Wow.

The $51.1 million winning bid is only the start. Now the Red Sox have 30 days to finalize a contract with the Japanese ace. ...

The Mets finished second with a bid between $39 million and $40 million, according to a baseball official who spoke on condition of anonymity because none of the losing bids were revealed. The Yankees bid between $32 million and $33 million, another baseball official said.

I wish Matsuzaka the best and hope he lives up to the expectations. But, I am glad that we did what we did. We threw a lot of money out there ($32-$33 is a lot of money!) to try to get him, but we didn't go too far. And we ended up 3rd. That's fine. Could you imagine the headlines if we had bid $51.2 or higher? lol. Not that I care about headlines, but man. Still, I like where we are. It was a good play. We put in a bid that allowed us to make it so that no one got him "too cheaply" (I use that term very loosely) and that they had to bid to win, which we did and the Mets and especially the Red Sox, certainly did.

Jim Baumbach:

I've got to believe the Seibu Lions officials, after receiving the bid last week, spent their weekends laughing and laughing, and laughing and laughing.

That's the downside of the sealed bid process.