Red Sox pitching staff

In doing my Reds' 25-man update earlier today, I made the comment that the Reds had a pretty good pitching staff. Take a look at this snippet from Peter Gammons at espn.com:

So as the Red Sox prepare to sign [John] Lester for five years and $30 million, they will pay [Josh] Beckett, Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield, John Smoltz, Brad Penny and Clay Buchholz less than $36 million this season. Compare that figure with what the New York Yankees are paying two of their pitchers. If you include two $3 million bonuses CC Sabathia will receive during the 2009 season, Sabathia and A.J. Burnett will make $36.5 million.

snip

Boston's bullpen of Jonathan Papelbon, Takashi Saito, Hideki Okajima, Justin Masterson, Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez will make approximately $11.7 million in 2009. And that doesn't include prospect Daniel Bard, who struck out the side Sunday against the American League-champion Tampa Bay Rays while throwing 100 mph. Meanwhile, Cincinnati Reds closer Francisco Cordero will make $12 million in 2009.

Major League Baseball has warned club businesspeople that attendance is expected to be down 17-20 percent in 2009, and that it could be worse, especially for franchises such as the San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies and others that could be seriously impacted by the recession.

So it's remarkable business for a big-market team to have one of the game's deepest pitching staffs at a cost of around $50 million with 2010 commitments to only Lester and Matsuzaka.

The seventh member of Boston's bullpen, Manny Delcarmen, will make less than $.5 mil. Not bad for probably the best staff in the bigs.