Daisueepstakes

So it looks like Boston won the right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who may or may not throw a Gyroball. But it cost 'em, and I'll use all caps here for emphasis, FIFTY-ONE POINT ONE MILLION DOLLARS! That's crazy. This weekend, a friend asked me how much I'd be willing to pay for the right to negotiate with D-Mat, and I said I'd be willing to pay about $25 or $30 million. Combined with what I thought it'd take to sign him, any more than that, and he wouldn't be worth it. Apparently I was very, very wrong.

There were two things I hadn't realized, though. One is that, after buying his negotiating rights, there isn't any other competition to bid up Matsuzaka's contract. He can either take what the Red Sox offer him, or go back to pitching in Japan. Depending on what he's making right now, that might help keep his contract lower than it might be otherwise.

And two, of course, is that if the Sox can't get Matsuzaka at what they think is a reasonable price, they get to keep their enormous posting fee. An unscrupulous GM might submit an extremely high bid to win his negotiating rights with no intention of signing Matsuzaka, just to keep him from going to a wealthy division rival in need of sarting pitching. Ultimately I don't think Epstein would do that, because he runs the risk of burning any future bridges to Japan, but still . . . if I were the Devil Rays, I might try it, just to piss George off.

But apparently, they were busy bidding on the rights to negotiate with Akinori Iwamura, the third baseman for the Yakult Swallows*, for $4.5 mil. I wonder if he'll be any good? Of course, if the Devil Rays think he will, then he'll probably stink.


* Man, talk about a team name that just doesn't translate well. In the US, how often do think you'd hear competing chants of "Seibu Lions suck!" "Yeah, but Yakult Swallows!" It's even worse than the Nippon Ham Fighters.