A slow news Sunday

Two interesting news stories for the Sox on Sunday.

Firstly, Terry gets his contract... as much coverage as you need can be found here, here and here - no details of what he is being paid, but the honest truth is, what does it matter? Presumably the Sox ownership team think their manager is worth whatever they have coughed up, presumably money assigned to pay the on-field management team is never affecting whether or not we can afford to sign any player - whatever level they are at.

And then the second story of the day - this one...

A former Cy Young winner signs up with the Sox - I think most Sox fans would have rather had this former Cy Young award winner, but this is a nice interesting insurance policy. I can't imagine we will be getting much from him, but as an insurance policy to allow Clay to be effective in September and October... good job Theo!

What a difference a day (or two) make!

Does this count as news?

In 2003, we would be in full, full scale panic at this point.

But now, we can get excited about the prospect of some kid who has achieved so very little taking the mound every 5th day or so...

Who says two world championships in four years don't make a difference!

Neil M chiming in

As my colleague hinted at the other day, I am now working professionally as a writer. I am the man who has been charged with launching and growing the TalkOn.it Network - a group of around 50 sports websites. I however will return to the blog to keep jotting down my thoughts on the Yankees and Red Sox (amongst other MLB related issues) throughout the season.

There is a baseball site on the network - Talk Baseball which is still being built. I have just commissioned work for pages about all the clubs in MLB - and I have done the New York Yankees page myself.

If anyone has any ideas or thoughts then please pass them on to me. Otherwise I shall try to follow my colleagues excellent recent blogging record and return to my old ways.

Overpaying as a strategy

Well the Mets got their man... a 7 year, $150m + contract will do that it seems.

3 years ago, the Mets overpaid for Pedro , which was justified by the Mets organization because Pedro made the Mets "serious" to other free agents in the market... the Mets seem to believe that it worked - I seem to remember that Beltran made noises that Pedro helped sway his mind (although he only came out with that after his agent was rumored to have offered the Yankees a discount) and I think Delgado made similar noises, although after a .258 / .333 / .448 line in 2007 for $14.5m, maybe the Mets would rather he hadn't.

So 4 years later - I think the Mets have overpaid again.

They traded away four prospects to obtain the opportunity to pay Santana as much as he would have gotten in the free market, and included a signing bonus to make sure he doesn't feel underpaid this year. The only argument against this is that he might have gotten marginally more in free agency next year - which is a maybe, if he had a fully healthy, no question mark year in 2008, but don't the Mets prospects outweigh that additional $x a year?

Will over-paying in 2008 have a better outcome than in 2005?