Rumors abound that my beloved Boston Red Sox plan to bid vigorously for the services of free agent Mark Teixeira and Japanese pitching phenom Junichi Tazawa. Although I’d like to see the team take the challenge of developing and sustaining a winning team in a major market with a Moneyball philosophy, I’m actually excited by the possibilities of these two signings. I’d rather see the team stay competitive while reducing its overall payroll, but if we’re going to spend money in the free agent market, then we should spend the money to buy premium talent or extremely undervalued and obscure talent. I don’t want to pay fair value for middle tier talent.

I don’t think that John Henry and Theo Epstein really need to find a way to replace Manny Ramirez’s bat, Jason Bay may not crush like Manny, but he is almost as valuable if you factor in statistical and defensive considerations. If instead of cutting payroll, the team is thinking about increasing payroll, then it might as well go for arguably the best hitter available on the market and pay a premium for his services. Mark Teixeira could conceivably break the franchise pay record set by Manny Ramirez. Teixeira is a powerful switch hitter, something we haven’t had in our offensive arsenal for quite a while. Jason Varitek is a switch hitter but few will argue that he’s a masher. Teixeira is entering the prime of his career cycle and should be a safe bet to break even on his salary on a performance basis.

Junichi Tazawa, a 22 year old pitching sensation from Japan, is an interesting validation of the efforts Henry and Epstein have invested into Japan. When they signed Daisuke Matsuzaka and paid a big premium, they established Boston as a desirable destination for talented Japanese players who wanted to test their skills in the much more competitive and lucrative United States market. The sophisticated public relations and marketing campaigns the Boston management team put in action generated tremendous amounts of goodwill in Japan. That has culminated in Tazawa announcing that the Red Sox is his preferred choice despite more lucrative guaranteed contracts offered by the Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners.

Both these players will improve the team, but will come with high price tags. Given the paucity of truly top tier free agent talent, now may be the year to buy rather than build from within.