Yesterday morning, it looked like Theo Epstein gave the Nation of supporters for the Boston Red Sox a wonderful Hanukkah gift: San Diego’s power-hitting first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez. It actually seemed a little too good to be true – a handful of prospects, highly rated in the organization but none had any major league service time – were all it took to wrestle away a bat that many Sox fans had been hoping for it the past few seasons.
As part of the trade, the Red Sox also needed to add a multiple-year extension to AGonz’s current contract. Had the Padres not dealt Gonzalez, he likely would have bolted at the end of the 2011 season as a free agent. As of this afternoon, there was no word as to whether or not the new contract had been agreed to by the Sox and Gonzalez, but that’s apparently all settled now.
It didn’t seem that way, and Red Sox Nation was pretty close to the cyanide milkshake as two reports came out this afternoon. The first was that Jayson Werth, who most thought may sign and roam the outfield at Fenway, committed to a contract with the Washington Nationals that was so big that the Nats’ front office probably should be committed.
While this news was circulating, Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman started a little bit more of a fire: according to his source, the Gonzalez trade was no more:
Heyman also appeared on MLB Network to discuss his report, and it truly seemed that he was the only person with any sort of knowledge into any reality of the Sox’ failure to complete the deal. ESPN Boston never updated its post beyond noting that the deadline from the league had passed, but didn’t get any further intel. Most on Twitter just kept pointing back to Heyman and his singular source. Red Sox fans were bitter.
Fast forward to about 8 p.m., and Heyman tweets again:
Wait, what?! How is this guy the only guy with a source on this? The Red Sox fan in me wants to believe him, but the pre-2004 Red Sox fan in me still remembers to wait for the other shoe to drop. Can someone else report this so I can go celebrate?
I’ll just keep reading Heyman’s full piece on SI until my nerves calm.