1
The Friday, Dec. 23 grapevine indicates that the situation is probably jelling as we'd been guessing since early on:
1. If Prince would announce "I'll take 6 years," then he would have a bidding war between several teams.
2. The only team to offer more than 6 years is the Mariners, who (it says here) have probably offered 8 (or at least an easy vest for the 8th year, to be conceded to a hard 8 years + 9th year vest on Deal Day, or somesuch).
If Boras is looking at an 8 x 23 offer as the best one, by a long ways, that would explain his wry delays and discourtesies to the Mariners.
.............
Cards out, with Beltran, and Cubs supposedly in full-on fire sale mode.