Yes, I sure. But you’re ok anyways lol

But I also think this is why there were so many leaks about why Tex wasn’t in fact an “extravagance” for the Sox but a true “need.”

This is why we were hearing so many stories about how the Sox were eyeing Tex for two years and how once the Sox targeted a player they would “do anything” to sign him, why we were hearing so many stories about how Tex was a real need because the Sox line up was aging badly and they couldn’t count on Papi or Lowell.

That way signing Tex wouldn’t look like an extravagant use of the Sox copious financial resources but a rational decision made on long term organizational prerogatives and needs.

In the end though if you bid $170M on a player it’s tough to go back and say you don’t “need” him a great deal.

But I also think this is why there were so many leaks about why Tex wasn’t in fact an “extravagance” for the Sox but a true “need.”

This is why we were hearing so many stories about how the Sox were eyeing Tex for two years and how once the Sox targeted a player they would “do anything” to sign him, why we were hearing so many stories about how Tex was a real need because the Sox line up was aging badly and they couldn’t count on Papi or Lowell.

That way signing Tex wouldn’t look like an extravagant use of the Sox copious financial resources but a rational decision made on long term organizational prerogatives and needs.

In the end though if you bid $170M on a player it’s tough to go back and say you don’t “need” him a lot.

Excuse me Brian, but I live in NE along with a lot of other Yankee fans. You don’t speak for New England,just the Red Sox Nation.Most of us do not believe the Yankees would have gone to $200mil. Neither Boston or New York were going that high.I believe the Yankees interest became more serious when it became evident that if Tex wanted $200mil he would have had to take it from the Nats.

By all accounts, the Yankees never made a formal offer until the player instructed his agent to contact the Yankees about their potential interest. At that point,Tex’s choices were the Red Sox $170mil or the Nat’s $200mil.

The analogy isn’t exact, because Tex would be signed for a much longer contract than Manny, but I think the point holds.

Tex was 100% positive value to us, and less than 100% to the Sox. So it’s not surprising the Yanks were the high bidder vis-a-vis the Sox.

He was just worth more to us than to them.

Brian,

After hearing so many of these yankee press conferences I can tell you that what Tex said wasn’t that particularly different than what most free agents say.

Look – I will definitely buy that his strong preference was to play for the yankees. But I think the best evidence of this was in the timeline of this signing.

Tex got that $180M offer from the yankees and didn’t even try to allow the Sox to outbid the yankees.

So sure I fully believe that he really wanted to be the sox if the offers were close.

But that’s really not that much different than CC really wanting to be an Angel if the offers were remotely close.

But the Angels decided not to bid as they put all their eggs in the Teixeira basket and lost.

I’d also say that if one team truly had minimal chance to sign tex it was the Angels – not the sox. As long as the Sox had a comparable offer I do think Tex would have come East.

In fact this was reported and touted in the boston media as a prime reason why he would likely be on the Sox.

But there’s an enormous difference between having a strong preference and just dismissing the second most attractive bidder out of hand and saying they had “no chance.”

That just doesn’t wash at all. There’s no way Tex could do that without a solid market rate offer from the yankees on the table – and that only came on the day he signed.

Strong preference for the yankees just does not mean all other teams had “no chance.” It’s clear that the Sox had a much better chance than the Angels did based on geography for example.

I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from the press conference. It was clear he preferred playing for the yankees. I think that’s just about all you can reasonably conclude from what was said.

The distance between strong preference and “no chance” is pure spin.

But Teixeira was pretty absolutist himself today. Perhaps he was going overboard on his outreach to the Yankee fans, but his own reconstruction of the bargaining process made it clear that he was going to the Yankees.

I’m sure Boras wishes that he had been a little less forthcoming about his mindset during “the process,” because his own client was saying, in effect, that the other teams who were involved were being played.

Might not be the reality, but it’s hard to draw any other inference from the PC.