Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston reports that the Red Sox are prepared to pick up David Ortiz’s $12 million 2011 extension. That according to “a major league source well acquainted with the Sox’s thinking.”
In other news, we probably need to have a summit meeting about the best way to label anonymous sources in this business, because “a major league source well acquainted with the Sox’s thinking” is kind of a mouthful.
Nothing wrong with such reporting, mind you. I don’t mean to impugn Edes at all because he’s a good reporter. Indeed, I pass things along from anonymous sources all the time myself. This is baseball, after all, not foreign policy reporting, and despite what people may tell you, there is nothing wrong with gossip. It’s just that when you dress gossip up with newsy descriptions such as “a major league source well acquainted with the Sox’s thinking” you sound, I dunno, a bit silly. Let’s strive to keep it casual, ya know? I digress.
Ortiz has had a pretty decent year, with early season fears that his career was deader than vaudeville proving to be overstatements. Still, I’d be wary of paying the guy $12 million when the going rate for a DH on the downside of his career is a seven figure proposition rather than eight. Maybe Boston is just scared to death at this point that they’ll never have healthy players again and want to be double damn sure they have the one big bat who has managed to stay in the lineup all year back for 2011.
