For those of you in Red Sox Nation still holding out hope that the JD Drew contract negotiations would fall through, a) what are you, high? and b) abandon hope. Word on the street (by “the street” I mean “a series of tubes”) is that they’ve finally settled on exactly what we figured they’d settle on: the same five-year/$70 million contract that they had in the first place, with Magglio Ordonez-esque language added in to give the Sox an out should the oft-injured slugger’s shoulder give out in 2010 or later.

(Yes, that does apparently mean that if his shoulder gives out, say, tomorrow, it’s Wily Mo time.)

JD Drew is a better baseball player right now than Wily Mo Pena is, so if we’re looking strictly at the Red Sox’s chances in 2007, this is a good thing. The Sox finally have a #5 hitter who can offer some protection to those other two guys, the big guy and the stoned guy. Long-term, there have been some concerns over throwing $70 million at a dude who’s injured about as often as Trot was, and over his “makeup” and “hustle,” which is pretty much a euphemism for “He seems like a jerk.”

When the JD Drew signing was first announced, ESPN Page 2 columnist Bill Simmons suggested that all baseball officials should ask the fans of a player’s former team how they feel about the guy before signing him. The idea is that Dodgers fans all hate Drew for his lack of hustle, and that should make Boston think twice about wanting him for the Sox. The problem with this method, of course, is A-Rod. Ask 100 Yankees fans how they feel about A-Rod and 80 of them will say they hate the bum. (The other 20 will steal your wallet.) But even in last year’s slump, A-Rod was an asset to the team. As a Boston fan, I was certainly praying they’d be stupid enough to let him go. Like Drew, A-Rod is a thoroughly unlikable shmoe. I hope the comparison holds somewhat true when it comes to Drew’s value to the team.

Drew’s signing makes Wily Mo officially expendable; while he’ll make a great fourth outfielder, he needs regular at-bats to develop, and his trade value may be higher than his play value at this point. Look for the Sox to try to work some kind of deal with their two major spare parts, Pena and Matt Clement.