Dice-secting the Daisuke Matsuzaka Deal and Calling Mike Greenberg a Douche Bag

For some reason I torture myself every morning by waking up to Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN radio. Mike Greenberg’s hyperbole and Mike Golic’s stammering do not make for an enjoyable wake up call, but it beats the shrieking high pitched alarm, barely. Anyway, earlier this week the show was having Scott Boras on as a guest. In typical ESPN ass kiss fashion Greenie was repeating all morning that Boras was "playing the Red Sox like a fiddle" going as far as calling him Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. Needless to say this pissed me off; the fact the Greenie was calling my home team suckers while at the same time sucking up to one of the most reprehensible characters in all of sports turned my stomach. He was being a bigger douche than normal and that's saying something.*

Today brings good news, however. Daisuke “Dice-K” Matsuzaka is all but signed (pending a physical) for the sum of $52 million over 6 years ($8.7 million per) including escalator clauses that quite frankly I hope he reaches (because they kick in if he finishes high in Cy Young and MVP voting) that could boost the contract to an average of about $10 million per year. The Red Sox initially offered $8 million a year and ended up signing him for 8.7 million per year. In comparison, Gil Meche, he of the a career ERA of 4.65, was just signed for $11 million dollars per year.

The Dice-K deal with the posting fee included averages out to over $17 million per year. No small potatoes to be sure, but that’s the kind of money Boras was initially hoping to sign Matsuzaka for, not $8.6 million. Boras had said he wasn’t going to consider the posting fee in his negotiations, clearly he had to. Other than over bidding the posting fee by $10 million the Dice-K deal couldn’t have worked out any better for the Sox.

So, Mike “Greenie” Greenberg, can we hear more about this fiddle that Boras was supposedly playing the Red Sox like because the music I hear sounds like the Sox got exactly the deal they wanted.

*(via Deadspin)