Red Sox appear primed for a Yankees-like offseason

	The Red Sox think Julio Lugo might be the answer at shortstop, but he won't come cheap. Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
	RELATED • HEYMAN: Red Sox to make big offer to Drew • HEYMAN: Red Sox win Matsuzaka bidding • Available free agents • Free agent signings

We are not the Yankees, the Red Sox keep saying. They are the Evil Empire. We are trying to win the right way. They spend wildly and, quite often, recklessly. We are about financial discipline and building for the future.

No, the Yankees are something else entirely, the Sox insist. But to the rest of us?

Well, if the Sox aren't the Yankees, they're not that far off.

Two seasons after ending their long Nation-al nightmare with their first World Series win in 86 years, the Sox are still trying to separate themselves from the Yankees by doing almost exactly what the Yankees do. Exhibit A: They've slapped down a Yankees-beating ton of money (according to SI.com's Jon Heyman) for the simple right to try to negotiate with Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Whatever happens with Matsuzaka -- whether the 26-year-old right-hander eventually signs with a Major League team or not, whether the whole exercise was just done to keep the Yankees away -- the Sox have once again opened the Hot Stove season with a classic shot across the bow, showing everyone in baseball that they plan to be as hyper-aggressive this winter as their down-the-megalopolis neighbors.

Theo Epstein, Boston's by-now veteran general manager, needs starting pitching, bullpen help, a shortstop, a second baseman and some decent players in the outfield, maybe especially in right field. The team is said to be interested in outfielder J.D. Drew and infielder Julio Lugo, former Dodgers whom will command big salaries in 2007. (Drew's could be more than $12 million a year.) The Sox also have at least made initial inquiries into two other high-priced free-agent starters, Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt.

The Sox, clearly, have some work to do. And they plan on getting to it. Starting now.

"We're taking the big-picture approach," Epstein said last month. "We'll always have enough resources to do that."

By big picture, Epstein means using everything -- huge free-agent signings, small free-agent signings, blockbuster trades and trades that nobody cares about, the farm system, the Japanese league, lefties found wandering around in the Big Dig, whatever -- at his disposal. It's a tack he's taken every offseason, making his share of good moves and bad ones along the way. Kind of like the Yankees.

Remember '04? Epstein already had begun to rework the champion Sox by December of that year, re-signing catcher Jason Varitek, signing free-agent shortstop Edgar Renteria to a four-year-deal, landing three free-agent starting pitchers (Wade Miller, Matt Clement and David Wells) and trading the man with the most famous stolen base in Red Sox history, outfielder Dave Roberts.

Some of those moves worked. Wells, for example, won 15 games in '05. But many more didn't. Renteria was a flop in Boston and was traded the next offseason. Miller started only 16 games in '05. Clement has battled with injuries. So after the Sox were dumped in a first-round sweep by the White Sox in '05, Epstein again went to work.

He traded some up-and-comers (shortstop Hanley Ramirez, righty Anibal Sanchez and others) to the Marlins for pitchers Josh Beckett and Guillermo Mota and third baseman Mike Lowell. He traded for a center fielder, Coco Crisp, after free agent Johnny Damon became too expensive and defected to the Yankees. He traded starter Bronson Arroyo for outfielder Wily Mo Pena.

Again, some things worked out. Beckett won 16 games and threw 200 innings for the first time in his career, though his ERA ballooned over 5.00. But, again, many of the Sox's offseason moves backfired.