September bloating those totals, while as a reliever he was 2-0 with a 3.24 ERA in 22 games with 9.7 strikeouts per nine innings (8.4 as a starter).

Had he been capped at around 10-12 starts, his numbers would be far better and a swingman performing at that level would be a very valuable commodity, and make him exactly the type of finishing piece the Blue Jays need.