Red Sox, Vicente Padilla Nearing Deal

The Boston Red Sox and Vicente Padilla are nearing a deal, according to Buster Olney via twitter.

This follows speculation from Olney yesterday that the club wasn't expecting to offer guaranteed deals to free agent pitchers and would instead pursue a pitcher like Padilla, and denials from at least one source that the deal was happening at all:

• Twitter / @JonHeymanCBS - "Padilla getting closer to #redsox deal"
• Twitter / @JonHeymanCBS - "#redsox not expecting to offer guaranteed deals to free-agent pitchers. kuroda/oswalt unlikely. padilla, others more likely"

• ‘Nothing to report’ on Red Sox interest in Vicente Padilla - WEEI
  "According to a major league source, despite a report from CBSSports.com that the Red Sox are “moving toward a deal” with Vicente Padilla, the Red Sox are merely “talking to [Padilla] among others” and there is “nothing to report” about the team’s interest, despite a separate report out of Nicaragua that the 34-year-old flew to Boston on Thursday to be examined by the team’s medical staff."

• Sox making pitch for Vicente Padilla? - BostonHerald.com
  "Team officials were mum yesterday, but one industry source confirmed the Red Sox have scouted Padilla in his native Nicaragua. And according to El Nuevo Diario, a Nicaraguan newspaper, the right-hander left his winter league team and traveled to Boston to be examined by Red Sox doctors."

• Do The Red Sox Need A Kuroda? - Over the Monster
  "This year there's Carlos Silva, Aaron Cook, and (possibly) Vicente Padilla to go with Alex Wilson. On the whole, I think that's a crop of players more likely to be able to hold down the fort in emergencies, if not with quite the same upside as Miller perhaps had. This is an offense which can pull through mediocre starts so long as they're not the nightmares Lackey so often provided us with last year."

• Vicente Padilla: High Risk, Medium Reward - FanGraphs Baseball
  "Padilla might be a head case and a volatile performer without much upside, but for the league minimum anything is worth a shot. It just seems strange for the Red Sox or any other team to target him when various other options carrying lesser risk with the potential for a similar reward, remain available."