Red Sox - Dodgers Talking Gonzalez, Beckett, Crawford Blockbuster

Michael Silverman sayswe're on medicals and Crawford/Beckett no-trade waives, with five players headed to Boston in return. This is sounding amazingly close for how insane a deal it would be:

#RedSox source: Five #Dodgers players to #RedSox. Medicals being reviewed. Beckett, Crawford still need to approve. http://bit.ly/LXiJpq

Jon Morosi confirms, says deal is "close":

Source confirms @GordonEdes report: #Dodgers "close" to obtaining Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto. @mlbonfox

and adds that the Sox would get some prospects from the Dodgers as well:

Source: #RedSox would receive prospects, not just salary relief, if blockbuster with #Dodgers happens. @MLBONFOX

Per Gordon Edes, there is a veritable blockbuster in the works between the Red Sox and Dodgers:

red Sox, Dodgers working on deal that would send AGon, Crawford, Beckett and Punto to LA. Hurdles remain, but closing in

The Red Sox had earlier said that they would only send Gonzalez elsewhere in a franchise-changing deal. You want to talk franchise changing, that's it.

This would essentially erase the one possibly crippling deal left on the Red Sox' payroll in Carl Crawford, free up another big chunk from next year in the form of Josh Beckett, and cost the Red Sox a huge talent in the form of Adrian Gonzalez.

It would be, in effect, tabula rasa, a clean slate that would leave the Red Sox almost completely in the financial clear, save one John Lackey.

The problem for Boston will be spending it again without going overboard and making new bad deals. Money is only valuable to a franchise (record-wise) so long as it can be spent, and free agent deals are getting more and more ridiculous by the day.

As Edes says, there's plenty of separation between this point and the deal actually concluding. But this day went from no news to critical mass in a hurry.