Daisuke Matsuzaka
The rumor isn't Phillies related, but it is big all the same - it has been widely speculated that the Boston Red Sox have won the bidding for Japanese righthander Daisuke Matsuzaka with a posting fee ranging anywhere from $30-$40 million. The latest rumor claims that it is indeed the Sox with the winning bid, but the dollar figure is actually in excess of $50 million.
Whoa, that's a lot of money.
EDIT: Peter Gammons is reporting that the winning Red Sox bid is $42 million. That's still a heck of a lot of money. I may be in the minority here, but I think Matsuzaka will be worth every penny - both from a financial perspective (i.e. the cost of the posting fee vs. the increased marketability of the Sox in Japan) and from a baseball perspective (i.e. his yearly salary vs. his potentially dominating performance on the field).
Whoa, that's a lot of money.
EDIT: Peter Gammons is reporting that the winning Red Sox bid is $42 million. That's still a heck of a lot of money. I may be in the minority here, but I think Matsuzaka will be worth every penny - both from a financial perspective (i.e. the cost of the posting fee vs. the increased marketability of the Sox in Japan) and from a baseball perspective (i.e. his yearly salary vs. his potentially dominating performance on the field).
posted by XXX at 1:35 PM
4 Comments:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2660067
Among ESPN "experts," Howard wins NL MVP over Pujols and Beltran by a surprisingly comfy margin, 11 to 6 to 1. I'm sure you'll have more to say about this, but I dunno...Pujols was the MVP of the NL this year. I would go Pujols then Beltran then Howard, and extend heartfelt apologies to Miggy Cabrera for leaving him out of the discussion.
(ESPN experts also have Morneau tied with Jeter for AL MVP. So, grain of salt.)
Of all the things I've read about the AL MVP race, I think I've liked Aaron Gleeman's the best (more so for his analysis of the top of the voting, not so much for his actual rankings...I'd argue that his 8-9-10 could be swapped with his 5-6-7 without batting an eye...though it is interesting to compare the relative positions of the guys in each set of three...but anyway...):
http://www.aarongleeman.com/2006_11_12_baseballblog_archive.html#5252429150292715664
In the NL I'd go with some combination of Howard, Beltran, and Cabrera...after Pujols at the top spot, of course. That said, the older I get the better I realize that there is no point getting too worked up over MVP voting - the BBWA really have no clue what they are voting for anymore, so it's all pretty much a crap shoot anyway. I'm about 95% certain that Howard is going to win, and I am okay with that as a baseball fan - as long as a consensus top-5 "Most Valuable Player" gets the award these days, I'm happy enough. Defeatist attitude? Probably. It works for me though.
Yeah I agree about the basic worthlessness of the MVP. It's fun to debate, but not something to get worked up over. And although I think Pujols is the clear NL choice, of course I'm rooting for Howard. Rather see the hometown guy get top honors than the BBWAA pick the "correct" guy.
I'm with you. Plus, it's exciting that the voters have nailed the ROY voting so far - Hanley Ramirez was the best rookie in the NL and either Verlander, the actual winner of the award, or Liriano would have been a great choice in the AL. On top of that, I like Brandon Webb as the NL Cy. So far, so good.
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