According to multiple reports, the Boston Red Sox have been unable to agree to a contract extension with Adrian Gonzalez prior to today's 1 p.m. Central deadline for agreeing to a deal.
Gonzalez was supposedly asking for 8 years, $160 million, and Boston was apparently offering significantly less.
Given that Gonzalez will be the best first baseman on the market next offseason, given that he's not yet 30, and given that we have the recent deals of Mark Teixeira (8 years, $180 million) and Ryan Howard (5 years, $125 million) to work off of for first basemen, Gonzalez asking for $20 million per year doesn't seem unreasonable. That's less than Teixeira, who Gonzalez is about on par with, and much less than Howard, who Gonzalez is much better than.
So what now? There are several options...
1) Boston and San Diego can simply not consummate the trade.
2) Boston and San Diego can consummate the trade, and Boston can continue to negotiate with Gonzalez, and sign him to an extension in the next week or two.
3) Boston and San Diego can consummate the trade, and Boston can accept that Gonzalez is likely to test the free agent waters after the 2011 season.
4) Boston can go back to San Diego and say, we still want Gonzalez, but we aren't going to give up as much as when we thought we could get him to agree to an extension.
I'm not about to guess what will happen here. But it should be interesting...stay tuned...