FREE AGENCY MAYHEM

March 1, 2014: Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture – The chase for free agents began prior to the Winter Meetings, but talks in the Kawaguchi camp heated up only afterward.  With the signing of backup catcher Katsunan Sakei and their haul of gaijin corner outfielders in hand, the team focused hard on filling the shortstop position and working with starting pitchers.

Given the chronological element of this process, we’ll make our report time-based, starting in December and breaking the discussion down by position of need.  Future segments will progress, likewise, in proper time.

The team’s needs, to put it nicely, are numerous.  After the weeks and months that have gone into planning the future of the organization, however, the situation as far as Kawaguchi fans need to be concerned is fairly simple.  The organization has something over $34M to spend, and GM Ron Collins has set out to spend it.

DECEMBER

Shortstop: The team wants big-ticket free agent Rikiya Taketo.  The veteran has been in the U.S. for the past five seasons and won’t come cheaply.  He’s asking $15M for four seasons, and at 34-years-old, that’s a pretty hefty sum.  He’s also played mostly third base in the recent past, but the team’s scouts are convinced he can still be a plus defender at shortstop.  Early offers showed Taketo was willing to talk, so Collins dialed his agent on the plane trip back to Saitama Prefecture and said the team was willing to spend $7M of Kawaguchi’s cash on his client, but would do so for only two years.  He knows it’s a lowball offer against Taketo’s stated expectations, but it’s good, earnest money and should keep him on the line for another cycle.  Collins wants to get a sense of what competition he has out there, and there’s always the outside chance Taketo may just take it and run.  In the meantime, the team also dispenses a $350K offer to Plan B – Masahiro Ito.  At 26, Ito has proven he’ll never hit LRS pitching, but his glove is something that brings pitchers to tears of glory.  “Worst case,” Collins says, “we get them both and Ito can be a Gurabukin utility guy.”

Starting Pitcher:  After the Rivera deal, the team desperately needs someone on the mound.  Currently, the Transmitters expect Orlando Valadez and Kantero Sakei to hold down two spots in the rotation.  There is some chance that minor league star Hisamitsu Osawa could come back from Winter Ball ready to pitch.  If pressed, they could use lemochi Kitamura or Yosuke Ito in the rotation, though they would prefer not to be pressed.

They focus on injured veterans Toyoharu Yamaguchi and Yeijiro Matsumoto, figuring both should come with a discount – Yamaguchi because he’s on the downside of the aging curve, and Matsumota because he’s going to spend the first half of the season on the DL with torn ligaments in his elbow.  Yamaguchi’s agent, however, wants something astronomical, like $12M per year for a billion years.  Collins, who has been dangling mid-range multi-year numbers, offers $8M for one season just to see where it will go.  In Matsumoto’s case, the team’s initial inquiries on a dirt-cheap contract were immediately rebuffed, so they craft a three-year offering that starts at $800K in year one and ends at $1.7M in year three, essentially guaranteeing to pay him for service time rendered over three seasons.

Collins has also been working Seiichi Matsubara.  Matsubara is 31 years old and asking $6M a year.  Kawaguchi wants him, but the bean counters are hoping to coax a contract from him that’s considerably cheaper.  Kawaguchi offers something between $2M and $3M.

Finally, the team looks at middle-of-the road starter Yasukazu Takahashi (57-48 lifetime) and offers him what he wants, plus a small bonus, which works out to $7.4M spread over two years.  Initial discussions are positive, though strange things will begin to happen in Takahashi’s case soon enough.

The feeling is that if the team hits on just two of these offers, all will be well.  If they manage three, things will be rosy.

Relief Pitcher:  The team has been working hard on both Takanori Takano and closer Takeji Nakayama.  Takano has been sitting on a two-year offer worth $4.4M each season for some time – which makes Collins uncomfortable.  “Free agency is like NASCAR racing.  You actually want to be sitting second as you approach the flag.”

Discussions with Nakayama feel better, though.  Kawaguchi manager Biao Ci wants another closer because he thinks it would allow the use of Shunsen Ueda over more innings.  Prior to the Winter Meetings, the team offered Nakayama the four years he wanted at a cool sum of $3.5M each.  His agent suggested that he would prefer $4.3M for two years in order to beat Lupin’s offer.  The team debates this, and Collins decides to go all in on the deal.  He offers a three-year, $14.5M contract that blows the demand out of the water.

Fairly assured of success, they turn to target #3: global veteran Tamasaburo Akiyama.  Collins courted Akiyama at the end of last season but couldn’t settle on a price.  Now it’s looking like that price might be $500K.

Center Field: The squad was originally targeting corner outfielders Jun Saikawa and Tabito Matsushima, but with the addition of Gómez and Cuevas, plans for Matsushima are dumped altogether.  The scouting squad thinks Saikawa – who played for Shin Seiki for three seasons before departing for the greener pastures of American baseball – can manage in center field, and the stats guys like his OBP.  In addition, Saikawa broke his hip in early 2012 and has struggled to get healthy.  Usually, the team would expect a bit of a discount due to that injury.  The problem is that Saikawa’s agent has been firm on his client’s need for $11M over four seasons, and Collins doesn’t have that kind of cash to throw around.  He’s sitting on a $5M, two-season offer right now and decides to let it ride and see if the action around Saikawa will result in a lower price in the future.

JANUARY 2 – EARLY RESULTS COME IN

Free agency is strange, of course, and best-laid plans go awry.  In Kawaguchi’s case, here’s what happens:

Shortstop: Plan B works just fine, as Masahiro Ito agrees to a $350K, 1-year deal.  This sets the Internet world abuzz, as the fans were expecting more.  They don’t know Rikiya Taketo’s agent has told Collins that his client is willing to play in Kawaguchi, but that the $7M offer is really just ante money.  It’s clear that Ci is excited.  “We need a bat like Taketo’s,” he says, barely holding to his normal reserved countenance, “and his glove is still exciting.”

After much discussion at Transmitter Central, Collins writes a number on the board.  That number is $12M for two years, with the second year being a mutual option.  Everyone thinks this is a marvelous number and should be more than enough to net a 36-year-old infielder who has averaged about $6M a year in the past.  They make the call to Taketo’s agent as a team.  When it’s done, everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

Starting Pitcher:  “This is enough to give a guy a complex,” Collins says after hearing the news that both Toyoharu Yamaguchi and Seiichi Matsubara decide to retire rather than take 1-year deals.  This later becomes a trend, as reliever Tamasaburo Akiyama does the same.  Matsubara’s case is odd, as the pitcher is only 31 years old.  Yamaguchi’s decision is, perhaps, noble in that he had eight million reasons to stay.

Beyond this, the team is stunned to hear that Yeijiro Matsumoto signed a 2-year deal with Kure at $1M/per.  This shocks the gang because they see the overall value of the offer they had on the table was considerably better, and because Matsumoto’s agent never gave them a chance to up the offer.  “He must have had a car payment due,” one scout quips.  Everyone laughs, but it’s not a good laugh, because…

The final news of the moment is that Yasukazu Takahashi is playing games with the negotiation.  The Transmitters met his demand, but now he has decided he wanted $200K/year more.  Worse, the Naha Shisa have entered the game and the price tag has skyrocketed to $5.7M/year.

These four pieces of news means the team has essentially been shutout on a position of great need.  The whole thing sours the mood around the entire office.  News of Takahashi’s demand makes the group feel somehow used and unclean.  “It’s more than we planned, but I suggest we spend it,” says scouting director Shigematsu Akiyama.  Collins agrees.  Gritting his teeth to behave, he calls Takahashi’s agent and says, “$5.705M for two years.”

The team also dials up Kosaku Sakamoto and offers $5M for two years.  Sakamoto has been a bullpen ace for the past few seasons, but the team thinks he could reprise his previous starting role.  The concern here is that he’s asking for $9.4M for those two seasons.  Several other names appear on the whiteboards of Transmitter Central, the most interesting of which is Mitsuharu Takano, to whom the team offers $1M a year for three years – again, considerably lower than the $9.9M package being asked for.

The only good news in the area of the starting rotation is the signing of journeyman starter Atsumori Ishikawa to a cheap 1-year contract.  Ishikawa is a LRS veteran who has proven he’ll eat innings and provide somewhat serviceable numbers.  At 32, the team thinks he still has something left in the tank and can provide some value to this beleaguered staff.  He does not thrill the team’s most ardent followers, however, and the news shakes the foundation of the team’s Internet mojo.

It’s clear that the management team is in control of their decisions, but not all is going particularly well.

Relief Pitcher:  If there’s good news, it’s that Takanori Takano signs for $8.8M over two seasons.  This gives the team an established bullpen presence who has proven to be able to throw big innings.  Unfortunately, Takeji Nakayama signs with Lupin.  It’s clear Collins does not like losing players in any situation, but this one seems particularly irksome.  “That’s just annoying,” he says to blow off steam.  Nakayama turned down Kawaguchi’s $14.5M, three-year offer to take the Cliff Hanger’s $7.6M, two-year offering.  “It’s not like he went to Edo or Shin Seiki,” another team member said.  “It’s Lupin.  They sucked as much as we did last year.”

With news of Akiyama’s retirement, this leaves the team to play catch-up again.  This means they fall back to Plan C.  The phone lines burn for several hours as Collins opens negotiations with agents of another round of players.

Collins also reaches out to the Ghosts to inquire about the availability of Yataro Kawaguchi.  Beyond the fact that his name is a natural affinity for the Transmitters, the scouting team thinks he will be a solid right-hander in the bullpen and is worth a prospect or draft pick.  Collins offers, then waits.

Center Field: The silver lining of all these difficulties is that the team can now leverage more cash into looking at the center field problem.  This means returning to Jun Saikawa.  Saikawa’s agent is still asking for a ghastly sum over four seasons, but Saikawa is not known for being particularly patient and Collins thinks a hint of desperation might be settling in.  He offers a single year at $7.5M.  It’s a win-win deal from the management team’s point of view.  If Saikawa bites, they can put Shohei Araki back in AAA for a year to learn the defensive role.  If not, they can stay the course.

SUMMARY OF STATUS

The team enters the last half of January with some sense of trepidation.  They have at least addressed the shortstop situation to a degree and they’ve gotten maybe halfway to their goals in the bullpen, but the starting pitching situation is growing toward dire.  It seems clear that the Transmitter management team feels they need to hit a home run with shortstop Taketo and another bullpen member fairly soon.