The indications I received last week were that the Texas Rangers were falling behind in their pursuit of free agent center fielder Torii Hunter.

However (sorry Stephen A.) it appears that Hunter has big dinner plans tonight.

This concerns me because Hicks indicated last week that it would take more to get Hunter than any of us realized.

Hicks, of course, signed off on the $252-million contract for Alex Rodriguez that was enough money to buy the entire Twins franchise at the time.

Maybe Hunter is asking for seven years so he can get six. Maybe Hunter is asking for seven because he can get it. After all, Luis Castillo is close to signing a four-year, $25 million contract with the Mets - although he must first pass a physical and is coming off of offseason surgery.

If Castillo can get four, Hunter may be able to squeeze six out of Hicks. And if Hunter gets seven years….props to his agent. Under these terms, it wouldn’t be hard for the Twins to say, “thanks for everything, Torii, now where are our draft picks?”

I’m still expecting this to play out until the winter meetings that begin on Dec. 3. Hunter and his agent will have collected every offer by then and can decide on where the best fit is.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.