With the Rule 5 Draft having ended, the 2008 Baseball Winter Meetings in Las Vegas are over. As we know, the Red Sox selected Miguel Gonzalez from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the MLB phase and Miguel Marquez from the Seattle Mariners in the Triple-A phase.
Last night, Scott Boras held court and said the Red Sox had offered Jason Varitek a contract. Apparently, Boras may have embellished that fact just a little bit. From Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:
Except for the “offer” of arbitration, which he declined, free agent catcher Jason Varitek has not received a contractual offer from the Red Sox, a source familiar with the talks said.
Big shocker there that Boras lied about it. NOT!
Although maybe they did offer him a contract as Theo Epstein said he made offers to 4 free agents including Varitek.
It was being reported last night that the Red Sox were closing in on signing free agent first baseman Mark Teixeira. That doesn’t appear to be the case either. From Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:
According to one Red Sox official, as of this morning nothing was close on Mark Teixeira. The Sox are one of four teams currently strongly involved in talks for the free agent first baseman.
There are 5 teams that are interested in Teixeira’s services. The Red Sox, Angels, Nationals, Orioles and Yankees.
The Red Sox are/were having discussions with the Arizona Diamondbacks about a swap of inflated contracts. They were talking about a Julio Lugo for Eric Byrnes trade. But as Rob from The Bottom Line pointed out in a comment, the Diamondbacks signed Felipe Lopez this morning so those talks may be mute now.
Lou Merloni of WEEI.com wraps up Day 4 from the Winter Meetings.
The Red Sox and Rangers finalized the trade for Wes Littleton as they have sent reliever Beau Vaughn to the Rangers.
Rob Bradford of WEEI.com has the skinny on Ramon Ramirez.
James Stewart of WEEI.com has 5 things that we learned while the Red Sox were in Vegas.
If any rumors or news comes out, I’ll be on top of it for you.
Thanks for making SOX & Dawgs a part of your day.
