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Before Monday night’s game, Red Sox DH, David Ortiz was mired in a deep slump. He was batting .068 (3 for 44) and was even taken out of the lineup for the ESPN Sunday Night baseball game against the Yankees. You probably couldn’t have convinced many people to sell you Papi low, even at this point. but, at least they wouldn’t have laughed at you… for long.

However, before Monday’s game, Papi texted Terry Francona “asking” to be in the lineup.

“He actually texted me - and this is no joke, I actually thought I was texting my daughter - and he was like, ‘Hey, dad’ or ‘Hey, pop’ or whatever it was,” Francona said. “I texted him back and I was like, ‘What number is this?’

“All of a sudden, I get back, ‘Mine, (expletive).’ Now I’m getting (upset), so I call and it’s David. I was all mixed up, because the last one said, ‘Put me in, (expletive).’ And I can’t figure it out. I was actually kind of relieved. If David gets hits or not, at least I don’t have a 14-year-old talking like that. The good news is my daughter’s not speaking like that, and David wants to play.”

Papi went 2 for 5 with 2 singles and is now hitting .104. These are two signs that all David Ortiz fantasy baseball owners have been looking for. The first is that he’s anxious to get out there and keep swinging. The second is that the base hits are starting to come now.

Maybe you can buy low on Papi by saying his power is still down…

It’s going to be a busy week for the teams in MLB as the deadline looms on the exclusive negotiating period with their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, free agents can talk to any of the teams about a contract for next year and years to come.

So what does this mean for the Red Sox? It means that they better hope their contract offer of 3-years $36 million is good enough for Lowell or they risk the potential of losing him. I fully expect Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein to be burning up the phones of Lowell’s agents, the Levinson brothers, all day today.

It will be interesting to see what happens with other free agents like Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Barry Bonds, Francisco Cordero and others.

There is a fantasy baseball impact on this as well as many of you out there participate in fantasy baseball leagues. Some of you participate in AL-only and NL-only leagues as well as mixed leagues. With some of this AL and NL-only leagues being keeper leagues, your hoping that your star free agent on your team doesn’t switch leagues. I’ve had this happen to me when Jim Thome was a free agent with the Indians. He ended up signing with the Phillies and it hurt my team for the following season.

Today also marks the start of the big four awards in MLB, the AL & NL Rookie of the Year, the AL & NL Cy Young, the AL & NL Manager of the Year and the AL & NL MVP’s. This is how the schedule breaks down this week and next.

Nov. 12: AL and NL Rookies of the Year
Nov. 13: AL Cy Young
Nov. 14: AL and NL Managers of the Year
Nov. 15: NL Cy Young
Nov. 19: AL MVP
Nov. 20: NL MVP