Brace for arms race
By Tony Massarotti/ Baseball Notes
Boston Herald Sports Columnist
Sunday, October 15, 2006 - Updated: 03:32 AM EST
As many as two weeks of baseball still remain in this 2006 season, and it
could be an additional two before the free agency filing period is complete.
By then, however, one of the more coveted players of the upcoming offseason
already could be signed, sealed and delivered.
Over the past year or so, Daisuke Matsuzaka has received as much hype as
any foreign player in recent memory. As things stand, the 26-year-old
right-hander will likely be auctioned off by his current team, the Seibu
Lions, upon conclusion of the Japan Series between the Chunichi Dragons and
Nippon Ham Fighters. Like the World Series, the Japan Series is due to begin
on Saturday and will be completed no later than Sunday, Oct. 29.
After that, all eyes in the baseball world will turn to Matsuzaka, who
could be posted as soon as Nov. 1.
Under Japan’s current system, Matsuzaka would be eligible for free
agency following the 2007 season, his ninth with the Lions. Because Matsuzaka
has expressed a desire to pitch in the United States, the Lions are expected
to make him available for the posting process, the same mechanism that
allowed the Orix Blue Wave to sell the rights to Ichiro Suzuki following the
2000 season. At least one major league team cautioned that the Wave might be
playing everyone for fools just to see what the market for Matsuzaka is, yet
many believe he will be playing Major League Baseball next season.
In the case of Suzuki, the Blue Wave received $13 million from the
Seattle Mariners, who won the auction for the right to negotiate with the
player. Seattle subsequently spent an additional $14-$15 million to sign
Suzuki to a three-year contract, bringing the initial commitment to Suzuki to
roughly $27-$28 million for the first three years of his service.
By all accounts, the price for Matsuzaka will be considerably higher.
For skeptics, the questions are obvious: How good is Matsuzaka? And why
is he available?
Because Matsuzaka wants to play in the major leagues, the Lions have
resigned themselves to the fact that the player will elect free agency after
next season. So, instead of letting Matsuzaka walk and getting nothing in
return, the Lions can effectively auction him off for a sizable sum - some
estimates have placed Matsuzaka’s rights as high as $20-$30 million.
For the Lions - and for Matsuzaka - it makes all the sense to take care
of business now.
‘‘(Matsuzaka) is a treasure to Seibu, but to all of Japan as well,”
Lions acting owner and president Hidekazu Ota said on Thursday. ‘‘As long
as he goes where he can realize his dream” it would be OK to let him go.
Where will that be? That remains to be seen. Many have speculated that
Matsuzaka will end up with the New York Yankees, who certainly have the
ability to outbid other clubs for Matsuzaka’s rights. But there are some who
believe that the bidding could feature as many as half of the 30 major league
clubs, including the Red Sox, New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.
According to officials at Major League Baseball, the bidding for Matsuzaka
will go something like this:
Once the Lions post the player, any interested club will have four days
to submit a bid to MLB offices in New York. Once the bidding process is
complete, officials from MLB will identify the winning amount, then inform
league officials in Japan of the winning amount. (Allegedly, the identity of
the winning team will not be disclosed.)
At that point, the Lions have the right to accept or decline the offer.
And if Seibu accepts - as most believe the team will - the winning team will
be identified and Matsuzaka will have 30 days to negotiate a contract, which
will cost the winning team millions more. Matsuzaka earned an estimated $2.75
million in Japan this season while going 17-5 with a 2.13 ERA and precisely
200 strikeouts in 186 innings, but annual cost in the United States could be
at least twice that, if not more.
Do the math.
All in all, that could spell out to as much as a $40-$50 million
commitment for player who has never pitched in the minor leagues, let alone
the majors.
So why all the fuss? Matsuzaka has a career record of 108-60 (a .643
winning percentage) with a 2.95 ERA and and 8.69 strikeouts per nine innings
pitched, but those numbers will not necessarily translate. His fastball
reportedly has been clocked in the 92-94-mph range, with good control, and he
is said to have an above-average curveball and changeup. And while long-term
durability is of some concern - Matsuzaka is not too much bigger than, say,
Pedro Martinez -Matsuzaka has thrown 29 complete games in 53 starts over the
last two years.
For major league suitors, even more appealing is this: Because Matsuzaka
is a posted player, the signing team would hold his rights for as many as six
years (no matter the length of his first contract), meaning he would not be
eligible for free agency until after the 2012 season. This is a significant
difference from a Japanese import such as New York Yankees outfielder Hideki
Matsui, who came to the U.S. as a free agent and would have been eligible for
free agency after his third season (2005) if the Yankees had not re-signed
him.
So what would a team like the Red Sox pay for Matsuzaka? That, too, is
unclear. But over the summer, remember, the Sox were prepared to pay a
pro-rated share of a $21 million salary to Roger Clemens. There have been
whispers about ownership increasing the payroll. And the Sox are coming off a
disappointing season in which they finished with 86 wins and missed the
postseason for the first time since 2002.
Of course, the Yankees similarly are disappointed in themselves at the
moment.
If you are either Daisuke Matsuzaka or the Seibu Lions, you must have a
big smile on your face.
Hunter season over
In case you didn’t notice, any chance of center fielder Torii Hunter
being in this year’s free agent class expired on Tuesday when the Minnesota
Twins exercised a $12 million option on the player for next season. There has
been speculation about Hunter’s availability since last year, when he broke
his ankle at Fenway Park and with the 2006 season (at a salary of $10
million) potentially serving as his final year in Minnesota.
Instead, Minnesota decided to bring him back with the idea of negotiating
with him on an extension during the winter.
‘‘You look at his numbers, I don’t think it was a surprise that we
picked that up,” Twins GM Terry Ryan said.
Still, that didn’t seem so certain as recently as, say, six weeks ago.
Hunter missed time in the middle of this season with a stress fracture in his
foot and was batting just .267 on Sept. 1. And while he finished at .278, he
had a monster September, collecting 10 homers and 29 RBI in his final 29
games to finish with 98 RBI and a career-high 31 home runs.
Scouts Yanked out
The Yankees have elected to keep manager Joe Torre for at least another
season, it seems, but that doesn’t mean that souls were spared in the wake
of New York’s four-game loss to the Detroit Tigers in the American League
Division Series. According to baseball sources, the Yankees informed longtime
scouts Wade Taylor and Chuck Cottier that neither would have his contract
renewed at the end of this month, effectively firing both.
While Taylor and Cottier may now be household baseball names - though
Cottier did manage the Seattle Mariners from 1984-86 - both have been
regarded as cornerstones of the Yankees professional scouting operation for
the last several years. On the surface, the move does not seem terribly
unlike ones made by the Red Sox late in the year, when word similarly began
circulating that the Sox had disposed of some scouts.
Of course, at this time of year, changes in the scouting operations of
teams are quite common, although Cottier and Taylor were nothing short of
Yankees symbols during their tenure with the club. As a result, the news
certainly caught the attention of many baseball insiders. . . .
Finally, for what it’s worth, more than one major league evaluator
believes that the Yankees and Los Angeles Angels are perfect partners if and
when it comes time to make a deal for Alex Rodriguez, whose poor postseason
performance put the punctuation on a tumultuous year. The Angels have the
money to take on Rodriguez and the talent to trade for him, and the West
Coast would obviously serve Rodriguez and his personality far better than the
high-intensity East Coast markets that actually expect their high-salaried
players to produce in the clutch.
Of course, that is not necessarily good news for the Red Sox, who might
similarly be looking to peddle Manny Ramirez to the Angels. After all, for
all of his faults, Rodriguez is three years younger than Ramirez and has
averaged 153 games played over the last 11 years of his career.
In his entire career, Ramirez has played as many as 153 games in a season
only once, that being 2003.
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