Posted by Teddy Panos, Sun Staff

So you really think John Henry’s late night declaration means Mark Teixeira DEFINITELY won’t be a member of the 2009 Boston Red Sox? Boy, are you gullible.

Here’s what I think is going on. Late Thursday night, Henry announced Boston’s Boys of Summer were not willing to meet Teixeira/Scott Boras’ asking price. That flew smack in the face of reports earlier in the day that the Sox and Teixeira were very close to a deal and that team honchos were meeting with the free agent slugger and agent Scott Boras that night to hammer out the final details. Even Peter Gammons was going with that story, and you know he got his information from someone high up in the Boston organization. Gammons simply doesn’t swing and miss that badly on a story. So what happened?

Well, the guess here is the Sox thought they had the basic parameters of a deal in place, only once they showed up to get pen to ink, Boras’ upped the ante. Henry, who to my knowledge has never made a free agent proclamation like the one he made in this case, decided to call the agent’s bluff by publicly pronouncing Boston out of the bidding. If Boras really had the offer he had, then such an announcement wouldn’t do much harm to the team’s cause, since Boston obviously wasn’t willing to match anyway.

However, if Teixeira’s agent is bluffing, then he badly misplayed his hand and what Henry did is a great negotiating ploy. With the Sox now publicly telling other bidders they weren’t going to raise the stakes, Boras loses some leverage. Reportedly, the Yankees haven’t made an offer, and the Angels and Orioles bids are far below what Boras was saying he had on the table. Where is this supposed super offer coming from? The Nationals? PUH-lease!

I can hear Boras now: “Sure Mark, go play someplace where you’ll never win just so you can brag about getting a few extra million bucks. Pay no attention to what happened with A-Rod in Texas.”

My hunch is the Sox will re-enter the bidding, with Boras finding a way to save face and not look like he caved or had his bluff called. This doesn’t mean Mark Teixeira will ultimately end up in a Sox uniform. But I seriously doubt negotiations with Boston have ended. We’re simply in the bidding process while we wait for the “river” card to flip.

That’s the view from here…how do you see things? Are negotiations dead? Where will Teixeira sign? And for how much?