Hooray for Dice-K

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Gets minor league deal.

[Benjamin Grimm]

From whom? The Mets?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Yeah, Mets. Odd. Judging from his track record, I would've guessed he'd walk.

Then walk. Then walk some more.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm glad. I think he does have some remaining upside, and with all the young pitchers the Mets have on innings limits, they'll need a couple of veterans to chew up some innings, especially if they want Wheeler, Syndergaard, and Mejia to pitch until late in the season. Matsuzaka and Lannan can help in that area.

[Lefty Specialist]

After his stunningly bad couple of starts, didn't pitch that badly. Nothing to lose on a minor league deal except the spring training meal allowance.

[Edgy MD]

I'm jazzed about this. It potentially continues our history of getting useful functionality out of Japanese starters in the years after their bignaiminess/bigbucksiness. Nomo, Ishii, Daisuke... let somebody else pay full freight.

See you circa 2017-2018, Yu Darvish.

Plus, you know this is stop-the-presses business for that reporter from whatever that New York pan-Asian newspaper is.

[Frayed Knot]

I wouldn't mind seeing him and Lannan sharing some sort of 6th starter/long-reliever kind of role.

[ashie62]

Yeah!

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: I wouldn't mind seeing him and Lannan sharing some sort of 6th starter/long-reliever kind of role.

Good insurance in case the kids aren't ready to step up to the opportunity. And insurance is something you hope you never have to use.

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Surprised he'd stick around for a minor-league deal at minimal bucks. He could probably do a lot better if he went back to Japan.

[Edgy MD]

I don't know that it'll be for minimal bucks if he makes the bigs, but I guess something gravitating toward it, yeah.

He's certainly not the first guy to keep struggling on the fringes of the big leagues rather than return to Japan where success may come easier, and a big contract up front may come easier as well. I wonder if the motivation has been discussed at length, perhaps by Robert Whiting. I imagine they retain high profile status back in Japan, with some of their enriching endorsements still coming through.

[ashie62]

The problem is when they go back to Japan they become lost in translation.

[Lefty Specialist]

Everyone would call him 'bishop'.