J.D. Martinez reportedly has an offer on the table from the Red Sox

That sound you hear is every Boston fan saying “about time!”

It appears things are progressing between the Boston Red Sox and J.D. Martinez’s camp when it comes to getting a deal done.

The Sox and Martinez have been making bedroom eyes at each other for a few months now, with both sides dropping rumors here and there, depending on how negotiations are going. Recently, however, things have been quiet. Just like in the rest of baseball, to be honest.

Now, a brief line from Bob Nightengale’s latest offseason report might give Sox fans some hope of having a major slugger on their roster and mean Martinez is one step closer to having a very happy bank account over the next few years. In the USA Today report, Nightengale quickly notes that Martine has a five-year offer on the table from Boston.

While this is a throwaway line without much detail around it, we can still analyze what this might mean for the deal getting done soon. We already analyzed this particular rumor during the Winter Meetings snoozefest everyone suffered through in December, and the points made in that rundown are still applicable because literally nothing has changed when it comes to the free agent market. God, it’s slow.

The detail of five years is interesting in that it offers some insight as to how things are going in negotiations. Martinez is already 30 years old, so five years is much closer to the length of a deal that the Red Sox want, while Martinez’s agent Scott Boras is reaching for the stars in what will be his client’s last major payday of his career.

Which most likely means the negotiations are currently parked at “the Red Sox have offered a bunch of money at five years, knowing that Boras will counter with way more money and a few more years, and then everyone will agree on a six-year deal that splits the difference money-wise.” Except it will take a few more weeks for that fallout to come to fruition because nothing can just happen in free agency ever.

Of course, there’s a chance an official offer hasn’t been put on the table at all and Nightengale is simply reporting what the Red Sox hope happen — because someone in the organization thinks that will nudge things along, which has been the case in the past.

Which really needs to happen. Nudge away. Someone sign a player. Anyone.