Late Wednesday night, we learned from Rob Bradford of WEEI.com that the Boston Red Sox may still be interested in bringing back their free agent outfielder Jason Bay.
There have been a few different reports since then stating that it’s highly unlikely the Red Sox will pursue Bay due to budget restraints, ie the Red Sox don’t want to pay the luxury tax which is set at $170 million next season.
But according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Bay could want to return to Boston in 2010.
It’s hard to get a feel just yet for how serious the Boston Red Sox are about renewing their pursuit of Jason Bay, but it’s looking more and more as if Bay very much wants to play for them — as opposed to the Mets, that is.
It may be the result of Bay’s agent, Joe Urbon, continuing to call the Red Sox in recent days, according to a report in the Boston Globe.
The Red Sox have already offered Bay a 4 year, $60 million dollar deal. The only other known offer is from the New York Mets for 4 years, $65 million.
As Sherman points out, the Red Sox don’t want to pay a luxury tax and would have to “backload” Bay’s contract meaning he’d get more in the final years. But why backtrack and want to return to the Red Sox.
We all know how highly he spoke of Boston but rejected their last offer. And now all of the sudden he wants to return to Beantown.
I’m beginning to wonder if Bay thought there was going to be more offers for his services than what’s he gotten so far.
Stay tuned folks as this will probably get real interesting once the holidays pass us by.
