By now all of you are aware that the Mets have extended an offer to free agent OF Jason Bay in the amount of 4 years and $65 million dollars. That much is fact.

However on Wednesday, several new reports came out which suggest something more may be in the works regarding the Mets original offer.

Jon Heyman of SI.om, was the first to report that the Mets had “upped their offer” to free agent Jason Bay to include a fifth year option.

Moving aggressively to try to secure a power-hitting left fielder, the Mets tweaked their offer to Jason Bay to give him a five-year alternative and are getting back into the ballgame for Matt Holliday, as well, SI.com has learned

This was later toned down a little by Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post who wrote that the Mets were only “considering” adding a fifth year.

This morning, John Harper of the Daily News also wrote that the Mets have “considered” adding a fifth year to their initial proposal, but have not yet done so because they believe that the interest in Bay has been overblown by his agent.

A source close to the situation said the Mets weren’t sure there was another serious bidder for Bay, and while Omar Minaya is said to have discussed the possibility of going to a five-year offer, the club wasn’t ready to go there quite yet.

“We’re not going to bid against ourselves,” one Mets person said.

I hope that Omar continues to stay the course as I believe Bay will ultimately be a Met. It’s a good move that the Mets are ready to up the offer if they needed to, but it’s also a good thing not to jump the gun just yet.

Bay’s agent is pushing hard for a six year deal, but my guess is that in the end, the deal could look like this:

4 years guaranteed at a back-loaded $76 million dollars, with a vesting option for 2014, and a team option for 2015 with a buyout.  

By the way, Theo Epstein, the GM of the Red Sox, is officially out of the Jason Bay sweepstakes according to comments he made that distanced himself from Bay, and wished him well with his new team.  With the Red Sox out of the equation, it leaves just the Mariners and Angels as the only other teams that have reportedly inquired about Bay, and some believe that their interest is tepid at best.

I’m beginning to feel as though this Jason Bay negotiation is coming to some sort of closure. There seems to be a lot of increasing buzz in the last 24 hours. I’ll be away for most of the morning and afternoon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I came home to find that one of our esteemed co-writers posted a significant development in the Bay negotiations.

Stay thirsty my friends…