Newsday‘s Ken Davidoff and John Heyman are reporting that the Yanks are talking to the Texas Rangers about a deal which would bring in Alex Rodriguez to play third base in exchange for Alfonso Soriano, Jose Contreras, and catching prospect Dioner Navarro.

Holy chicken molé. I’m not going to get too worked up over this, or spend too much time analyzing it right now. The folly of defensively superior A-Rod playing third next to Jeter is pretty laughable, but so is the way this deal would slap the Red Sox right in the face.

I just hope this doesn’t turn into a three-ring circus with hourly updates, the way Peter Gammons and company turned the last A-Rod rumor into a cottage industry with himself at the center.

Update: Newsday is now saying that the deal has been agreed to in principle, and that it will only involve Soriano and a minor-league pitcher. Some of A-Rod’s money will be deferred, and the Rangers will be picking up some of the remaining $189 mil on Rodriguez’s contract as well. Minor technical details need to be be hammered out, and the guy at the other end of my red phone tells me the deal will be announced on Tuesday.

Since there aren’t any minor-league pitchers that the Yanks have who are anywhere near ready to contribute, and since it won’t cost them any major league pitching at all, it’s really hard to see this, if it goes down, as anything but an incredible coup by the Yanks. All the more so if it happens this quickly — the fewer news cycles we have to endure where this is the top story, the better for everybody involved.