jmei wrote:

---

Maybe the Sox did offer Kuroda a similar contract and he chose the Yankees over them (NY does have a significantly larger Japanese population)? Maybe they were uncomfortable with Kuroda's medicals or adjustment to the AL East? Maybe they prefer Oswalt and think they can get him for cheaper?

These are all explanations that are, to me, much more likely than the "Henry suddenly decided to be cheap" hypothesis that seems to be all the rage. We'll see.

John Henry doesn't want to pay much in luxury tax and would prefer not to pay anything at all.  That seems to be the most rational explanation.

Nobody is saying that Henry and company is a cheapskate - the Sox have the 2nd highest payroll in baseball.

However, I think it's reasonable to look around and say it's obvious that the starting staff needs upgrading and it's even obvious before Crawford went down that the Sox needed more OF depth, particularly from the right side of the plate.

You can't honestly tell me that you would feel better with Padilla, Cook, and Silva fighting it out for the #5 spot rather than having signed Kuroda or Oswalt for one season (and not having to surrender minor league talent).  You have an unproven Bard in the #4 spot and two injury prone pitchers in the top three spots.  Signing a quality pitcher reduces your margin of error if something goes wrong, such as it did last year when the staff was reduced to Lester, Wakefield, Lackey, Miller, and Weiland.  That should be an obvious lesson from last season.

The point is that the Sox should be willing to pay the luxury tax and go over if necessary if it increases their odds of being a post-season team.  As I see it now, they're not necessarily better than Tampa, they're not better than NY, and we know that one team is coming out of the AL Central, that there are two very good teams in the AL West.  That makes it a tough battle to finish in a playoff spot even with two wild cards and the Sox, for that big a payroll, can't keep trending downward as they have the past few years - not making the post season 3 seasons in a row is inexcusable.

Henry and Co seem to draw the line arbitrarily around the luxury tax figure, but I'm not convinced that the Sox can't stretch to go over the line and pay the tax - the Sox are raking in the money, so I wouldn't be too thrilled if Henry is making a bigger profit at the expense of reducing the Sox' chance of making the post-season.