NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In recent years, baseball’s annual winter meetings have been anti-climactic. Teams increasingly made their moves before the industry convened for its pre-holidays gathering.

This year is a little different. The annual flurry of offseason player movement has just begun, primarily because baseball didn’t have a labor agreement until last Wednesday night. The collective bargaining agreement between major league baseball and its players’ association was set to expire at midnight, but a new deal was hammered out with just hours to spare.

There has been talk that the Detroit Tigers could move former Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, but to get him, the Red Sox would have to break up their nucleus of young players. Associated Press

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Teams spent the weekend digesting the changes in the new agreement. There aren’t many drastic ones, but there are changes that will affect the way the Boston Red Sox approach their offseason. The luxury tax threshold was bumped up, but not enough to change Boston’s status as one of the teams over the limit.

That’s why it’s still hard to imagine Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski opening up the checkbook for a top-tier free agent like Edwin Encarnacion, who would undoubtedly earn a payday north of $100 million if he chooses to leave Toronto. He’d be a great fit in Boston as the man to replace David Ortiz as designated hitter, but he just might be too costly for a team already paying the luxury tax.

If the Sox choose to go smaller in their DH search, the list is shrinking by the day. On Friday, Carlos Beltran signed a one-year deal with Houston. Two days later Matt Holliday became a Yankee. Either would have been a much more cost-efficient solution for Boston.

Historically, Dombrowski hasn’t been one to wait around long to fill his team’s needs. Last year he added David Price, Craig Kimbrel and Chris Young in a three-week span before the winter meetings began. This year he had to wait to see what the new CBA would bring in terms of free-agent restrictions. Now that he knows what he can and can’t do, he’ll be ready to strike.

The meetings began with lots of murmurs about a mega-deal that would see the Chicago White Sox move ace pitcher Chris Sale. Likewise there was talk that Dombrowski’s former team, the Detroit Tigers, could move former Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera.

Dombrowski would have to break up his nucleus of young players to land Sale or a Cabrera. But he has ample prospects to deal and might feel a blockbuster is needed to get the Red Sox to the next level.

Or he could opt to let Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi and others continue to mature and develop as the heart of a team that could contend for many years to come.

Of course, to keep that core intact he will have to lock up some of those players to long-term contracts or risk losing them to free agency eventually. We’ve already discussed the luxury tax; keeping this group together won’t help get the Red Sox under the limit.

Even without a blockbuster, Dombrowski has work to do. In addition to a DH, he needs to find an eighth-inning reliever who can help bolster Kimbrel in the back end of the bullpen. Most of the top free-agent relievers available right now are closers. They may not be interested in signing with a new team in a setup role. At the very least, Dombrowski would have to overpay to interest them in giving up their closer status.

A week ago, we didn’t know if baseball would suffer its first work stoppage in more than 20 years. With that concern alleviated, the Red Sox can finally get down to work to build a team that will have a chance to repeat as AL East champs in 2017. The winter meetings are the perfect place for that work to begin.

Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

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