Are The Red Sox Trying To Bait The Yankees?

THERE IS NO OFF-SEASON FOR THIS RIVALRY!

In the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes, the Boston Red Sox seem to be an unlikely fit. The reason is, there is no where for the big first baseman to play. He can't DH because Big Papi is still 'the man' in Boston and he can't play first base because Kevin Youkilis is clearly not going anywhere.

Ah, why don't the Sox move Youk to 3rd and have Teixeira at 1st. Well, Mike Lowell is absolutely critical to the Red Sox playoff success and Theo 'the Genius' Epstein would be very uncomfortable moving him to a bench roll.

That leaves 2 possibilities. First, the Red Sox could trade Ortiz (a move that would be questioned royally in New England - although, I think Ortiz is injury prone and not the player he was with Manny.) Or, they could be trying to raise the price for their chief rivals in the AL - the Angels and most importantly the Yankees.

The Yankees are the team that would be willing to pay all the money in the world for a player of interest, and Nick Swisher is not the quality of player that would prevent the Yankees from pursuing Teixeira.

The Yankees have irrational ownership - at least they did when George was in charge and I will maintain that opinion until I find evidence to the contrary - and the brilliant Red Sox front office may have information that leads them to believe the Yankees are going to try and sneak in to snatch Teixeira.

Perhaps this move has even more significant if the Yankees - who may want to limit their spending (in relative terms) and will keep the price down on one of the pitchers the Red Sox are after if they decide to buy Teixeira.

Yaros