This afternoon, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com broke the story that the Sox had avoided arbitration with Jonathan Papelbon by agreeing to a one-year $9.35 million deal. Keeping the streak alive, Theo Epstein has never gone to an arbitration hearing since taking over as GM of the Sox in 2002. For a while, it was looking like this was going to be the first, but the Sox were able to offer Papelbon a significant pay increase from his 2009 salary of $6.25 million, a deal that was struck  just minutes before the negotiation period was ending. Continue Reading »