Daisuke Matsuzaka

By now, we've all probably heard of Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Japanese starting pitcher, he of the 95 MPH fastball, he with the W.B.C. MVP award, he with the "I'm excellent and still only 25-years-old" story-line. Matsuzaka is supposed to be good. I want him in Mariner blue. Or, as we sometimes say, I want him grooving to the SoDo mojo. Holla.

This could be fun parlour game: What will Matsuzaka's posting fee be? Newsday reported today that the bidding will start at $20M. I think the winning bid will be $28.5M.

Here's an interesting scenario that Buster Olney highlighted today on ESPN Insider:

The posting system is deeply flawed. For example, here's one sabotage scenario that might interest a team like Baltimore, which is faced with the possibility that Matsuzaka will land with either of the big market monsters in its division, the Yankees or the Red Sox. The Orioles could post a huge bid -- say $50 million -- and blow everybody else out of the water. With exclusive negotiating rights, they then could offer Matsuzaka a take-it-or-leave-it minimum bid, like a six-year, $6 million deal. Matsuzaka and agent Scott Boras, with just 30 days to negotiate and with no ability to generate a competing bid from another major league team, would have the stark choice of taking the Orioles' lowball offer or remaining in Japan. If Matsuzaka came to the U.S. under those circumstances -- and that would seem very unlikely -- the Orioles would have a frontline pitcher for much less than the total package of $80 million that everybody expects it will cost to get Matsuzaka. And if he were to stay in Japan after such a lowball offer, the Orioles would get their posting fee back and would still serve their own purposes, as well, by keeping him out of the hands of the Red Sox and Yankees.

Crazy.