UPDATE: First Adrian Beltre and the Rangers had a deal. Then they didn’t. Then a deal was imminent. Now it’s not again:
The weird thing about this is that neither side of these conflicting reports is openly refuting the other. Usually we see “So-and-so said a deal was close, but a team source says that’s not the case.” Not on this. Here it’s like we have two alternate realities existing in which Adrian Beltre is close to signing and not at all close to signing and they are totally unaware of the other.
Maybe we’re in a Star Trek: TNG episode. They used to encounter that kind of thing all the time. If only we can somehow communicate with our alternate selves, we could solve this crisis! I suggest doing something with a tachyon field. Or perhaps reconfiguring the deflector dish. If we need more power, we can just divert some from the main shields. Yes, I know that leaves us vulnerable in the event of an attack, but how likely is that to occur? We’re on a research mission for crying out loud!
11:05 AM: Enrique Rojas of ESPN reports that “an agreement appears imminent,” between Adrian Beltre and the Rangers.
We are in grain of salt territory here however. Why? because yesterday there were reports that a deal was done, but those were walked back by U.S. writers, presumably with Rangers sources, who say that there are conversations but nothing close to being done. Rojas’ new report cites those reports from the Dominican Republic yesterday, but it is bylined from ten minutes ago. Is he reporting something new pointing to an imminent deal, or did an ESPN editor jump the gun or misread Rojas’ latest dispatch as the latest news when he was really reporting on yesterday’s now discredited reports? And if it is the latter, why no acknowledgments of the debunkings from earlier today? Hurm.
Rojas is good, though. If there’s a deal in place, it would not shock me in the least if he had it first. It seems like player-sourced news tends to beat team-sourced news with this sort of thing anyway.