The Bay Trade

Is this going down? Is this not going down? There are a million variables and a million rumors being passed around tonight. The main tenants of this deal right now are: 1.) Manny Ramirez to Florida, 2.) Jason Bay (and maybe Grabow) to Boston, 3.) Jeremy Hermida and prospects to the Pirates. Will Carrol says it's almost done, but the Commish has to approve and that we might want more for Bay.

What to take from this? Where there's smoke, there's fire, and there's smoke all over the place right now. There are some things to consider, though. Hermida is an incredibly promising young player, but he's 24 and he's got 2-3 seasons worth of major league time. As centerpieces for players like Jason Bay go, I don't know that he's who I'd have my eye on because of service time. And it's possible that Huntington is using all of this Red Sox talk to drive up an offer from the Rays. The Rays have so much young pitching that they can almost certainly afford to send Hellickson or Davis (among other prospects) our way for Bay and refusing to do so and letting him go to the Sawx would just be poor business for them. It's hard to know what will happen, but seeing Bay linked to two American League contenders with good minor league systems in the same day brings a smile to my face.

My guess at the moment is that Bay won't be a Pirate by four o'clock tomorrow, but that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than anyone knows.