The Boston Red Sox have agreed to 3-year deal with free agent Mike Napoli. The deal is said to be worth $39 million. Napoli can play both first base and catcher, but is expected to play mostly at first for Boston. Napoli’s physical is scheduled for Wednesday which means the official announcement should be by the end of the week.
“We’ve made some progress,” Cherington said regarding the potential Napoli deal. “He’s a guy who’s getting on base, has power and could be a good fit for our ballpark. We knew when we made the Dodger trade, when we moved (Adrian) Gonzalez, that we would have to try to find a way to replace that offense, and as we got into the offseason we understood that was probably going to have to come from a combination of guys and maybe not one guy. “He can catch and he can play first. If he’s here, I would imagine he’d do some of both but that would be up to our manager to figure out.”
Red Sox pitcher John Lackey hasn’t contributed anything on the field so it was good to see him helping recruit off the field. Lackey had this to say:
“I’ve been working on him and I had a couple of guys text him,” Lackey told ESPNBoston.com. “We’ve been recruiting him the last few weeks, so I’m glad things worked out and we got him. He’s going to be a great addition to the club.”
Does this move mean the Red Sox could be targeting Napoli’s former teammate Josh Hamilton next? He would cost Boston a good chunk of change, but afterall they do have money to spend. Does adding Hamilton increase the Red Sox chances of winning it all? If you think so it’s easy to bet on baseball. Most would say Hamilton is a bad fit for a town like Boston and they could be right. However, rumors are still swirling and some say not to count the Red Sox out just yet.