Red Sox Acquire Eric Hosmer

5:21pm: The two teams announced the trade. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports that the Padres are paying a whopping $44MM to the Red Sox, reducing Boston’s commitment to Hosmer to the league minimum.

4:02pm: Boston is acquiring prospects Corey Rosier and Max Ferguson, Cotillo reports.

3:59pm: There are multiple players involved in the deal, tweets Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Robert Murray of FanSided reports (on Twitter) that Boston is sending pitching prospect Jay Groome to San Diego.

1:29pm: In a rapid turn of events, the Padres have agreed to a trade sending first baseman Eric Hosmer to the Red Sox, reports Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune (Twitter link). Hosmer previously exercised his partial no-trade clause to veto a deal to the Nationals, temporarily throwing a wrench into the Juan Soto negotiations. The Padres/Nats Soto blockbuster was completed anyhow, sans Hosmer, and Hosmer is now heading to Boston, according to Sanders and colleague Kevin Acee, who hear the deal is almost complete (Twitter link).

The Red Sox aren’t on Hosmer’s no-trade list, tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, so that won’t stand in the way. The Padres are set to pay the majority of the money owed to Hosmer as part of the deal — roughly $46MM through the end of the 2025 season. That won’t help San Diego’s quest to dip below the luxury-tax line, though perhaps with Soto and former Brewers closer Josh Hader now on the squad, ownership has simply decided to pay the tax for a second consecutive season.

It’s a fairly stunning sequence of events, but the Red Sox will take advantage of San Diego’s willingness to pay the freight on Hosmer’s underwater contract and take a low-cost look at a former All-Star who’ll help solidify a position of need in the lineup. Boston has been pairing Franchy Cordero and Bobby Dalbec at first base for much of the season, often to disastrous results, and Hosmer should shore up some of the miscues that have become common in the Boston infield. Defensive metrics have never agreed with Hosmer’s four Gold Glove Awards, but even still, he gives the Sox a more solid option than Cordero, who’s made eight errors and been rated five outs below average in just 316 innings (per Statcast) while trying to learn first base on the fly in the Major Leagues.

Bringing Hosmer into the fold in many ways serves as a roadblock to top prospect Triston Casas, though the Sox could certainly have the two split time between first base and designated hitter. It does figure to tamp down rumblings of Rafael Devers eventually moving across the diamond from third base to first base, however, as Hosmer is now penciled in as the primary option at first for the next several seasons. Further evaluating the deal, from Boston’s vantage point, is difficult without yet knowing the other pieces involved. If the Sox netted  some touted minor league talent from San Diego, for instance, the overall calculus of the deal would swing greatly. The caliber of any player they may acquire would surely be dependent on just how much of Hosmer’s contract they proved willing to absorb.

Hosmer, a former All-Star and 2015 World Series…