Jon Heyman has some notes from the g.m. meetings, and says that the Red Sox are going to look at moving Manny Ramirez after Carlos Lee and Alfonso Soriano sign.
Manny has two years left at about $17 million per year (when you factor in the deferred money discount rate), which makes his contract pretty reasonable right now. Akinori Otsuka for Manny, maybe?
Heyman also suggests that if Boston won't pay Matsuzaka what he wants, Scott Boras may either appeal to MLB for a re-post, saying that Boston didn't negotiate in good faith, or else offer to pay Seibu to release Matsuzaka and make him a free agent, which would allow him to negotiate with any team.
As Heyman points out, Matsuzaka isn't going to pay Seibu $51 million, but if Seibu has the choice between getting nothing and having Matsuzaka return for 2007, or getting, say, $20 million from Matsuzaka and allowing him to be a free agent, then they may elect to take the money and run.
Anyway...some interesting stuff to check out...