Executives and staff from all 30 Major League Baseball teams began converging for the winter meetings Sunday, two days after Shohei Ohtani pinned his hopes on the unfancied Los Angeles Angels.

A total of 27 teams submitted proposals to lure the 23-year-old Japanese two-way sensation, who interviewed seven clubs this past week before selecting the underdogs from Anaheim, California. That left nearly everyone walking through the door of the conference site wondering what made the Angels so special.

For the teams that came close but failed to grab the brass ring, their staff wondered what more they could have done after putting so much imagination and effort into their final presentations.

The phrases "we were really disappointed" and "we really wanted him" were heard repeatedly from people who prepared the groundwork for their teams' presentations to the slugging ace pitcher.

One of the three teams that opted out of this month's Ohtani mania, the Baltimore Orioles, did so as a matter of policy, according to general manager Dan Duquette.

Speaking on MLB Network Radio, Duquette said the Orioles didn't bother, "because philosophically we don't participate in the posting part of it."

The posting system allows Japanese teams the ability to make players under contract and ineligible for free agency available to MLB clubs, who agree to pay a transfer fee, called a "posting fee" to the team holding his rights.

Duquette didn't specify the source or nature of that philosophy, but it was clearly not shared by most of his counterparts.

But with Ohtani out of the way, and slugging outfielder Giancarlo Stanton traded to the New York Yankees, the biggest name on the market arguably now belongs to Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish.

Darvish finished the final season of his six-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, five-and-a-half years after signing with the Texas Rangers via the posting system. He joined the Dodgers in a mid-season trade and reached the World Series with them.

In addition to Darvish, a raft of Japanese players will be looking for jobs in the majors next year, but since none of them are high priorities, little movement is expected. Two of them, Ichiro Suzuki and Norichika Aoki, are outfielders, while the rest are pitchers.

Seibu Lions submarine right-hander Kazuhisa Makita is expected to be posted soon and has indicated he may not sign if he is only offered a minor league contract.

Right-handed major league veteran Koji Uehara will be looking for a team after pitching in 2017 for the Chicago Cubs, while Orix Buffaloes closer Yoshihisa Hirano and Lotte Marines right-hander Hideaki Wakui are both looking to move from Nippon Professional Baseball to MLB as free agents.

The winter meetings being held in Orlando, Florida, where teams will talk trades and meet with agents, start in earnest on Monday and last through Thursday morning.