Theo Epstein and Larry Lucchino jumped on a plane to find Dice-K and agent Scott Boras in California in hopes to land a deal. Epstein says it will be a "record" offer:
Sox sources say that the offer Theo Epstein and Larry Lucchino intend to present agent Scott Boras is a boatload of money. I won't hazard a guess at this stage, though Theo, when asked about a quote attributed to Boras in which he said something about the market for pitchers headed toward the $100 million range, may have shed some light on it when he said the total outlay of cash for Dice-K will be in that neighborhood. Theo said it will the most money paid a Japanese player coming to the major leagues in his initial contract. Hideki Matsui was paid $21 million in a three-year deal when he came over in 2003; Ichiro, who arrived two years earlier, was paid $14 million over three years. The Sox offer is expected to trump those figures by a considerable margin, but will far short of the kind of parameters Boras has suggested to the Sox in conversations.
It's crunch time. I have no doubt now that Theo will strike a deal to bring Matsuzaka to Boston.