I was reading recently that the first rule of drafting a fantasy sports team is to ignore all of the snide comments other owners make in your direction as you draft your team. You put in all of the hard work trying to pick a winner, so what do you care what other people think? Since fantasy apes real life, the same rule probably applies to running a baseball team, although the “other owners” are armchair generals like you and me who think that $42 million is a lot of money to spend on a pitcher who may or may not be such hot stuff when he gets over here.Here’s the problem with our line of thinking, though: we’re assuming that spending $42 million means that the Sox now have $42 million less to spend on other things the team needs (infielders, bullpen, backup catchers, etc.). Maybe it’s a psychological scar left over from the days of the Yawkee Trust, maybe it’s a function of the traditional New England thriftiness that makes many of us believe that there’s no way that the Red Sox would spend a minimum of $42 million to get a player without some sort of foolish sacrifice in an area that really needs help. We’re forgetting that the current ownership put money into upgrading Fenway and constructing a championship team because they knew the investments made good business sense – make people want to come to the ballpark and they’ll give you back all of the money you spent and more.
Think about it for a moment: it’s quite likely that the $42 million rumored to be the winning bid won’t take away from the rest of the payroll at all, that John Henry and Co. earmarked this money and the money that actually goes towards signing Matsuzaka as seed money to capture the attention and advertising dollars of the Japanese market, putting the Sox on comparable financial footing in Japan with the Yankees and Hideki Matsui. If that’s the case, the Red Sox didn’t just spend $42 million to cock block the Yankees, they spent $42 million to be the college roommate who comes back to your room to cock block you, starts talking to your girlfriend and then convinces her that she really should ditch a loser like you and start going out with him. Even if Matsuzaka turns out to be an okay pitcher and not the second coming of baseball Jesus, the Red Sox still win because they make the money back in advertising and we all win because the front office still spends the money to put together a quality team.
Of course, these rumors about Matsuzaka wanting to be a Yankee could be true, in which case that $42 million turns out to be a cock blocking without any added benefits. It’s also possible that Matsuzaka will be a terrible pitcher once he comes to America and he’ll end his short reign of Japanese celebrity, killing ad contracts in the process. But think about it: in the 4 years Theo has been GM, he’s avoided three bad deals (Contreras, Rodriguez and Pavano) through sheer luck. Why wouldn’t the luck carry through to Matsuzaka, too (please please please let it carry through)?
This has been Eric, completely reversing his prior position and hoping he’s right.
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