Another good sign for the Red Sox off-season is that Theo Epstein has finally laid his signature on his contract. Like I stated with the signing of John Farrell, and the subsequent support of Tito, this move is showing a Boston Red Sox management and front office that is unified and lightyears ahead of the chaos that was the offseason last year. (Thank God)
Some interesting quotes from their meeting with the print press are below. I'm looking for the Red Sox to make a large splash this off-season, can't wait to see some pieces fall into place.
"Talking about payroll in any way is a competitive disadvantage, we spend a lot of time keeping track of the loose comments regarding payroll and it's been a point of pride that we don't discuss that. It's very helpful for us to know that Team X has made a major announcement that they're going to take their payroll from 72 to 92 [million]. Well thank you for telling us that, now we know who might be in the free agent competition for X or Y or Z." - Larry Lucchino
"We scouted Japan and the Japan Leagues but we won't have any comment on any individual player." - Theo Epstein - Word on the street is that we'll be aggressively pursuing Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka.
And that entails sealed bids just to have a window of opportunity to talk to the player. He does sound good. Many teams will bid for the right to bargain (wrong word!) with him and his agent.
Posted by: Peter N | October 20, 2006 at 11:24 AM
Yeah, we all know how good it can be to negotiate with $cott Bora$
:-)
Posted by: Derek Hixon | October 20, 2006 at 11:33 AM