It wasn’t a dream. Carl Crawford, who reached an agreement with the Boston Red Sox late Wednesday night, officially signed a seven-year, $142 million deal on Friday, making him the highest-paid outfielder in baseball, and was formally introduced Saturday morning.

What do Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford have in common? 

Their prior teams couldn’t afford to keep them. 

Boston's general manager, Theo Epstein, stepped in with gold-lined pockets and pocketed them all.

As all baseball fans know, Cliff Lee is currently the best pitcher on the free agent market for the 2011 season. These previous days, the baseball community has been made aware of the offers for Lee.

The Yankees and the Rangers both have made strong bids. Although the exact offer has not been released, recent reports from ESPN both have show six/seven year deals from both the Rangers and the Yankees. Heck, even the Angels have an excellent shot of getting Lee!

The MLB's winter meetings have come and gone, and the former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke still has not been traded out of Kansas City.

Royals GM Dayton Moore made statements during the winter meetings that KC would be willing to trade their star player to anyone that was interested. In the end, there were some teams that would have like Greinke's services, but could never come to an agreement with the Royals for what they wanted in return.

Buster Olney of ESPN is reporting that the New York Yankees will now take an aggressive approach in signing free agent catcher Russell Martin. 

The Red Sox were originally favored to land Martin, but after the Carl Crawford deal the Yankees have stepped up their efforts to try and sign him.

The annual Winter Meetings in Orlando might be in the rear-view mirror, but that doesn't mean the MLB Trade Rumors haven't slowed down at all.

The shock and the outrage over Jayson Werth's deal with the Nationals has subsided, being replaced by the shock and outrage over Carl Crawford's mega-deal with the Red Sox. Whoever offered Cliff Lee the seventh year on a contract offer was being kept undisclosed like a military secret, and there was talk of the other owners possibly amounting to what would be an alliance to raise the luxury tax for the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Carl Crawford has agreed to a seven-year, $142 million deal with the Boston Red Sox. But what does that mean for Boston's AL East rival, the New York Yankees?

Well if nothing else, we now know the Red Sox have big league money and are willing to spend it.

Just last weekend, Boston traded for San Diego's Adrian Gonzalez. The first baseman is expected to get a deal worth an estimated $154 million over seven-years.

The MLB winter meetings have a lot of fans glued to their technology of choice. Twitter, ESPN, XM Radio, the Internet in general are all being utilized to absorb every nugget of info on the dealings going on in Orlando. 

So, lying in bed last night, with my headphones on pumping MLB Network Radio into my ears and my smart phone in my hand to comb tweets, I was made aware of the Red Sox stunning signing of Carl Crawford almost as soon as it happened. 

Even though the Winter Meetings are coming to a close we can still stoke the fantasy hot stove with more prospect talk. This series on prospects will cover a wide range of players as well as positions. We’ll cover sleepers as well as some of the more obvious stars of the future.

Just 24 hours ago, the Yankees made their first official offer to free agent pitcher Cliff Lee, a six-year deal worth about $140 million.

The Yankees have now come back the next day with a seven-year offer for Lee, according to Mark Feinsand and Bill Madden of the New York Daily News.

This offer is coming about 12 hours after the Red Sox signed Carl Crawford to a seven-year deal worth $142 million.