Saturday, December 29, 2012

Matsui Retires, Baseball Mostly Quiet

Not much has gone on this week, but the biggest news is that former Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui has decided to retire.  Matsui was one of the great outfielders from the last decade, a great teammate by all accounts, and one of the guys you wanted up to bat in a tough spot.  He is now retiring from baseball and we at the RJG wish him the best in his post-baseball endeavors.

In other news, the Yankees signed former Braves outfielder Matt Diaz to a minor league contract.  The deal is worth $1.2 million guaranteed if he makes the big league club and $800,000 in incentives.  The Yankees hope that Diaz will balance out their lefty-leaning outfielder.  My guess is that Diaz will make it on the team to fill the role that Andruw Jones had last season.

In other baseball news, A.J. Pierzynski signed a one year $7.5 million contract with the Rangers.  This is the type of contract that the Yankees should be all over, and I have to think that the fact that they let this one year deal go, indicates that they are committed to developing Austin Romine as their everyday catcher.

3 comments:

Rich Mahogany said...

I'd say Matsui was one of those Yankees that every Yankee fan likes. Good player for a long time and ended his time with the Yankees on the best possible note. Also, this happened.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/hideki-matsui-retires-remembering-introduced-wife-world-175233543--mlb.html

The Yankees might have passed on Pierzynski because a Pierzynski/Youkilis combination would have been just too obnoxious. This isn't the South Side.

Fernando Alejandro said...

Haha, though if I had to pick I think I'd go for Pierznski at $7.5 million over Youkilis at $13 million.

Happy new years by the way!

Rich Mahogany said...

I agree. I thought the Yankees ignored FA catchers because they were confident about Romine, but Cashman said he expects Romine will be in AAA. So the starting catcher will be Cervelli, who wasn't good enough to back up Martin and hit .225 in AAA. It doesn't make sense.

Happy New Year to RJG!