There's some disparity depending on which report you read about just how pending a deal really is but there appears to be a good chance that Todd Helton is headed to Boston. The first baseman has indicated that he'd waive his no-trade clause to join the Sox but the teams have yet to agree on a package coming back to Colorado. The Rockies want young pitchers Craig Hansen and Manny Delcarmen to be a part of the deal while the Red Sox are trying to go the salary dump route and get rid of Mike Lowell and Julian Tavarez.
Helton has $90 million remaining on the lush deal the Rockies gave him and Colorado is prepared to eat a good chunk of that money reports the Denver Post. But if they are going to do that then they want the prospects while Helton wants the deal done this week. Otherwise, word is, he'll refuse to waive the no-trade and stay out west. Across town in the Rocky Mountain News columnist Bernie Lincicome argues that the Rockies should take whatever they can get for Helton.
Not for their sakes, not for the Rockies, not for some grand and careful plan that will make the Rockies better - this is too many short straws later to believe that - but for Helton himself...Helton is not what he was and he is still too young (33) to blame age or diminished skill for that. But if the power is less (and in Boston, right field is farther away), Helton still finds the alleys and he still hits .300.
To do that again for the Rockies is to waste another season, and the Rockies have more of those to waste than does Helton.
Boo hoo for Helton and his $140 million contract. That and the no-trade clause that he and his agents doubtlessly demanded in negotiations with Colorado are the only reason he's still playing for Colorado so pardon me if I don't see the great injury that's been inflicted on him. Lincicome argues that the Rockies haven't held up their end of the bargain with Helton because the team hasn't been good around him but that's a chicken-egg story and not one worth telling. The team was bad when Helton signed the deal, has remained bad because, in part, of his deal and trading him away while eating money and not getting any better is certainly not the answer.
The Yankees should hope that the Sox can't find a way to bring Helton to town, even if it costs them some of those prospects. Hansen has been a bust to this point, I can't imagine why Colorado thinks a trip to Coors Field would straighten him out, and if they got him for Lowell and Tavarez they haven't lost anything. With J.D. Drew's deal finally done, Julio Lugo in town and Manny not leaving, Helton would be the latest piece of an OBP machine that should terrify the Yankees.
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