Submitted by JOEL ROBINSON, Nov 17, 2006 07:38

The money being offered for the rights to Daisuke Matsukaza makes little of no business sense and when any enterprise (sports or a regular business) foregoes basic financial logic -- disaster is only a step away.

Consider the fact that the team in Japan that is offering Matsukaza to the U.S. is reported to be in deep financial distress. If this is true why not negotiate from strength instead of offering an amount that is beyond rational consideration? Can any team hope to earn enough revenues to offset the payment of $51 million dollars?

In addition, MLB is the buyer expecting to pay for performance when signing a player, and one has to ask why any buyer would offer a guaranteed future contract with no stipulation of performance? The contracts in MLB offered to players are absurd as well as irrational because they do not make economic sense. A team is paying for performance and the only guarantee of performance is to link the payment to what will be achieved. Why not offer a one-year contract at whatever salary, or a future contract based on performance. Offering a fixed salary for several years with no link to performance makes no business sense.

I think a better question is not how much money does baseball has to offer, but what happens when a major league team goes bankrupt?

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