Risky business: Owner rolls dice with pricey investments
There's an advisory at the bottom of the home web page of the John W. Henry Company. It reads: "An investment with JWH is speculative, volatile, involves a high degree of risk, and is designed only for sophisticated investors who are able to bear the loss of more than their entire investment."
Sounds like it might describe a man who isn't going to blink at staking the future of his baseball franchise -- not to mention $103 million -- on a 26-year-old Japanese pitcher. Daisuke Matsuzaka holds the promise of a fabulous return, but could also set somebody's hair on fire if his talent doesn't translate in a new country, new culture, new league.
Henry doesn't take his risks idly; he researched Dice-K as exhaustively as he does soybean prices or Swiss francs, and went all in, leaving the Mets and Yankees blinking at the audacity of the Red Sox bid. If there was a trend to the Sox winter, it was this: Henry and Co. would spare no costs to upgrade a team that sagged to third place last season, its worst finish since 2001 and the last days of the Harrington/Duquette era.
General manager Theo Epstein was authorized to spend $70 million on a delicate-as-porcelain outfielder, J.D. Drew, and $36 million on a street-savvy shortstop, Julio Lugo, who brings some Brooklyn attitude to these boys of summer. The bullpen was renovated, and when the entire enterprise was threatened for want of a closer, the Sox and Jonathan Papelbon were simultaneously persuaded that starting wasn't the best thing for him, after all.
On paper, this team is more than a match for the Yankees -- the master plan has factored in any struggles by a rookie second baseman -- and it can no longer claim a profound imbalance on the balance sheet, either. Dollar for dollar, yen for yen, star for star . . . crouching tiger, there's no hidden dragon. Everybody's playing for keeps, from Augusta to Yokohama. 