In a deal set to be announced Monday, the Red Sox will acquire Adrian Gonzalez from the Padres for right-hander Casey Kelly, first baseman Anthony Rizzo and outfielder Reymond Fuentes.
The deal will get done without the extension Boston and Gonzalez were working on up until Sunday’s 2 p.m. ET deadline. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman says the two sides have the parameters of a deal agreed to, but will wait to finalize.
It’s possible that the two sides do in fact have an agreement, but the Red Sox will wait until April to announce it in order to stay out of the luxury tax for 2011. As is, Gonzalez will only count for $6.2 million for tax purposes next year. If he agreed to, let’s say, a seven-year, $154 million extension now, then he’d count as $20 million for 2011, potentially putting the Red Sox over the threshold at which they’d have to pay the luxury tax.
What looked like a potentially ugly day for the Red Sox now appears a whole lot better. No, they didn’t get Jayson Werth, but there were mixed signals on whether the team really wanted him anyway. And since Werth didn’t go to Detroit — and Carl Crawford is a big long shot to sign with the Tigers — the Red Sox will almost certainly get the first-round pick Detroit owes them for signing Victor Martinez. Crawford is the only remaining free agent who trumps Martinez in the Elias Rankings.