Red Sox Acquire Franklin Morales

The Red Sox have acquired Rockies left-hander Franklin Morales for a player to be named later or cash considerations, according to Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald (via Twitter).  In order to make room for Morales, Hideki Okajima has been designated for assignment by the BoSox.

Boston has until November to either agree on a player in the Morales trade or pay a nominal amount of money to the Rockies, tweets Buster Olney of ESPN.

Morales was ranked as the eighth-best prospect in baseball by Baseball America prior to the 2008 season.  The left-hander throws the ball extremely hard as evidenced by his 94.4 mph fastball last year.  Across parts of five big league seasons, he owns a 4.83 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 5.1 BB/9.

The 25-year-old is out of options and the Rockies have reportedly been concerned about losing him to waivers.  Yesterday we learned that the Rockies were measuring trade interest in Morales as well as fellow fireballer Felipe Paulino. 

Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe (via Twitter) first reported that the two sides were close to an agreement while Troy Renck of The Denver Post (via Twitter) reported that a deal was completed.