![\"MlbHlSq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/MlbHlSq.jpg\" "\\"MlbHlSq\\"")
You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t normally expect there to be much breaking baseball news on a British Sunday evening.\u00c2\u00a0 I innocently logged on to my computer with the intention of having a quick check on the latest rumours at around 10 p.m., only to spend the next hour or so clicking from website to website and tweet to tweet chasing all the stories and the immediate reaction to the news.<\/p>\n
Every offseason move turns into a drama, but the Washington Nationals\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 signing of Jayson Werth was one case where the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmajor event\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 billing was fully justified.\u00c2\u00a0 It was genuinely stunning, leaving me doubting my eyes, even my sanity, for a few seconds as the news sunk in.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Part of the shock was that it was completely unexpected.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost unheard of nowadays, as even the most banal developments and vague hints of potential interest are blogged and tweeted about on a non-stop basis.\u00c2\u00a0 That will become even more prevalent over the next few days during the MLB Winter Meetings.\u00c2\u00a0 You normally have some inkling that a deal is being discussed, followed by a flurry of activity just before the signing is officially announced.<\/p>\n
In Werth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read a single story seriously linking the outfielder with the Nationals prior to last night.\u00c2\u00a0 There were rumours that the Tigers could have enough money left to pair him in the batting lineup with new recruit Victor Martinez, while some were planning out a potential Red Sox lineup including the former Philly and Adrian Gonzalez (more on him in a moment).\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But the Nationals?\u00c2\u00a0 They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to be in the running at all until about 30 minutes before he was confirmed as a Washington player.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m as guilty as anyone in devouring all the trade rumours to fill these long, cold winter months; however, when a deal like this happens I almost wish I had the willpower to go cold turkey and avoid them.\u00c2\u00a0 Learning of a signing completely out of the blue beats the official confirmation of a long-rumoured agreement every time.<\/p>\n
What of the deal itself?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to be very exciting for Nationals fans and gives a bit of hope to all baseball fans that their team might suddenly\u00c2\u00a0make a big deal out of nowhere.\u00c2\u00a0 The team hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly wowed Washington since moving to the capital in 2005, but the money spent on Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper and now Werth shows that the organization is willing to invest considerable amounts to acquire talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether that will translate into a winning team remains to seen, especially when you consider how much money they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tied up in their latest acquisition.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
At seven years and $126m (\u00c2\u00a380,143,000, or to put it another way \u00c2\u00a3220,173 per week), the size of the contract in years and total value is considerable and considerably above the predictions.\u00c2\u00a0 Werth is a valuable player that many teams would love to have in their side, but is he that <\/em>good?\u00c2\u00a0 Signing a 31 year old to a seven-year deal carries a lot of risk and the Nationals are taking a real chance here that he will provide good value over the life on the contract.\u00c2\u00a0 Those suffering Nats fans have every right to leave such hard-hearted thoughts to one side and to bask in the excitement for a few days though.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Various other General Managers will not be impressed by the extravagance showed by GM Mike Rizzo and the Nationals\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ownership.\u00c2\u00a0 Carl Crawford and his agent will be raising a glass to Werth and his agent Scott Boras, while the Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 GM Tony Reagins will be trying to avoid Rizzo over the next couple of days in Orlando just in case his emotions get the better of him.\u00c2\u00a0 The free agent market always offers plenty of fun and games and the Werth contract has ensured the entertainment, along with the players and agents, will be richer than usual this year.<\/p>\n While Werth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s move to the Nationals was a shock, the Boston Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s signing of Adrian Gonzalez has been on the cards for the last two years.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet,\u00c2\u00a0as this Sunday\u00c2\u00a0seemingly demanded, it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turn out to be quite as simple as everyone thought it would be.<\/p>\n Heading into Sunday, all of the stories were referring to Gonzalez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s move to the Red Sox as if it was a formality.\u00c2\u00a0 With the trade agreed and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dconly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 a contract extension to be finalized, all concerned were gathered in the church waiting to proclaim the happy couple team and contracted ballplayer.\u00c2\u00a0 But as the clock struck 2 p.m. local time (7 p.m. over here), the Red Sox were left jilted at the altar.\u00c2\u00a0 The window to negotiate a contract extension had shut without an agreement being reached and when I caught up with the news later in the evening, the wedding was off.<\/p>\n Then\u00c2\u00a0I logged on over breakfast on Monday morning and found that it was all back on again. Gonzalez is now wearing a Red Sox cap, albeit with the matter of a lucrative contract (estimates put the total value anywhere between $150m-$170m) still to be negotiated.\u00c2\u00a0 He stands to be in Boston for years to come and it looks like a marriage made in heaven.<\/p>\n If we can expect such twists and turns on a supposed \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcday of rest\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, the Winter Meetings should leave us eagerly checking the Internet on a regular basis to see what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened since the last time we looked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t normally expect there to be much breaking baseball news on a British Sunday evening. The Jayson Werth and Adrian Gonzalez deals made this past Sunday an exception<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[342,101,341,553,174,109],"class_list":["post-9868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-adrian-gonzalez","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-jayson-werth","tag-mlb-2","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9868"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9881,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868\/revisions\/9881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}