One believable truth emerges from minefield of nightmare Red Sox Juan Soto rumors

You know the feeling. Misinformation runs rampant, fans with sources tweet without limitations, and you know it's all invented, but at the end of the day, you consumed it all, and you're still left with a gut feeling you don't want. That's exactly what happened with Thanksgiving's swirl of nonsense -- some of it gibberish, some of it somewhat legitimate -- connecting the Boston Red Sox to coveted Yankees free agent target Juan Soto.

Sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, a crop of anonymous Bostonian accounts began buzzing over a Spanish language report that claimed the Sox and Soto had a "verbal agreement," but had a lot left to accomplish before it was finalized. That sounds like ... not an agreement at all, but it's certainly enough to get a fan base's juices flowing.

Then came, naturally, a flood of small accounts all getting their "Soto deal done" tweets off ahead of time so that they could be first in line, in case of emergency. Some claimed to have pedigree, but also had 100 followers. The one that made the loudest ripple was someone associated with the Kirk Minihane Show who quadrupled down on his claim that the deal was done for 12 years. The account purportedly had the news of Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery's firing ahead of time, though so did most Bruins fans who watched the team in 2024. According to a reddit user, he tweeted and deleted the "scoop" of Montgomery's firing repeatedly until he got the timing right. He will not be linked here.

Could he be hearing something? Could he be seeking engagement money from a fan base desperate for good news, working for a known troll in Minihane? Either way, MLB insider Jeff Passan stopped his own Thanksgiving to shoot down reports of a deal, though contract number rumors still flowed from multiple Spanish-language sources.

Yankees, Mets, Red Sox still competing for Juan Soto (though Boston might have a leaked offer)

At the end of the day, it was nice to have a Passan bomb, but ... still, it was hard not to get caught up in the tidal wave of Red Sox smoke, even though most of it came from trolls blowing their hands off with fireworks. For what it's worth, Jim Bowden, in his Friday column, believes the Sox are deadly serious ... about Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, and Roki Sasaki. He thinks they could land two of the three, but are focused on bats like Teoscar Hernández and Anthony Santander over Soto.

If you're keeping score on Hector Gómez's reports (or numbers he's endorsed), the Red Sox current bid remains $35 million below the very first Mets number that was ever floated ($660 million, via Carlos Baerga). Either you believe both, and Steve Cohen started ahead of Boston's catch-up offer, or you believe neither, and we still know nothing. Given that the first round of offers was reportedly last week, and the Yankees (and possibly Boston) have already upped theirs, it seems likely that the Baerga number was an estimation.

While it's quite unlikely that Boston has already signed Soto (despite the initial dude's continued protests and call-outs of Passan), it wouldn't be outlandish to believe they've put a significant offer together, similar to what was floated on Thursday. Why wouldn't they, if they've been involved this long?

The reality, though, it it'd be odd to see a midway-through-the-proceedings offer leaked. Typically, the winning bid isn't floated by insiders several days before being agreed upon; if that's the Red Sox number, they want it known publicly for a reason. Either they want their fans to see they made an effort, or someone other than Boston is leaking it to move the bidding up.

Plus, there's the added caveat that if Steve Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner can't outbid 13 years and $625 million, they are deeply unserious people.

Either Soto really wants to be a Red Sox and settles for a lower number -- something we've long been told he won't do -- or the Yankees and Mets have a clear baseline for where to take the bidding in what might be the process' final week. There's also a third option: all of this was feeding from the same random spigot of half-believable half-truths.

Bottom line? Steinbrenner can't afford to lose Soto to his chief rivals, and certainly not at this number. Even if every detail except the finalized agreement was true, this should only give him more fuel to finish a deal, unless he's lost the plot entirely.