Daisuke Matsuzaka Bidding Ends; Winner Not Announced Yet

The bidding for the Lions' Matsuzaka has finally ended

The Daisuke Matsuzaka bidding ended yesterday and the winner of the bidding was reported to be the Boston Red Sox, who bidded anywhere from 38 - 40 million dollars for the rights to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka to pitch for them in 2007. The winner of the biddings have not been officially revealed yet though as there are many media outlets with different victors. An announcement from the Seibu Lions is expected to come on Monday or Tuesday.

Why Matsuzaka? What is the big deal about some japanese pitcher, in particular, this one? Is this another Kazuo Matsui or will it be a Hideki Matsui or Ichiro Suzuki in the making? Well, for one, Matsuzaka pitched 186+ innings with a 2.13 ERA and 200 strikeouts this past season pitching for the Seibu Lions in Japan, going 17 - 5. Teams like the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees who are the two favorites to win the bidding for the rights to negotiate with the young pitcher both have major pitching needs for next season. The Yankees were 7th in the American League with a 4.41 ERA and the Red Sox were 11th in the American League with a 4.83 ERA. The pitchers were rarely able to go past the 6th inning, so the bullpens were exhausted by the time the end of the season came. Another reason why Matsuzaka is because he was named tournament MVP after posting a 3-0 record, including a decisive win over Cuba in the tournament's championship game.

It also happens to be that the Red Sox and Yankees have the two highest payrolls in the league, so we all know that they have plenty of money to spend in order to make their teams better and we also know that they will spend that money.

As for whether or not Matsuzaka will have the success that Hideki or Ichirio has had, we will not know until next year, but what we do know is that he will be in a major league uniform making more money than we can ever dream of making.