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Saturday, July 23, 2011
In the end, Cashman sounded mystified by Igawa.
“It’s the most curious case I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “And frustrating. The lesson is to be very careful with Japanese pitchers. I give him credit for living a dream and for fighting the fight. It can’t be easy. It has to bother him, too.”
Cashman added, “He does things his own way.”
Like commuting to and from Manhattan.
“Yeah, he’s passed me on the drive down to Trenton,” Cashman said. “He drives faster than his fastball.”
I found this fascinating. I had no idea that Igawa was still playing in this country.
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1. GregD Posted: July 23, 2011 at 04:21 PM (#3883829)So, in effect, calling him up to the majors would cost the team as well? Then it makes sense why the Yankees don't give really give him a shot if they think his ceiling is second or third lefty in the pen.
FTR, I drive faster than anybodys fastball.
http://riveraveblues.com/2010/07/why-kei-igawa-is-still-a-scranton-yankee-32818/
I believe that actually he technically is on the 40 man roster. It just becomes a 40+ man roster when guys hit the 60 day DL. Once he comes off the DL he is immediately added to the 40 man and if they want him off would have to go through the normal procedures to do so.
Could he even do that? I've got to think the Players' Association would strongly object. It's kind of too bad that there's such an adversarial relationship between labor and ownership in MLB, because this is the kind of situation where some kind of compromise would be best for everyone.
Who cares? Why should Kei take a bullet for the union? The union can't actually stop Kei from tearing up his own contract.
Compared to all the other major sports, the MLB and MLBPA's relationship is anything but adversarial.
Perhaps because they were out of options, and they could only DFA them, which leaves them on the hook for salary? Just guessing.
We are calling it purgatory. My guess, again, is that he is well-paid enough that it is an unusually comfortable purgatory.
Once a player has a certain amount of MLB service time (something like 3-4 years, I think), you can't send him down voluntarily - he can refuse the assignment, become a free agent, and still get paid.
I have no idea what Kei wants or how he views his current situation. I am merely stating my opinion on an "if".
Correct, he can "retire" any time he wants, releasing the Yankees from the contract.
He could then go play in Japan, or try to catch on somewhere else next year. The Yankees certainly wouldn't object to his "un-retirement" if he was off their books.
Can't they?
No. He can retire.
This is an excellent point, and very revealing of his motivation. Clearly Kei doesn't want to take the risk of losing the remainder of his current contract just to be able to play MLB baseball or for the Japanese team of his choice.
If I were his agent, I'd suggest a buyout to the Yankees so that they save money after luxury tax. If they get hit for a 40% surcharge on the buyout, you would think that anything below 70% would be an interesting number to them.
From the sound of the article, I'd hazard that Igawa's emulating Nomo, who was always willing to play in the minors if it meant a shot at a Major League team, and never returned to NPB once he left. Nomo's stoicism was lauded quite a bit over here when he retired.
Snapper, as you note, the potential problem with "retiring" in the typical case is that a player who doesn't like his current deal or situation can't simply "retire" and get a do-over. Although in this case, as you say, I doubt the Yankees would object.
Something Other is correct as well: According to Cot's, Igawa's deal is up after this year. The Yankees "only" paid $20 million over four years to him -- but they paid another $26 million for the right to negotiate for him. Just brutal. Where did they go wrong in their scouting of him? Was Cashman on board with this? Was their decision to sign him reasonable? I don't recall people calling them idiots at the time, although perhaps people were deferring to their scouting of him.
What's odd is that he's pitched ok in the minors, from the looks of things; one might think the Yankees would call him up either to try him out again as a 5th starter or just to pitch as the last man out of the pen, even if it's just as a LOOGY. It's not like the Yankees are awash with pitching. Although just eyeballing his major and minor league numbers, the home run ball seems like it's a problem.
None of that has anything to do with the fact that he could ask the Yankees to tear up his contract.
If he wanted to.
The San Diego interest was way back in 2007, and apparently there was some reluctance to give up on the Yanks investment that quickly. It's not like the Yankees have turned down any offers lately, and what's the problem with the trades to Japan? Igawa didn't suggest that there was any concern about the teams involved, just that he preferred (beats me why) to pitch in the United States. He's only 32, so someone will probably give him a shot next season, although almost certainly that will be in Japan if he wants anything more than a make-good contract.
Fine.
So, what is your point?
Why don't you just call it for what it likely is: He doesn't want to give up the money. Now, I don't blame him in the slightest for that -- I'd do the same thing myself -- but there's no sense cloaking this in "honor." (It's not dishonorable either.)
Both he and the Yankees are acting in their own best interests. That is entirely normal.
Sets a good example for the bushies... don't f with ownership.
I was just thinking this as well. If they just build like two or three new ballparks, they might get one at which Kei could pitch.
I wonder how often he's been to NYS?
In addition to what was already said about veterans being able to refuse minor league assignments, you have to clear waivers to be outrighted to the minors. The Yankees got to take Igawa off their 40-man roster because the other 29 teams passed on taking his contract off their hands.
Given that Igawa's put up respectable numbers in AAA, and may well think of himself as a winning pitcher with good enough peripherals, why wouldn't he think of himself as a guy who's being screwed by The Man--who has given him exactly NO innings in the majors in the last three years, not even as a lousy September callup--and as a pitcher whom the organization has unaccountably taken a dislike to and who would probably succeed, given any kind of fair shot to make it in the majors?
How many of you, if you'd been bad in a mere 72 innings three-four years back, got sent down and pitched 530 innings with an ERA of 3.83, a record of 36 and 25 and a 2.5 to 1 K/BB ratio at AAA, would think to yourself, "Gee, I really suck, I should give the money back. I can't blame the Yankees for giving me no chance at all to prove myself"? I'd guess the number is, oh, zero.
It's not up to him to make these decisions. The Yankees are paying him to play ball. If he's doing it at the best of his abilities then the Yankees must make the decision on the next steps.
It's like people aren't even following the discussion.
Why would anyone do this?
*That would be Mike Pagliarulo ... yes, that Mike Pagliarulo ...
For the virtuositiessness of it!!!!
No, you just simply don't understand the culture that Igawa comes from. Just because all your morality and values are based around $$$, doesn't make it so for everyone else. It's entirely possible tha Igawa sees nothing wrong with taking the Yankees money, while thinking that quitting, or being disloyal, would cause him shame.
Instead of trotting out some cliched stereotype about an entire culture based on values that come out of the middle ages, why not simply look at the specific case of Igawa. He signed with the Yankees expecting to pitch in the major leagues, settled in Manhattan, but instead is playing out in a (comparatively) dumpy minor league park. At the same time, his Yankee check is larger than he'd make anywhere else (including Japan). So he's in the position of working at a job he hates because he gets paid extremely well to do it.
That same corporation would have no problem cutting him lose, saving the money, and showing no responsibility to him or his future well being if it could. The Yankees are perfectly happy to play hardball over money when it suits them, and that isn't seen as any kind of ethical problem. They signed Igawa to a contract to play; while they hope he will play well, that isn't specified, and Igawa has lived up to the terms of the deal he signed. Just because he's not living up to the expectations of Yankee fans, that does not mean he's the one with the problem.
I think you missed the point of my comment. I was mocking the Japanese stereotype that was being trotted out.
I'm only about 95% confident that an arbitrator would make a similar ruling as happened in the NHL with Alexi Yashin. To be specific, that the contract is for X years of service and that you can't sit it out to get around the provisions of the contract.
He can retire and stay retired, but he can't say "I'm retired" and resume his career without working out something with the Yankees.
Now you might be correct in that the Yankees might be amenable to some form of deal. Particularly one that gives Igawa his freedom while freeing them from paying him.
And while the PA would probable suggest that he not do it, I doubt they can prevent any kind of deal of this nature.
The Yankees would have been laughing with glee if he had "retired" at any point, even if he signed with SD the next day. They've been paying him $4M per year to pitch in AAA.
At this point, the money left is trivial, but if he had done this 3 years ago, they would have thrown him a going away party, and given him a free plane ticket to SD.
You are, in fact, by equating a proposed desire to honor a contractual commitment with "doing his part for his corporation," which are two separate things.
What's this about? They just messing with him?
Anyway just an unfortunate situation. There are $20 million reasons not to feel sorry for Igawa but I still give him credit for handling his situation with class. It sounds like he has never caused a stink or even complained about it. Hopefully, he can catch on with a team with a big home ballpark next year and have a few of decent seasons in the majors.
Could be just routine roster management. When you bring a guy up from AAA, you generally need to replace him with a guy from AA. When you option a guy down to AAA, you generally need to clear a roster spot for him. Fortunately for Igawa, Trenton and Scranton aren't that far apart.
Quoting now from today's ESPN story:
I don't know a lot about NFL player contracts or how their CBA works (then again, neither do they right now), but presumably Palmer took a lot of money up front. If so, to their way of thinking, they've already paid him a bunch, and have his rights as long as they continue to pay him more.
They did with ARod, so I am afraid they can...ridiculous as that may be.
I was under the impression that ARod caved, rather than them being able to legally prohibit him from re-working his deal to sign with Boston.
IOW he still had to agree. And I don't think Igawa would feel the same need to cave that ARod did. Nor do I think the union would have as good an argument, since Igawa's goal would be to get out of AAA, not to get out of Texas; it would be kind of silly for the union to essentially try to force one of its members to remain in AAA.
Great topic, and Bill is a great writer. From there, 'terrific' is inevitable...
I can't throw 55.
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