Rangers reliever Koji Uehara has invoked his no-trade clause to reject a trade to the Blue Jays, reports Richard Durrett of ESPN Dallas. The right-hander's limited no-trade clause allows him to block trades to six teams, and Toronto is one of those six.
Uehara, who turns 37 in April, posted a 2.35 ERA, an 11.8 K/9 rate, and a phenomenal 9.44 K/BB ratio in 65 games last season with the Orioles and Rangers. His $4MM option for 2012 vested in the process, but the Texas bullpen is starting to get crowded, particularly with righties like Uehara, Joe Nathan, Mike Adams, and Alexi Ogando. The Jays were one of several teams interested in acquiring him, but they have since signed Francisco Cordero.
This had to be yesterday, causing the Cordero signing
meh, 18 ip last year, 37 years old, didn’t make playoff roster, meh …
True enough eh. 37yrs old.
I know you got the 18IP from looking at just his Texas stats and not noticing that he pitched a bunch for Baltimore last year as well… but where did you come up with him not being on the playoff roster? Sure, he got lit up in the postseason, but he definitely pitched in both the ALDS and ALCS.
Koji has random streaks where he can get lit up because of his lack of velocity. Knowing Koji’s durability, I bet fatigue had something to do with it as well. As an Orioles fan, I would take Koji back in a heartbeat. If nothing else, he has a great personality.
Wonder what Toronto was offering Texas?
Mike Napoli last year
AA to Texas: Jeff Mathis > Mike Napoli
Someone doesn’t like Canadians
more like, someone wants to remain on a contender
He must not like beaver
Or Beaver Tails. They are amazing. A fresh Beaver Tail while skating on the Ottawa canal is the only good thing about winter.
Controversy!
This is not going to help the already tense Japanese-Canadian relations…
my guess is he probably wanted to win and texas gives him a better shot but who knows maybe he just doesn’t like the city.
Since when has Texas won anything?
Alcs
2 divisions and 2 pennants back to back years. Pretty good.
in 2012 whose more likely to win the world series. blue jays or rangers?
i’d imagine in vegas the odds would heavily favour texas
makes sense. the guy probably wanted to be a setup man or closer, and the jays have both those positions filled with Santos and Cordero. Unfortunate too cause he’s a damn good pitcher 🙁
I think the block happened earlier in the day, pre-Cordero deal, so I don’t think it affected him choosing to decline the trade..
It’s going to be funny to hear the chorus of boos next time he comes out of the bullpen for Texas at the skydome.
I doubt the 9,037 fans there will remember
lame.
how many games do you go to a year to complain about that joke?
oh but let me guess, parkings expensive and theres too much traffic – _ –
I went to 50 games last year, and I’ll openly complain about that joke – your average is about 6000 too low. Edit: actually, average attendance was 22,000, lowest of the year around 11,000…
cool, I have season seats..
and the average is misleading, there’s either 30,000 for weekend or big name teams, or 10,000 for anyone else, or mon-wed.
And that is ticket sales not how many people actually showed up to the game. If they only counted turnstiles it would be waaaaay lower than 22 000.
depends on the game, they also don’t include free tickets.
So tickets for players familys, opposition tickets and employee tickets all don’t count
Je me souviens. lol I will remember!
TO fans have good memories when it comes to players who didn’t want to play here, we still boo Mcgrady!
Raptors fan should boo the management for not trading Carter instead of Mcgrady!
lol
Meh. Not many teams would draw well after no playoff races in 19 years.
Weird
I’m pretty sure he rejected it before Cordero was signed
He already said he’d prefer to go back to the Orioles if that was a possibility. I say they contact them and see if they want him back. Im a Sox fan and I dont care what he does but he made that clear a few days ago
Yeah I wonder if the O’s inquire. They could put him at closer and move JJ back to the 8th. Kevin Gregg to AAA (I can dream, right?)
Please. Kevin Gregg for Koji.
Well, I can dream, can’t i?
There’s a difference between dreaming and ‘we have this nice padded room over here for you’
I remember reading that too… Nothing against the city of Baltimore or the Orioles for that matter – I’m a Cubs fan, I can empathize with your continued mediocrity – but why the heck would he want to go back to Baltimore?
His kids are in Baltimore and he doesn’t want to move his family. Also, baltimore is a great city. The inner harbor alone had as many happy memories for me a a child and young man as many people will experience in a lifetime. It grows on you and when baseballv was big in Baltimore it was even more energetic and special.
Koji really loved Baltimore for some reason. I think he had a lot of friends on the team. Could also be the fact that Baltimore gave him the chance to pitch in the majors, I seem to remember him mentioning that (through his interpreter) when he got traded.
So with this limited no trade clause…..can Uehara in theory reject up to 6 proposed trades as they are in the works? Or does he have to make a list of 6 teams before all of this?
limited NTC lets the player reject trades to teams determined prior to signing the contract
Okay i figured that…but does Uehara’s agent keep this list in a manilla folder hidden behind a painting in JD’s office? Obviously the Rangers didnt know.
I don’t think there is a physical list, he can reject them as they are presented to him up to six times so I’m assuming he’s got 5 more teams to reject with this clause. Seems like the Rangers should ask before working out a deal to avoid wasting time.
It may depend on the contract. With Greinke’s contract with the Royals he could specifically block some teams such as the Yankees/Red Sox and a couple other big markets. He actually did have a list of teams specified in the contract but not all were made public I believe.
A no-trade clause doesn’t gurantee a player is not going to that team, it’s just that he wants to be able to make the final decision in a trade. Even with the no-trade clause, Koji could have still ended up in Toronto if he had said yes.
I assume before hand or else it would just be a full no trade
Are the Cardinals one of the six?
toronto didnt even need him. We need a LHP pitcher in the bullpen and starter!!!!
this was probably instead of cordero
you have Laffey for the ‘pen if you count him
Don’t get this at all. Give him a chance. We don’t have any lefty relievers right now. Koji is pretty Dan good against lefties. Win-win for both parties.
Who didn’t see this coming? He will reject every 100% non-contender unless its the O’s, and the Cordero signing probably came after the initial Uehara block, as in Cordero was the Jays’ backup plan…
It’s probably just the other AL East teams and maybe a couple more
Don’t ignore his being Japanese. Thats a big factor. West coast cities are likely ok. Same with NY. I would guess midwest and Canada are out. So probably some combination of Toronto, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas city, houston, cinci, and Colorado.
West coast cities make sense with the larger Asian populations, but Toronto is one of the most multiculturally diverse cities in the world.
Strange, considering Toronto and Vancouver are the only Canadian cities the Japanese know about.
Its still not the coast. Toronto is great, but its that much farther and its no CA or NY.
He wasn’t part of Texas’s playoff roaster. Contenders won’t add him in their playoff roater
He pitched in the playoffs. He got shelled, but he pitched in the ALCS and the ALDS. Just not the World Series but it is the same roster for the whole playoffs.
would he accept a trade to the nats? he would be close to baltimore which he really is attatched to
Too bad close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Really, I edited my comment to get rid of a “-” and it gets flagged for review? This is getting a little out of control if you ask me.
He’s much better than cordero, but cordero didn’t cost prospects. So i’m okay with this.. it is what it is.
It was hard enough to come to the states to play and now you want to ship him back out of the states, to Canada?
You know damn right he ain’t agreeing to that lol.
I’m okay with Texas trading him away because he didn’t preform as well as he was expected to considering what we gave up for him. He seemed to give up a lot of homers, and did it in the playoffs too. I watched him when he was an O and he was awesome but didn’t do that here. He was still good though, but if he gets back to being great, better for us. I don’t want them to just give him away though.
you appear to have multiple personality disorder. say hi to everyone for me
That was well done. Credit is given where credit is due.
Red Sox? Would be a nice piece for the pen.
Finally, Koji has said “NO” to Toronto!
Reason he reject this trade is simple. There’s no personal state income tax in state of Texas. And it’s about 45% in Toronto. That’s roughly 1.8 million in difference.
Or…….. he just didn’t want to go to Toronto.
thats not a 1.8 diference..
when you play away games you pay your income comes from that state and pay taxes there.
So only half of his salary would be taxed by Canada
That’s gotta be pretty damn complicated when I comes down to factoring all the different state taxes into their salaries then. Wow
Not sure how tax laws work with other countries, but I know if you’re a Canadian citizen working outside of Canada (and getting paid in foreign currency) you don’t pay tax as long as you have a foreign bank account. Feds can’t touch it.
He must really want to come back to Baltimore. Im with it
Uehara should have respected the integrity of the trade between Texas and Orioles before he used his no trade clause. Texas gave up two good pieces: Tommy Hunter and Davis, assuming he will be effective in Texas but he couldn’t perform well in Texas. Now Texas wants to get some return by trading him. The plan was to trade one of the MLB team not to trade Japanese or Korean leagues.
As well as PIPPI and TITO.