Can you believe it? The Red Sox won the rights to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka for $51.1MM. That’s more than many teams’ entire payrolls!
When speculation first began, people were thinking half that.
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Seibu Accepts Matsuzaka Bid
According to this article from Yahoo Japan, the Seibu Lions have accepted the bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka and an announcement of the winning team will come Tuesday evening.
I wonder which team won?? Could it be?
Ken Rosenthal weighs in with disapproval of the huge bid. And with a culturally relevant quip.
Destrade: Red Sox Won Matsuzaka Bid
RotoWorld has an Orestes Destrade report for ESPN that claims the Red Sox won the Daisuke Matsuzaka bid for about $42MM. I think we can be pretty confident that the Lions will accept it.
The next step, of course, is getting him signed.
UPDATE: Peter Gammons is reporting a $42MM bid as well.
McAdam: Red Sox Matsuzaka Rumor Probably Accurate
Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal spoke to several baseball sources, and learned that Buster Olney’s report of a $38-45MM Red Sox bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka was "probably accurate." Not something Yankee fans wanted to hear.
Newsday’s Ken Davidoff spoke to sources with connections to both New York clubs who indicated that neither team expects to win the bid.
Abraham On Matsuzaka: “Calm Down”
Peter Abraham, Yankees beat writer for The Journal News, is telling us all to relax a little bit in his blog. He later checked in again after talking to Brian Cashman and says the Yankees haven’t heard anything about Matsuzaka yet. Other interesting bits from Abraham’s fine blog:
– I quote: "The Japanese papers literally have people standing outside of the team offices waiting to get the news [on Matsuzaka]."
– Andy Pettitte’s wife doesn’t seem to like the idea of a return to the Yanks.
– Carl Pavano and Luke Scott carry guns.
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Olney: Red Sox Placed Top Matsuzaka Bid?
A little while ago, Buster Olney reported that the Red Sox may have won the Daisuke Matsuzaka bid with an amount between $38MM and $45MM.
Also, please email me if you can read Taiwanese. And yes, I might mean Mandarin. I can be ignorant sometimes. Don’t take offense. Anyway, I am tracking down a possible Matsuzaka/Yankees story.
UPDATE: Many kind folks have written in to help translate the above Yahoo article. The general consensus is that the sources and reporting quality are subpar in this case and the article should be ignored as any sign that the Yankees have won the bid.
UPDATE 2: Olney updated the above link to include info from a source that the Rangers may have bid $22MM.
Rangers Bid $30MM For Matsuzaka?
Here we finally have a decent source giving us some Daisuke Matsuzaka info. Jan Hubbard of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a baseball official indicating something close to a $30MM bid. Of the course, the language in the article uses plenty of qualifiers like "may" and "have a chance." Can’t blame ’em for hedging their bets a little.
We’ve also got a video in which Boston Globe sportswriter Jackie MacMullan says that Matsuzaka is "going to go out west to the Angels by all accounts." Not to question her info, but in watching the video is appeared that she did not know Matsuzaka’s name. I ran this one by my Angels source and even he could not confirm whether the Halos made a bid. It was a stealth process.
Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe has a source putting two different teams over a $20MM bid.
Mike Plugh is all over the developing story at the Matsuzaka Watch.
Tribe Placed A Matsuzaka Bid
According to Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "it is believed the Indians did bid" on Daisuke Matsuzaka. Indians fans can hope they tacked the $4MM or so not spent on a 2B onto their bid.
We can also be confident that the Yankees and Mets placed bids. The Rangers indicated their intent to bid before the mandate of silence was issued from MLB. Other teams that have been mentioned as likely bidders are the Cubs, Red Sox, and Diamondbacks.
So instead of a five team race, seven clubs might actually be involved. All we can do is wait…I know the suspense is killing many of you!
Lennon: Matsuzaka Winning Bid Could Be Lower Than Expected
Newsday’s David Lennon thinks the winning bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka will be closer to $11MM than the $20MM+ estimates that have been going around.
We may not know the reality for a while, but hopefully the winning team will be announced or leaked this evening. I still can’t see how none of the big market teams go up to $20MM, however.
Possible Cubs Matsuzaka Bid Amount
The buzz around Chicago today is that the Cubs plan on submitting a bid of $21 million for the rights to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka. If other teams believe this leak to be accurate, it may cause them to up the ante if they have not yet submitted bids.
The Yankees, Mets, Rangers, and Red Sox are said to be the other four teams in the game.
