If you can get past the introductory love story about Adrian Gonzalez and his high school sweetheart (and now wife) in Gordon Edes’ latest at ESPN Boston, you’ll read an interesting inside account of the negotiations between Adrian Gonzalez and the Boston Red Sox during their 24-hour negotiating window earlier this month.
Edes reports that Gonzalez and the Red Sox had hashed out a basic framework of a contract extension, but that the Sox were worried about Gonzalez’s shoulder, which he won’t be able to test until the spring. As a result, the Sox were wary of doing a deal. At the same time, there was anxiety on the part of the Red Sox that, if Albert Pujols signed an extension between now and then, the parameters discussed by Gonzalez and the team would be out the window and Gonzalez would be asking for a ton more. What to do about the Pujols problem? Adrian Gonzalez had an answer:
That’s a pretty bold promise. In many ways a noble one. But at the same time, maybe a foolish one too. Under such circumstances, Gonzalez accepts all of the risk of waiting several months to do an extension yet reaps none of the rewards if that waiting turns out to be to his benefit.
