According to ESPN, the Red Sox have signed David Wells to a contract that guarantees him $8M in 2005 and could be as worth as much as $16-18M over two years. And the U-T reports that the Padres are trying to move Jay Payton and Ramon Vazquez to Boston for Dave Roberts.

I’m good with the Pads not trying to compete with Boston for the services of Wells. God bless Boomer for finding the money, but it would not have been very responsible for the Padres to give him that kind of deal.

As for the trade rumor, here are the career numbers of the three players involved:

         Age   AB  BA OBP SLG OPS+
Payton    32 2382 285 335 443 100
Roberts   33 1294 259 335 344  82
Vazquez   28  995 262 334 344  85

If the Red Sox are able to swing this deal, their fans should be happy.