Slow News Day

Published by on November 10, 2006 | 5 Responses

A few quick items of note from around Baseball news today

Could the Red Sox have posted the top bid for highly coveted Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka? Buster Olney reports that the Red Sox may have won the top bid with a bid from 38MM-45MM. You read that right, 35 to 48 million! That is a gigantic sum of money to pay a guy thats never thrown one inning in North America. Keep in mind that 38-45 million only buys the Red Sox the opportunity to negotiate with Matsuzaka. The Matsuzaka sweepstakes just keep getting stranger and stranger.

J.D. Drew opts out of the remaining three years on his Dodger contract to test the free agent market. Drew had three years left at a total of 33 million. Word is that Drew was unhappy in LA but with Boras as his agent I have the feeling that its more about money than anything else. Drew enters a free agent market with already some big bats in the outfield (Lee, Soriano, Sheffield) and I wonder if he’s going to do better than 11 mil per year? I can see someone like the Mets overpaying for Drew.

Keith Foulke also opted for free agency, declining the 3.75 million option to stay with Boston. Would the Giants have any interest in bringing back Foulke if Benitez gets moved? I hope not, Foulke isn’t going to come cheap and he is a injury concern. You can’t completely rule it out since Foulke wants to play closer to his Arizona home which puts him in the area for west coast teams.

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Chris
Chris

Frank, I don't know if I would say that Drew did next to nothing for the Dodgers. He put up a very solid stat line in 2006 of .283/.393/.498. His 2006 OPS+ was 125 and he had a VORP of 34.9. Drew's also a pretty good defender too, able to play any of the OF spots. For comparison heres Soriano's and Lee's 2006 lines. Soriano - .277/.351/.560 | 132 OPS+ | 48.2 VORP Lee - .300/.355/.540 | 125 OPS+ | 27.2 VORP As you can see Drew instantly finds himself among the top FA OF's. The Dodgers had him cheap at 11mil/yr and I am sure he figured with Lee and Soriano getting 14-17 mil contracts he could have done better. Sure, Drew leaving frees up money for the Dodgers but they are going to have to pay more than 11 mil a year if they wan't the same amount of production that they are losing with Drew leaving. The Dodgers do have a strength of young outfielders but Kemp isn't ready to play everyday and Either isn't going to put up the same numbers as Drew. Drew at 11 mil a year was a bargain for the Dodgers.

Frank
Frank

This is a break for the Dodgers, not for us. He did next to nothing for the Dodgers, they would like to be rid of him and have the opportunity to use his $11 million more productively. We would be better off if Drew were still in LA

Chris
Chris

Yup, exactly Boof. The posting money acts as sort of a bonus for the Japanese team when they transfer Daisuke.

Boof
Boof

Matsuzaka does not get the posting money, the Japanese team receives that. The posting money is paid for the right to offer him a contract. The Sox would still have to sign Matsusaka and ay him a salary on top of the posting money that was paid to his Japanese team.