Mark Teixeira
December 16, 2008 by Mike
From Boston Herald:
The courtship of Mark Teixeira is consuming a great deal of time and energy on Yawkey Way.
Should the Red Sox eventually come out on top in the aggressive quest for the services of the gifted free agent first baseman, it will cost them an extraordinary, even historic, amount of money.
The Sox have made an offer, the biggest and longest yet for this current ownership group. The offer is believed to be for at least eight years, with ownership and baseball operations cognizant that Teixeira, 29, represents the safest bet they can make for at least this year and next to shore up the heart of an aging lineup.
From the Washington Post:
As one agent told me last Thursday as the meetings were breaking up, it is no coincidence that there is plenty of information out there about the offers from the Nationals and Orioles (and now the Angels as well), but virtually nothing about the ones from the Red Sox and Yankees — or even if there have been offers at all. I want to be careful here, because I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything, but let’s just say teams like the Nationals and Orioles have less reason to protect the details of their offer than do teams like the Red Sox and Yankees.
We were able to nail down details of the Nationals’ offer almost immediately, following the team’s acknowledgment that one was made. And it served a purpose of sorts for the organization — broadcasting to the industry and the fan base back home as to how serious ownership is about improving its product. Again, don’t misunderstand: I’m not accusing the team of being insincere in its pursuit. Far from it. I’ve been told the Lerners very much want Teixeira in Washington. But it did not hurt the organization’s interests to have the information out there, and in fact it may have helped in some regards.
Meantime, there are dozens of excellent reporters in Boston and New York — and I have some sources with the Red Sox and Yankees, myself — but there have been virtually no revelations about those teams’s pursuits of Teixeira, only speculation about their respective degrees of interest. I would venture to say, again, that is no coincidence.
I certainly hope there is much more to follow on this story this week. And if there is, we’ll be dropping it here first.
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