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another wednesday, another four-year $52 million dollar deal doled out by the yankees. this george steinbrenner guy must have a lot of money. a couple of things about the deal, now that i equally hate the yankees and red sox, and can speak objectively about them:first, i think the yankees made a huge pick-up here. from everything i had heard, they were merely in the bidding for damon purely to drive the price up on the red sox. it’s almost like they called boras, said “4 years, $52M. that’s our best offer”, hung up, and went on to other business because they figured the sox would have to out-bid that. imagine cashman’s surprise at actually getting a top-five leadoff man and speedy center fielder for reasonable market value. true, his arm’s not great and his road splits have been just good lately, but he’s a big upgrade defensively over bernie williams and bubba sparxx, er, crosby. he’ll also score 120 runs at the top of that lineup, allow jeter to return to the two-hole, and give them more speed on the basepaths. good pick-up.

second, i think this is a disaster for the red sox. they have to be scrambling in their front office right now, because i can’t imagine theo epstein would’ve let this happen. i really think this is a catastrophe. who’s going to be at the top of their order? mark bellhorn? this was the one guy would they could always count on to get on base ahead of big papi, put pressure on the basepaths, and suck pitchers into 13-pitch at-bats twice a game. now they’re talking about making a deal of arroyo for jeremy reed from seattle. sure the kid’s talented, but he was a disaster last season (i know, i drafted him in a fantasy league). now you want to stick him in one of the most pressure-packed franchises in sports? good luck. combined with the possible manny departure, questions about their rotation, and a hectic front office, i don’t see how they recover from this mess. the one positive is that they didn’t let boras drive the price up, but that seems like a small consolation. 3rd in the AL East this season?

third, scott boras just got kicked in the nuts, and i love that. the same jerk-off that got texas to drive up the price on itself for a-rod just got a deal that was three years and about $30 million less than he wanted for his client. awesome.

tags: sports