Maeda would continue Dodgers' Japanese pitching tradition by Eric Stephen | True Blue LA — 47 minutes ago The Dodgers' pending deal with pitcher Kenta Maeda gives them another in a growing legacy of Japanese-born pitchers for the franchise. Again, it is important to note that the Dodgers' deal with Maeda isn't yet finalized, something that could take days to complete per Jeff Passan of Yahoo. We don't even know the terms of the deal, though it is expected to be at least five years (per Joel Sherman of New York Post) and possibly as long as eight years (per Christopher Meola). But should the contract with Maeda come to fruition, he would be the eighth Japanese-born player in Dodgers history. Two were position players, including new Dodgers manager Dave Roberts (his mother is Japanese, and he was born in Okinawa) and infielder Norihiro Nakamura. Pitching is where the Dodgers have made their mark, with starters Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii and Hiroki Kuroda, and relievers Takashi Saito and Masao Kida. Japanese-born pitchers have won 761 major league games, with 170 wins coming as Dodgers. The Red Sox are next-best, with 115 victories from Japanese pitchers. The Dodgers also have accounted for 19.4 percent of all major league innings pitched by Japanese-born pitchers, with 2,595⅔ of 13,323⅓ innings through 2015 coming with Los Angeles. The Dodgers also agreed to a three-year deal with Japanese pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma in December, only to see that fall apart because of a reported failed physical. Iwakuma ended up returning to Seattle on a one-year contract plus incentives, with a guarantee ($12 million) less than a third of the Dodgers' deal ($45 million). Maeda, heading into his age-28 season, is seven years younger than Iwakuma, and with no recent history of arm trouble. Maeda threw 206⅓ innings in 2015, the fourth time in the last six years he topped 200 innings in the Japanese Central League, and has averaged exactly 200 innings per season the last seven years. It was Nomo who opened the floodgates for Japanese players to join the majors over the last two decades. When he signed with the Dodgers in 1995, he was just the second Japanese-born player to appear in the majors, and he made an immediate impact. Nomo in his first season set a Dodgers' franchise record with 50 strikeouts over a four-start stretch, and set a franchise rookie record with 236 strikeouts, which led the National League. He made the All-Star team as the starting pitcher, won Rookie of the Year, then followed that up in 1996 with the unthinkable, a no-hitter at Coors Field. In two stints with the Dodgers (1995-98, 2002-04), Nomo had a 3.74 ERA, a 104 ERA+ in 191 starts, with 1,200 strikeouts in 1,217⅓ innings. In parts of 12 major league seasons, Nomo won 123 games and pitched 1,976⅓ innings, both tops among Japanese-born pitchers. Ishii was next, signing with the Dodgers in 2002. The left-hander won his first six starts with Los Angeles, and after 12 major league starts was 10-1 with a 3.15 ERA. But problems with control would limit his effectiveness throughout his four years in MLB. He led the majors with 106 walks in 154 innings in 2002, and walked 305 in his three years with the Dodgers (a 14.5-percent walk rate), going 36-25 with a 4.30 ERA, a 90 ERA+ with the Dodgers. Kida pitched mostly in relief in his five major league seasons, which began in 1999 with Detroit. After not pitching in the majors in 2001-02, Kida pitched in a total of six games for the Dodgers in 2003-04, including two starts, putting up a 2.16 ERA in 16⅔ innings, a 196 ERA+, with 13 strikeouts and four walks. Saito was a relatively unheralded addition to the 2006 Dodgers, signed to a minor league deal. The 36-year-old was ultimately put in the unenviable position of having to follow Eric Gagne as Dodgers closer (with a brief "Ghame Over" tryst with Yhency Brazoban in between in 2005 when Gagne was hurt), but Saito came through with flying colors. In three years with the Dodgers, Saito saved 81 games and put up a 1.95 ERA and 2.14 FIP, with 245 strikeouts in 189⅔ innings, making the National League All-Star team in 2007. In the 132-year history of the franchise, among all pitchers with at least 100 games in relief, Saito leads the Dodgers in ERA (1.95) and ERA+ (227), and his FIP (2.14) is second only to current closer Kenley Jansen. The Dodgers signed Kuroda to a three-year contract before the 2008 season, and he proved to be a durable rock in the rotation in his four years in Los Angeles. He put up a 3.45 ERA, a 113 ERA+ in 115 games, including 114 starts with the Dodgers, with 523 strikeouts and 135 unintentional walks in 699 innings. Thanks to poor run support, Kuroda was 41-46 with the Dodgers. He pitched three more seasons in the majors with the Yankees, and despite not joining the majors until turning 33 Kuroda averaged 30 starts, 188 innings and 141 strikeouts in his seven MLB seasons. He ranks second to Nomo among major league starters born in Japan in wins (79), starts (211) and innings (1,319). Maeda in 2015 won the Eiji Sawamura Award, given annually to the top starting pitcher in Japan. It was the second Sawamura Award for Maeda, along with 2010. Nomo won the award in 1990, as did Rangers starter Yu Darvish in 2007 and Iwakuma in 2008. Other two-time winners currently in the majors are Masahiro Tanaka (2011, 2013) with the Yankees and Koji Uehara (1999, 2002), now a reliever with the Red Sox.
This sentence immediately made me feel better about this signing (if completed). To my recollection Japanese pitchers make fewer starts and pitch fewer innings as a rule than MLB pitchers, so I had concerns about how deep in games and the season he would be able to go. You don't have to go back too far to remember the Texas signing where Darvish went down in his 3rd season and was out all of 2015. If this guy is averageing 200/season then that's a big plus in my book. If he made 29 starts with 206 1/3 innings then he got about 7 1/3 innings per start which ain't bad. Stretching him out to 32 or 33 starts maybe he can go 6 2/3 per game, ...I'll take it.
Christopher meola@DfineNrmLC @mlbtraderumors @MLBONFOX Kenta Maedas deal is for 8yrs 24 Million, + 10-12 million a yr in incentives. 3 million AAV. Creative deal for LA. --------------------- This is the guy who broke the story yesterday.
LOL, that is fucking amazing! That means if he does amazing he gets a max of $15M...WOW! That is fantastic. BRAVO FO!
This is how I have thought that all sports should handle their contracts. The MLBPA will not like this probably. Im sure its only happened because the player is Japanese and doesnt know how this could affect contracts in the future. I havent seen a deal like this before. He makes 3M a year guaranteed for 8 years. So if he sucks at least he will be making some money and at the same time not hurting our payroll. But if he plays to expectations he will probably make 120M for the life of his contract. Thats a nice deal for him im sure. And it still doesnt hurt our payroll. Lets see how high the thresholds are for the incentives. Thats the real key. I have a feeling that he gets most of the money just by fulfilling our expectations. At that price he is not a huge bargain, but still a bargain... like Kazmir. Hopefully he doesnt suck with his weak arm.
yeah almost thinking were not getting the entire story especially since several sources yesterday were saying it was a complex contract at the very least, you'd have to think the incentive goals will be pretty reachable
If that report is true, then wow what a team friendly deal Friedman just pulled off. So under that scenario the max he could earn is $15M per season, which would be pretty reasonable for Maeda, but that would be best case scenario for him and the team meaning that he provided value to earn that money. Now the incentives are probably pretty easily obtainable but the more he earns means the more value he provided anyways. (Hell I was expecting at least $15M per season regardless so fuck it) Now the only scary part is the 8 years portion, but I figure with such an incentive laden contract that if he doesn't perform well or gets a major injury or whatever that they'll be able to dump him before those 8 seasons. If Maeda is a Dodgers in 2023, then he had a really good career the way I figure it.
I like this signing the Greg Maddux of Japan Kenta Maeda..... Not a flame thrower but relies on his breaking ball and location of his 90 MPH and up to 94 mph fastball.....:reading:
Some of those incentives are probably award based, such as 1 million for a Cy Young or $250k for All-Star selection, etc. But most are likely milestone in nature such as IP, starts made, etc. So IMO it's unlikely he maxes out his potential earnings in any one year, much less over the duration. This deal is interesting because most pitchers from the Japanese leagues don't sign huge deals anyway (Tanaka was the most at $155M), they are just expensive because of the posting fee. I think as a group most of them get undervalued initial contracts until they prove themselves in the MLB, and then they collect more equitable deals. This deal is like most of those in that the guarrantee is less than market value for a starter with experiance but it also gives him the opportunity to have earnings on par with his peers. I think this is a good deal for both sides. He gets guarranteed money with the opportunity to earn more and the Dodgers get a starter for a long term with minimal outlay.
Kenta Maeda will receive only $25MM guaranteed over eight years, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets. Obviously, the structure of the deal suggests the performance bonuses associated with it will be significant, since a $25MM guarantee is significantly less than Maeda was projected to receive, and eight years will take Maeda through his age-35 season, covering the entirety of his prime earning years. What is clear, as Sherman notes, is that with a contract of such a long duration and such a small guarantee, Maeda is betting that he’ll be successful in the big leagues. It also seems fairly likely that many of the incentives associated with the contract will not be overly difficult to reach, although that’s just speculation at this point. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/01/dodgers-to-sign-kenta-maeda.html
More on Maeda, the posting system and release fee details by Eric Stephen | True Blue LA — 8 hours ago LOS ANGELES -- While we wait for the Dodgers to complete their deal for Kenta Maeda, there are several unknown variables. But there are some things we do know with about six days remaining for the Japanese right-handed pitcher to finalize his contract. For one thing, unlike the relatively open-ended negotiations with free agent Hisashi Iwakuma that fizzled 11 days after a reported agreement in principle, Maeda has a hard deadline. Per the terms of the revised posting agreement that Major League Baseball reached with Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in December 2013, the posting period lasts 30 days beginning with the day after the player was posted. In Maeda's case, he has until Friday, Jan. 8 at 2 p.m. PT to finalize a contract with a major league team, per Jon Morosi of Fox Sports. Unlike MLB's agreement with the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), which has one team winning bidding rights for an exclusive 30-day negotiating window, the Japanese posting system allows any team to negotiate with the player within the 30-day period as long as they are willing to pay the release fee should they strike a deal. The Japanese team — the Hiroshima Carp, in Maeda's case — sets the release fee prior to posting, with a maximum of $20 million, which is the fee for Maeda. If Maeda is unable to finalize a contract by his Friday deadline, including completed physical, Hiroshima gets no release fee, then he goes back to Japan and he can't be posted again until the next posting period, which runs annually from Nov. 1 to Feb. 1. But if Maeda does reach a deal with an MLB team, as is expected, the $20 million fee would be due in installments. The installment schedule depends on the size of the fee, but at the maximum of $20 million the schedule would likely be identical to the schedule laid out for the Yankees to pay Rakuten for signing Masahiro Tanaka before the 2014 season, reported by Kiley McDaniel, then of Scout.com. Per the agreement between MLB and NPB, any release fee under $10 million is due in two equal installments — one in 14 days and one in 12 months. For fees $10 million and larger, like Maeda's $20 million fee, the installments are as follows: 50 percent ($10 million) due within 14 days of the contract getting finalized 17 percent ($3.4 million) due within six months of the completion of the contract 17 percent ($3.4 million) due within 12 months of the completion of the contract 16 percent ($3.2 million) due within 18 months of the completion of the contract In other words, should the Dodgers sign Maeda this coming week, they would have to pay Hiroshima $13.4 million in 2016, and the remaining $6.6 million in 2017. The release fee does not count against the competitive balance tax. Now we just sit back and wait for the potentially bizarre — eight years, only $25 million guaranteed per Joel Sherman of the New York Post — contract details and for the deal to be finalized. The clock is ticking.
Under headline of I didn't know that about Maeda. He won the equivalent of 3 gold gloves in Japan in 8 seasons. He also had a better record and ERA than Hiroki Kuroda did in Japan.
Maeda’s contract has $25 million guarantee by Matthew Moreno | Dodger Blue — 56 minutes ago One day after announcing the signing of Scott Kazmir to a three-year, $48 million contract, the Los Angeles Dodgers reportedly reached an agreement with Japanese right-hander Kenta Maeda. The Hiroshima Carp posted Maeda for the maximum $20 million fee in early December and Los Angeles was a natural fit given their need for starting pitching. However, the club has yet to make Maeda’s deal official, which has raised some concern given the Dodgers’ agreement with Hisashi Iwakuma came undone after a failed physical. Whereas the three-year, $45 million contract with Iwakuma was never finalized due to health concerns, the delay with Maeda appears to be related to the complex nature of his contract that includes performance bonuses. According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Maeda will receive a guarantee of $25 million over eight years: An eight-year contract represents the longest handed out under the Guggenheim ownership group since Clayton Kershaw signed a seven-year, $180 million extension in January 2014. Moreover, Maeda’s $25 million guarantee would be the third-richest contract given to a player by Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. It trails only Brandon McCarthy’s four-year, $48 million deal signed last December and Kazmir’s contract this offseason. Maeda, who will turn 28 years old on April 11, went Maeda, went 15-8 with a 2.09 ERA and 1.01 WHIP last season. He won the Sawamura Award, which is the Japanese equivalent to Major League Baseball’s Cy Young, for the second time in his career. In eight seasons with the Carp, Maeda was 97-67 with a 2.39 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and averaged 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings.
Trying to wait for this deal to become official before I get excited, even if it turns out to be that he earns $120M, then great, he pitched really well.
