Red Sox Bid 51.1 Million

I saw on ESPN that with the same 51.1 million dollars you could have paid the salaries for an entire pitching staff consisting of

• Oswalt
• Johan Santana
• Brandon Webb
• and like 4 middle relievers and a top notch closer who's name escapes me

If he turns out to be the real deal him, Beckett and Schilling would be a sweet trio of arms

 

yes, and he'll be a year older with no guarantee the same thing won't happen again next fall. this guy wants to be in the Bigs next year and he'll be willing to compromise. as I said, the sox aren't going to get the guy for nothing, but Boras definitely won't get near as much for him as he could if the guy was a stright up free agent. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets closer to what Jeff Suppan gets than what Zito gets.

 

I can't find the figures, but I think that there the Yankees get significant dollars for Japanese advertising rights. The Sox would be looking for similar dollars. And as for advertising, the soccer world has been way ahead of baseball - and all American sports - in this regard. Man United is tonning it in Asia.

 

Collin can't find the figures either, but that didn't keep him from stating that the marking aspect is "grossly overstated."

 

I meant to say that Man U is tonning it with merchandizing in that post - not advertising. Anyway - Olney's column today said that Boras basically has no leverage at all.

 

yeah, I read that a couple days ago (not Olney, maybe Verducci). of course, those asshats aren't armed with the same knowledge as our boy Collin.

thing is, if you or I had begun with a post saying the sox have no leverage at all and Boras does, he'd have conteded the exact opposite. That's why I find it so amusing when Collin accuses you and others of being argumentative.

 

Yep.. Tampa Bay wanted him the most

From the Philadelphia Enquirer
In other matters at the GM meetings yesterday, Tampa Bay paid $4 million for the negotiating rights to Japanese third baseman Akinori Iwamura. The Phillies had looked at Iwamura but weren't interested.

 

No, dude. As I already explained to you, Matsuzaka will be a free agent. That means he can sign with any team and doesn't need to go through the posting system. That's why Seibu put their best player up now, because if they wait any longer they won't get anything for him.

Come on, stop being dumb. Just because you're a Red Sox fan doesn't mean you should pretend that the Red Sox will sign him for peanuts. Boras is in the driver's seat and you'll either end up paying him $25 million a year (including the posting fee, obviously) or you won't be paying him at all.

No, you guys go out of your way to disagree with me. I don't care if I agree or disagree with you because I'm only concerned with the facts, not who is saying the same thing. Sometimes I do agree with you, you just happen to notice the times when I prove you wrong and you resent it.

The fact is that Matsuzaka can wait to become a free agent and sign with any team. Since he doesn't get a dime of the $51 million the Red Sox would give to Seibu, there's no incentive whatsoever to sign now for much less than market value. Mathematically it makes no sense. There is always a risk of injury, obviously, but aside from that he stands to make an absolute ton of money in one more year, so the Red Sox will have to pony up huge cash to take advantage of their opportunity now.

Nope. It has certainly increased the Yankees' profile in Japan and has earned them merchandizing some broadcast money from showing games over there, but the advertising effect has been pretty minimal. They do have some Japanese advertisers, but you have to remember that they were already selling out of all advertising so to assess the actual money impact you have to look at what they're being paid by new advertisers versus what they were getting before. The difference is pretty minimal, if we can use that word to describe a couple million. Then again, a lot of that has to do with it being the Yankees, and they simply have a much higher profile around the world than any other baseball team including the Red Sox, so people tend to be more interested in them. That was the case before Matsui, he just heightened it.

 

Yankee stadium has the virtual ads, so they can double dip on the ads. Like I said I can't find the numbers though. I'm not trying to imply that a huge portion of the Yankees revenue comes from Japanese ads, but I thought I read somewhere that Matsui basically paid for himself.

 

By most accounts, you're right on this. I was relying on this article when I stated he'd have to go through the same process again:

link


The Red Sox’ bid is due five days after the team wraps up a contract with Matsuzaka. If they fail to do so in that 30-day window, the money will not have to be paid. Matsuzaka would then have to return to the Lions, pitch next season and then go through the posting again in order to be eligible to play in 2008.