Tora! Tora! Torah!
Tora is Japanese for Tiger, Torah is Hebrew for Lesson. The Red Sox have devoted the bulk of their resources this offseason to catch a tiger by its tail. Pending a physical, Daisuke "Dice-K" Matsuzaka will summer in Beantown beneath the shade of the Green Monster. This pretty much seals the deal on their pitching rotation, adding to existing veterans Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield and young guns Josh Beckett and Jonathan Papelbon.
Let's not forget the Sox have added a second tiger, Hideki Okajima to their bullpen, but that's far from the end of the story of the Red Sox bullpen, which has plagued them with issues for the past two seasons. With Eric Gagne now off the market, we'll have to wait and see if Theo Epstein can give us another lesson in negotiating to snag a closer and maybe one more established reliever. Hopefully, he won't do something stupid like deal Papelbon for another reclamation project a la Bronson Arroyo for Wily "will he?" Mo Pena.
The offseason is still young, and Matsuzaka agent Scott Boras is now free to make what may be the biggest deal of the winter as he finds a new home for Barry Zito.
*Special thanks to Spilli-san for supplying puns and a title.
posted by matt at 3:06 PM
3 Comments:
Didn't the Red Socks pay some insane amount of money to the Japanese government to even talk to the guy? Something like $40 million? Anyway, I'm a baseball moron, but very good writing. \m/
Murdock
The Sox paid a $51.1 million posting fee to the Seibu Lions, who have Matsuzaka under contract, for the exclusive rights to negotiate with him. With Japanese income tax, though, about $20-30 million of that does go right into the Japanese treasury. The rest has reportedly been committed to improving the Lions' stadium.
Oh this is going to be cool! Good blog. I bet Matt Millen wishes it were his Lions getting some improving. I think it's funny that the Seibu Lions are reportedly only worth somewhere around 25 million. The Red Sox should have just bought the team and added it to their farm system. I know the Sox couldn't have done it, but I had to throw it out there.
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