This may be baseball’s perfect storm. The Boston Red Sox have the rights to negotiate with pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka of the Japan Pacific League’s Seibu Lions. The Sox have paid some $51 million to the Lions just for the right to talk with the pitcher.

Matsuzaka has the toughest agent in the business in Scott Boras. Watch the dollars fly. They want a four-year deal for $12 million-$15 million per year. They will get it.

This is Matsuzaka. When he announced his decision to join major league baseball, he said, “I feel very relieved today. I’ve wanted to go to the major leagues for a long time and am happy this day has finally come.”

He is a 6-foot righthander who weighs about 190. He has pitched in the Japanese pros for eight years. He is nasty.

His fastball is consistently 95 mph plus. He throws two sliders, a curve, a forkball, and the soon-to-be-famous gyro ball.

This is a pitch that looks like a screwball. It breaks away from the righthanded batter and in to the left. He has great command of the changeup, which may be his best pitch.

Over the last four years with the Lions, starting in 2003:

IP ERA SO

194 2.83 215

146 2.90 127

215 2.30 226

186 2.13 200

He is 108-60 in his pro career with a 2.95 ERA. He missed most of 2002 with an elbow injury.

The Pacific League runs a 136-game schedule, so the pitchers work once a week. That’s why the innings pitched numbers are low. Stamina over the major league season is an issue.

He was the MVP of the World Baseball Classic this spring, going 3-0 with a 1.38 ERA and beating Cuba in the final.

Matsuzaka also shut out a very good Cuba team for eight innings in the 2004 Olympics.

He won the Sawamura Award (the Japanese Cy Young) once, led the league in wins three times and in strikeouts four times.

The Sox have 30 days to get a deal done or the money is returned to them from the Lions and someone else tries to do the deal, or the time to negotiate is extended.

The Sox want to market him and the Red Sox name in Japan. That could be worth a lot of money to the Sox. The Japanese are even more fanatical about baseball than fans here.

For Boras and Matsuzaka, this is the perfect storm. He is the best pitcher on the market. The Sox can’t let the Yankees get him. The Sox need him in the rotation. The Sox can make millions off his name in Japan.

Show me the money.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.