Red Sox very unlikely to land Sabathia

ESPN.com's Buster Olney reported on Friday that the Red Sox "are meeting with C.C. Sabathia sometime in the next few days". However, Red Sox followers shouldn't read much into that, if anything.

Sure, the Red Sox could meet with Sabathia just for due diligence purposes. But the chances that Boston will make a full-court press on Sabathia, the star left-hander? Remote at best. The reason? It would fly in the face of the organizational philosophy that has been in place ever since Theo Epstein has been general manager.

Epstein does not believe in handing out long-term, mammoth contracts to pitchers, which Sabathia is sure to get after receiving a reported six-year, $140 million offer from the Yankees recently. The only starting pitcher Epstein has ever made more than a four-year commitment to is Daisuke Matsuzaka, and the righty was 26 years old at the time. Sabathia is 28.

"There are free agent pitchers we're interested in, some are more realistic targets than others," Epstein said Thursday, speaking in broad terms. "We've worked long and hard trying to build an organization that's not dependent on big free agent pitching signings. It's not typically a market that we enjoy diving into. That said, there will be pitchers signed to free agent deals who are worth every penny and more and dominate for years to come and we're interested in a lot of those pitchers but we have an approach and will probably stick with it."

-- Ian Browne