Matsuzaka Mania!

Well, as is wellknown across baseball by now, the Boston Red Sox have won the Daisuke Matsuzaka derby with a reported bid of $45 million. That's right. Forty-five million dollars.

Just for the rights to negotiate a contract with him.

I've never seen Matsuzaka pitch, except on Sportscenter or other news programs shoing a few clips of him in the World Baseball Classic or striking out batters in the Japanese league. Therefore, I have no real reason to believe or doubt the hype surrounding him.

But something just doesn't sit right with me in this situation. It's going to cost the Red Sox upwards of $100 million to sign him.

Is it just me, or does that seem a lot of money for an unproven prospect?

Sure, he's no high school kid, no Brien Taylor (hopefully). He's had a few years of professional baseball.

But the Major Leagues are a lot different than those in Japan. The players are bigger, stronger, faster, better than those across the Pacific Ocean. The best in the world play on the thirty Major League teams. The level of competition is much higher.

And while he may be a very talented pitcher, it's an awful big gamble when you're putting up $75 million to $100 million for three seasons for a pitcher who has never thrown a ball with Bud Selig's signature on it.

Which is why I'm happy that the Boston Red Sox won the bidding, since we apparently made a run at him.

Do the Angels need an unproven $100 million pitcher? Nope. I'm hoping our bid wasn't to make a serious run at Matsuzaka. I'm hoping it was to drive the price up a bit, make him more expensive to the team that eventually lands him. Or for possible trade bait.

I guess I'm just hoping that we didn't enter the bidding because the Angels are trying to be like the Yankees.

It seems that we're on the path to simply throwing money at all our problems. And while signing free agents can be very beneficial to a ballclub, if Arte Moreno is just throwing money around to bring prestige and respect to the Angels, something is very wrong.

Especially as the strategy hasn't worked all that well recently for George Steinbrenner.

But then, maybe I'm underestimating the Red Sox. Perhaps they're not in this to get one up on the Yankees. Maybe they're a bit smarter than that.

The whole posting system for Japanese players seems a bit funny to me. The Red Sox put in a bid for around $45 million just for the rights to negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka. Once this bid is accepted, they have 30 days to negotiate a contract.

And if they can't come up with one? They get their money back.

So, suppose you're Theo Epstein, the Red Sox GM. Your biggest rival in the AL East is the Yankees, and you know they're desperate for pitching and have endless piles of money to throw at it. When Matsuzaka comes up, you know the Yankees will try to get him.

With that, what is there to lose in going after him? I'm sure Epstein is seeing the dollar signs in signing Matsuzaka. The advertising money brought in when the Mariners signed Ichiro Suziki turned into a gold mine. There are Japanese ads in Yankee Stadium for Hideki Matsui. Tour groups used to bring Japanese tourists to Dodger Stadium when Hideo Nomo came here in the mid 90's.

But also, he's keeping a potential Ace out of the Yankees lineup.

And with that, what does he have to lose? If he fails to sign Matsuzaka, he gets every penny of that $45 million back.

Hell, he could even sabotage the whole thing just to keep him out of a Yankee uniform for 2007. He could tell Scott Boras that he's not willing to give Matsuzaka more than the league minimum, in which case Matsuzaka will be pitching in Japan for another season.

Perhaps I've seen too many Oliver Stone movies.