Adrian Gonzalez, the slugging 28-year-old first basemen of the Padres who has hit over 30 homers each of the last four years, has been traded to the Red Sox for a bunch of prospects, ESPN’s Buster Olney reports. It’s a typical baseball deal – small market team gives up a statistical beast (Gonzalez) to a big-market team, and gets “highly-touted” prospects in return.

The deal should propel the Red Sox back into the postseason after a 1-year absence. (And force the Yankees to seriously consider OF Carl Crawford in addition to Cliff Lee.) The Padres will hope the prospects can contribute in 2011, but 2012 is more likely. If you’re a Padres fan, enjoy those young kids for awhile – unless, of course, one of them blows up, and gets traded in a few years.

Remaining hot stove questions this week: Where does Boston’s Adrian Beltre end up? The Boston Globe speculates Youk will move to 3B. Who will overpay for Beltre? Who wins the race to Carl Crawford? If you’re the Yankees and you see the Red Sox pushing hard for Crawford … you have to get involved, right? And what about Philly slugger Jayson Werth?

Because the rich get richer in baseball, the Yankees and Red Sox will decide which players they want, and then the next set of teams gets their crack, and so on, and so on.