Winter Meetings Preview

With baseball's winter meetings beginning today, very few GMs have more on their plate than Theo Epstein. Here are some tidbits from the latest post by Peter Gammons:

Look, the Red Sox don't even know if Manny Ramirez will be or can be traded at the winter meetings, so no one does.

They don't know if they can get the Dodgers and Angels in a marketing war and end up with something close to what they want. They don't know if the Mariners would trade rookie center fielder Adam Jones and pitching.

It would shock no one if, after weeks of bartering, the Red Sox got a deal with a team like the Dodgers and Manny exercised his 10/5 rights or held up the deal, pressuring Genske to get 2009 and 2010 guaranteed at the $20 million per year, per the contract option.

The club has told Genske in no uncertain terms that if they accede to his trade request and the deal gets held up, Ramirez will have to sit in Boston for the remainder of the deal.

The sense around the Red Sox is that while they may reach for the antacid they aren't going to roll over if Ramirez comes back; if Julio Lugo were to sign (for less than the Cubs' or Mets' offers so he could play short and be with his old friend David Ortiz), then the Lugo/Coco Crisp/Ortiz/Ramirez/J.D. Drew front five would be extremely powerful.

It is assumed that Epstein will complete the Drew deal (my analogy is that J.D. Drew equals Fred Lynn), try to sign Lugo and find a closer. Would Seattle deal J.J. Putz for Manny? Dubious. Scott Boras would like to get Eric Gagne to Boston; problem is, are the medicals real or off the set of General Hospital? Joe Borowski has been calling now that his medicals were declined in Philly.

Jonathan Papelbon's recent MRI was precisely the same as the one he took when he first signed out of Mississippi State, so they are very encouraged by his progress and convinced he will be a 200-innings horse.

The Giants offered Carlos Lee $113M, and they are trying to get into the Ramirez thing … anything to not take Barry Bonds back. Boston has no interest in Bonds.

The Padres have dabbled in the Ramirez talks but don't think they have enough without trading Peavy, which is not going to happen. Boston does not think Scott Linebrink is a closer, and the one available starter in that kind of deal would be Clay Hensley. "That," says one GM, "isn't going to get it done."