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I think this deal might be almost too good to pass up.
The Rangers were doing a patch job @ CF with Lofton's 1yr deal & waitng for the hometown boy to be a FA in 2007.
The Blue Jays apparently are serious about keeping budding superstar Vernon Wells in the fold.
$100 million men
If Vernon Wells accepts the Jays' offer, his pact would be the sixth richest in the history of the sport:
Player---------club-------Years-----Total
Alex Rodriguez---TEX-NYY 2001-10 $250M
Derek Jeter------NYY 2001-10 $189M
Manny Ramirez---BOS 2001-08 $160M
Todd Helton-----COL 2003-11 $141.5M
Alfonso Soriano--CHC 2007-14 $136M
Mike Hampton---COL-ATL 2001-08 $121M
Jason Giambi----NYY 2002-08 $120M
Carlos Beltran, NYM 2005-11 $119M
Ken Griffey Jr., CIN 2000-08 $116.5M
Kevin Brown, LAD-NYY 1999-05 $105M
Carlos Lee, HOU 2007-12 $100M
Albert Pujols, STL 2004-10 $100M
Wells, who can become a free agent after next season, was offered a seven-year, $126 million extension by Toronto. No deal has been agreed to, however.
Wells, who will make $5.6 million next season, confirmed the offer in an interview with The Globe and Mail, but wouldn't confirm the amount.
"It's somewhere in there," Wells told the Globe on Tuesday. "But to be honest, other than that, I don't feel under any obligation to make any more comments about it."
General manager J.P. Ricciardi also confirmed to the newspaper that a contract had been offered.
Ricciardi told ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick on Monday that the team was leaning toward keeping Wells, even if it can't reach agreement on an extension.
Wells, a two-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove Award winner, hit .303 with 32 homers and 106 RBI last season. Even though next winter's free agent crop is exceedingly deep (Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter, Mike Cameron, Mark Kotsay and Aaron Rowand will also be on the market), Wells looks like a strong candidate to receive a nine-figure deal.
Ricciardi recently told USA Today that the Blue Jays will have to "explore" the possibility of trading Wells if they can't sign him to a long-term contract. He told the newspaper that he should have a better idea where things stand with Wells in early January.
"We're going to exhaust every possible way to sign the player," Ricciardi said Monday. "Ownership has been great to us, and if it gets to a point where we can't sign him, then we can't sign him. That's the reality of it. It's not that we don't want to."
When asked to give odds on the likelihood of Wells wearing a Toronto uniform in 2007, Ricciardi declined to make a prediction.
"I don't want to predict numbers," he said. "If you've been to the race track with me, you'd know I'm not too good."
Information from ESPN's Steve Phillips and ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick was used in this report.
I think this deal might be almost too good to pass up.
The Rangers were doing a patch job @ CF with Lofton's 1yr deal & waitng for the hometown boy to be a FA in 2007.
Nobody on that list deserves half of that other than Albert and Jeter.
Looking at Vernon's #'s and the moves being made by those in the division, I think an offer of this magnitude had to be made. Time will tell about whether it's deserving, but it was a "must" move by the org.
The crazy part about it is that he hasn't responded yet. You'd think he'd be buying a bigger house, bentley's and an African Elephant (b/c rich people buy random crap). I get excited when I get a $25 gift card to Lowe's for a Christmas Bonus...but not a peep out of this guy.
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