Top free agent Carl Crawford has signed with the Boston Red Sox for seven years, $142 million, leaving the Angels with plenty of money to... uhh... yeah, well, looks like Scott Boras has held back Adrian Beltre long enough to get top dollar from Arte Moreno. The media conventional wisdom was tilting so heavily in favor of the Angels signing Crawford that earlier this afternoon it seemed that a Los Angeles of Anaheim signing was a fait accompli. Well, nyet to that, Frenchy.
Now Boras holds the cards if the Angels want top-tier talent as Cliff Lee (whose agent Darek Braunecker has already left the winter meetings) and Beltre wait with a deep gap of quality between them and the next available free agents. Tony Reagins has to be rooting for a Lee signing by the Yankees now, whose reported dollar amount offer to Cliff Lee was less than the reported $142 million total to Crawford, although at 6 years, $140 million, it pays the lefthander more per year. Ahhh... see how Boston tweaks their rivals yet again.
Just as I worried aloud earlier today on SBNLA, a post-2006-esque empty-handed-budget-consciousness has left the organization empty handed. The expulsion of Gamblin' Eddie Bane as the organization's Minor League chief now seems perfectly clear: This is a conservative outfit that doesn't take chances or appreciate what a wager might pay off. I guess we will never see Dennis Kuhl or John Carpino drop a green chip on the pass line and ask the baseball gods to pass them the dice.