NASHVILLE — How slow was business for the Red Sox on the first full day of the winter meetings?

Slow enough that for perhaps the first time since he became general manager of the club, Theo Epstein took a mid-afternoon stroll through the cavernous Opryland hotel lobby.

Epstein said he felt some cabin fever in the Sox’ suite and needed to get out.

“We decided to walk the lobby,” said Epstein, “and try to get something started. It didn’t work.”

Epstein and his staff spoke by phone with a handful of teams and some agents representing free agents, but the discussions were perfunctory and yielded little in the way of results.

By 10 p.m. last night, they had not had occasion to meet with the Minnesota Twins regarding Johan Santana, as the trade talk cooled with no movement on the part of the Sox or their rivals, the Yankees.

But Epstein said the slow pace was also the nature of his team’s immediate needs. Beyond talks on Santana and cursory investigations into the availability of other front-line starters (Erik Bedard, Dan Haren), the team is mostly preoccupied this week with filling out its bench.

“That part of the market,” said Epstein, “usually settles later (in the offseason).”

All of which doesn’t mean the Sox aren’t performing their due diligence here, looking to see if upgrades — big or small, for the present or the future — can be made.

“We certainly have the obligation to explore any opportunity to make us better,” he said. “We see it as our job to explore every possible way to get better. But certainly there’s a lot less immediacy to (the search). And the phone is ringing less — with the exception of a few players of ours thought to be available — than in previous years.”

Epstein said he didn’t anticipate the Sox giving the Twins any sort of deadline or mandate — as the Yankees did Sunday night — in the ongoing talks for Santana.

“We’re pretty content where we are,” Epstein said. “We don’t think anything is being held up (by continuing to talk to the Twins). If that changes, we wouldn’t hesitate putting a timetable on it. But that doesn’t apply right now.”

The Sox have fielded inquiries on veteran pitcher Julian Tavarez from at least two teams, but a deal might take some time as teams explore free-agent choices such as Carlos Silva and Kyle Lohse.

Tavarez, who split time between the bullpen and the starting rotation last year, is under contract for 2008 at the reasonable price of $3.5 million — or about a third of what pitchers like Silva and Lohse are expected to fetch.

Likely to pass

The Sox have traditionally been active in the Rule V draft of unprotected players, selecting Lenny DiNardo, among others, in recent seasons. But when the draft is held on Thursday, the Sox don’t anticipate making a selection — in part because of their personnel and in part because their trip to Japan in mid-March will further shorten their time to evaluate a newcomer without major-league experience.

All hands on deck

Epstein said the team intends to bring back the entire major-league coaching staff, and added that all of the coaches have agreed to new contracts, though some haven’t been signed.

smcadam@projo.com