That's a whole lotta Yen....
After a good period of speculation, it's official, the Boston Red Sox have won the right to negotiate a contract with Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. All it's cost the Sox so far is $51.1million and that's before they have to sit down with Scott Boras and haggle out the figures.
OK so if you know nothing about baseball and the "posting" of Japanese baseball players, here's the quick rundown. Good player in Japan, wants to come play in America, but he is still under contract to play in Japan. So his Japanese team puts him into the posting process. All the teams in Major Leauge Baseball (MLB) have a chance to bid for the right to negotiate a contract with said player. All the teams that wish to bid, send sealed secret bids (posting fee), via MLB to the players Japanese league team. If the team accepts the bid, then the MLB team has a 30 day window to negotiate a contract with the player. If they come to terms with the player, then the posting fee is officially sent from the MLB team to the Japanese team. If there is no contract reached however, the player returns to his team in Japan and the posting fee is returned to the MLB team. The Japanese player plays for his team in the subsequent season and once it's completed he could go into the posting process yet again. So that's the skinny of how this whole process works, just to get you up to speed.
So here it is, the Red Sox have agreed to pay $51.1 million to the Seibu Lions (Matsuzaka's Japanese league team) to have the chance to negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka. This news on the whole excites me greatly and of course worries me greatly. Lets go through with a point-counterpoint type exercise as to why and why not I'm excited.
Excitement: Matsuzaka is only 26 years old and supposedly has good command of a variety of pitches, mid-90s fastball, two-seam and cut fastball, change-up, splitter, slider. That's a lot of pitches, good reason to be excited.
Not-excitement: He's already thrown over 1,400 innings in his career, which is a lot of miles for any pitcher to have logged at his age. It warrants noting that Greg Maddux, To, Glavine and John Smoltz all logged similar amounts of innings at similar stages of their careers, but that's a hell of a weight to put on someone like this.
Excitement: Again, he's only 26, which would give Boston three starters that age or younger (Beckett and Paplebon being the other two) in their rotation. You always want good young pitching and well that would seem to fit the bill.
Not-excitement: An elbow issue caused him to miss nearly the entire 2002 season, but he's been injury free since then, but still, any arm injury with such a big investment is cause for concern.
Excitement: He's not going to the Yankees and if he is as good as most people say he is, it could help the Sox greatly in the division and well, him not going to the Yankees helps in the division as well.
Not-excitement: They still haven't signed the guy yet and it warrants mentioning that his agent is Scott Boras. In case you're not familiar with Boras, he's not quite the devil but he and Lucifer definetly get together and throw one down once in a while. Signing this guy isn't quite a forgone conclusion, especially since Boras is sitting on the other side of the table. In fact, if this were the Red Sox past, it could be entirely conceivable that they would some how mess up the contract process, but this isn't Red Sox past, so I'm remaining optomistic here.
Excitement: The Sox could be a getting a solid young pitcher, hitting his prime years, that could help hold down the front of the rotation in the future and soften the blow of Curt Schilling retiring (supposedly) at seasons end.
Not-excitement: Did I mention the fact that the Sox are ready to part with just over $50 million to be able to negotiate with Matsuzaka and that it will most likely cost another $30-$40 million to sign the lad? That's a while lot of money on what essentially is a gamble. Of course, if the gamble pays off then it was worth it to put the money down. Of course the opposite side of it is dropping all that money down and getting the equivalent rolling snake-eyes in a game of craps. It's a high risk high reward venture here, but with high risk high reward, there is always that chance you'll get left at the table with nothing.
Overall, the whole thing is exciting. It'll be interesting to see what type of contract gets worked out and how much the Sox are willing to pay. They already demonstrated that they were willing to pony up some cash in the posting process obviously. Their bid was a full $13 million higher than that of the second highest ($38 million by the Mets). Does this mean they'll spend more than they want when it comes down to negotiating a contract? Boras will most likely want somewhere in the $13-$15 million is my guess and the Sox will be looking for somewhere in the $9-$11 million range, again my guesswork. Lengthwise, my guess is Sox around three years, Boras around 5 years, with an escape clause after 3. Either way it ends up, that's a hell of an investment to make. Add on the fact he would be playing in one of the most scrutinized baseball markets in the US, with the inevitable throng of Japanese reproters following his every move....and I mean every move, there will be a ton of pressure on the guy. But that will tell us whether in fact he is great or not, whether he can perform with all the pressure surronding him. I hope it all works out, I really do. I want the Sox to have a more solidified rotation this year and for the years following. Plus you always want a chance to watch the best and if he's the best, then hey, good viewing times all around. Plus with all the money the Sox will have to spend, it makes it even less likely that there will be any chance of Roger Clemens coming back to Boston, which if it happened quite honestly might cause me to spontaneously combust. Who knows how all of this will work out of course. It will certainly be fun to watch and sports radio hosts in Boston must be thrilled, because now they have to work even less to think of something to talk about. Let the games begin I guess. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go watch the Bruins play the Capitals (they already have a one goal lead....don't know how long that will last) and drive me to the brink of madness, while also watching the Celtics play the Pacers as the C's find yet another way to lose a game by less than 6 points....lets just say the Doc Rivers watch is on....more on that some other time, but until then....
OK so if you know nothing about baseball and the "posting" of Japanese baseball players, here's the quick rundown. Good player in Japan, wants to come play in America, but he is still under contract to play in Japan. So his Japanese team puts him into the posting process. All the teams in Major Leauge Baseball (MLB) have a chance to bid for the right to negotiate a contract with said player. All the teams that wish to bid, send sealed secret bids (posting fee), via MLB to the players Japanese league team. If the team accepts the bid, then the MLB team has a 30 day window to negotiate a contract with the player. If they come to terms with the player, then the posting fee is officially sent from the MLB team to the Japanese team. If there is no contract reached however, the player returns to his team in Japan and the posting fee is returned to the MLB team. The Japanese player plays for his team in the subsequent season and once it's completed he could go into the posting process yet again. So that's the skinny of how this whole process works, just to get you up to speed.
So here it is, the Red Sox have agreed to pay $51.1 million to the Seibu Lions (Matsuzaka's Japanese league team) to have the chance to negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka. This news on the whole excites me greatly and of course worries me greatly. Lets go through with a point-counterpoint type exercise as to why and why not I'm excited.
Excitement: Matsuzaka is only 26 years old and supposedly has good command of a variety of pitches, mid-90s fastball, two-seam and cut fastball, change-up, splitter, slider. That's a lot of pitches, good reason to be excited.
Not-excitement: He's already thrown over 1,400 innings in his career, which is a lot of miles for any pitcher to have logged at his age. It warrants noting that Greg Maddux, To, Glavine and John Smoltz all logged similar amounts of innings at similar stages of their careers, but that's a hell of a weight to put on someone like this.
Excitement: Again, he's only 26, which would give Boston three starters that age or younger (Beckett and Paplebon being the other two) in their rotation. You always want good young pitching and well that would seem to fit the bill.
Not-excitement: An elbow issue caused him to miss nearly the entire 2002 season, but he's been injury free since then, but still, any arm injury with such a big investment is cause for concern.
Excitement: He's not going to the Yankees and if he is as good as most people say he is, it could help the Sox greatly in the division and well, him not going to the Yankees helps in the division as well.
Not-excitement: They still haven't signed the guy yet and it warrants mentioning that his agent is Scott Boras. In case you're not familiar with Boras, he's not quite the devil but he and Lucifer definetly get together and throw one down once in a while. Signing this guy isn't quite a forgone conclusion, especially since Boras is sitting on the other side of the table. In fact, if this were the Red Sox past, it could be entirely conceivable that they would some how mess up the contract process, but this isn't Red Sox past, so I'm remaining optomistic here.
Excitement: The Sox could be a getting a solid young pitcher, hitting his prime years, that could help hold down the front of the rotation in the future and soften the blow of Curt Schilling retiring (supposedly) at seasons end.
Not-excitement: Did I mention the fact that the Sox are ready to part with just over $50 million to be able to negotiate with Matsuzaka and that it will most likely cost another $30-$40 million to sign the lad? That's a while lot of money on what essentially is a gamble. Of course, if the gamble pays off then it was worth it to put the money down. Of course the opposite side of it is dropping all that money down and getting the equivalent rolling snake-eyes in a game of craps. It's a high risk high reward venture here, but with high risk high reward, there is always that chance you'll get left at the table with nothing.
Overall, the whole thing is exciting. It'll be interesting to see what type of contract gets worked out and how much the Sox are willing to pay. They already demonstrated that they were willing to pony up some cash in the posting process obviously. Their bid was a full $13 million higher than that of the second highest ($38 million by the Mets). Does this mean they'll spend more than they want when it comes down to negotiating a contract? Boras will most likely want somewhere in the $13-$15 million is my guess and the Sox will be looking for somewhere in the $9-$11 million range, again my guesswork. Lengthwise, my guess is Sox around three years, Boras around 5 years, with an escape clause after 3. Either way it ends up, that's a hell of an investment to make. Add on the fact he would be playing in one of the most scrutinized baseball markets in the US, with the inevitable throng of Japanese reproters following his every move....and I mean every move, there will be a ton of pressure on the guy. But that will tell us whether in fact he is great or not, whether he can perform with all the pressure surronding him. I hope it all works out, I really do. I want the Sox to have a more solidified rotation this year and for the years following. Plus you always want a chance to watch the best and if he's the best, then hey, good viewing times all around. Plus with all the money the Sox will have to spend, it makes it even less likely that there will be any chance of Roger Clemens coming back to Boston, which if it happened quite honestly might cause me to spontaneously combust. Who knows how all of this will work out of course. It will certainly be fun to watch and sports radio hosts in Boston must be thrilled, because now they have to work even less to think of something to talk about. Let the games begin I guess. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go watch the Bruins play the Capitals (they already have a one goal lead....don't know how long that will last) and drive me to the brink of madness, while also watching the Celtics play the Pacers as the C's find yet another way to lose a game by less than 6 points....lets just say the Doc Rivers watch is on....more on that some other time, but until then....
posted by MC at 3:37 PM
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