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Eric Thames Announces Retirement

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Veteran first baseman and outfielder Eric Thames took to Instagram yesterday to announce his retirement. “The day has finally come,” he says in the post. “In the year of our lord, twenty, twenty-three…HE GONE! I’ve been so blessed over these last 14 years to call baseball my job. The friendships that will last a lifetime, the memories that I’ll never shut up about (and those that I’m sworn to secrecy to take to my grave ).”

This announcement officially ends one of the more unique baseball careers, as Thames has spent the past few decades crisscrossing the globe. His professional baseball life began when the Blue Jays drafted him in 2008 out of Pepperdine University. He made his major league debut with the Jays in 2011 and performed well, hitting 12 home runs in 95 games. His batting line on the year was .262/.313/.456 for a wRC+ of 107, indicating he was 7% better than the league average hitter.

Things didn’t go as well the following year, as Thames hit .243/.288/.365 for the Jays and was optioned to the minors for a time. He was then traded to the Mariners in July for Steve Delabar, getting into 40 games with Seattle after that deal. In 2013, the Mariners kept Thames in the minors and eventually designated him for assignment. He was traded to the Orioles and then went to the Astros on a waiver claim, though neither team called him up to the big leagues.

Thames signed with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization for 2014, which transformed his career. After years of being on roster bubbles in North America, he emerged as a star in Korea. He hit 37 home runs for the Dinos that year and followed that up by hitting 47 and 40 in the next two seasons. His 2015 season stands out as being exceptionally impressive, as he also stole 40 bases and walked in 17.3% of his trips to the plate. His .381/.497/.790 batting line amounted to a 216 wRC+. He was crowned as the Most Valuable Player in the league that year.

After that strong three-year stretch with the Dinos, Thames returned to Major League Baseball, signing a three-year, $16MM deal with the Brewers. He was able to transfer a decent amount of his success from Korea to North America, as he hit 31 homers in 2017 while walking in 13.6% of his trips to the plate. His .247/.359/.518 batting line led to a 125 wRC+. Thumb surgery kept him out of action for a while in the following year, but he was still able to add another 16 home runs in 96 games, then hit another 25 in 2019. His three-year stretch in Milwaukee resulted in 72 long balls and a .241/.343/.504 batting line for a 118 wRC+. That last year saw the Brewers qualify for the Wild Card game against the Nationals. Thames went 2-4 in that game, including hitting a solo home run off Max Scherzer. But the Brewers ultimately lost 4-3 to the Nats, who would go on to win the World Series later that year, and that now goes down as the only MLB playoff game in which Thames played.

Despite that solid stretch, the Brewers surprisingly turned down a $7.5MM option on Thames for 2020 and went for the $1MM buyout instead. The Nationals scooped him up on a $4MM guarantee but he struggled in the pandemic-shortened season, hitting .203/.300/.317 with just three homers in 41 games. He signed with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball for 2021 but suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon after just one game with the club. He tried another return to the majors in 2022 by signing a minor league deal with the A’s, but struck out in 38% of his plate appearances in Triple-A and got released after 22 games.

In the end, it makes for quite a journey, with Thames having played for baseball teams all over the world. His major league career resulted in 96 home runs, 18 stolen bases, 451 hits, 286 runs scored and 235 driven in. But he’ll perhaps be best remembered by some fans for that magical three-year run in the KBO wherein he hit 124 home runs, stole 64 bases, scored 343 runs and drove in 382.

We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Thames on a fascinating and distinctive career, and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

NPB’s Orix Buffaloes Could Post Ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto Following 2023 Season

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There’s a “strong belief among MLB teams” that the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball will post ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto following the 2023 season, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post. If that indeed comes to pass, he’d be the second high-profile player set to be posted from the top professional leagues in Asia next offseason; the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization are also expected to post reigning KBO MVP Jung Hoo Lee, as covered here last month.

Yamamoto will command more attention between the two. The 24-year-old Yamamoto is already a four-time NPB All-Star and has taken home both the Pacific League MVP Award and the Sawamura Award (Japan’s equivalent to MLB’s Cy Young Award) in each of the past two seasons. It’s not hard to see why.

Dating back to Opening Day 2021, Yamamoto has compiled a comical 1.54 ERA while striking out 27.7% of his opponents against a tiny 5.5% walk rate. He’s averaged better than 7 1/3 innings per start along the way, hurling 10 complete games and six shutouts, and only yielded an average of 0.30 home runs per nine innings pitched. One of those shutouts was a no-hitter this past June. In just shy of 800 career innings in NPB, Yamamoto possesses a 1.84 ERA that already looks inhuman on the surface and becomes all the more impressive when you factor in his age. He debuted as an 18-year-old back in 2017, and that season’s 2.35 ERA is the highest mark of his career.

Scouts to whom Sherman spoke raved about Yamamoto’s potential in the big leagues, touting a heater that sits mid-90s and reaches the upper-90s, a “plus-plus” (i.e. 70-grade) splitter, a “world class” curveball, a quick delivery to the plate and the athleticism to field his position well. One evaluator speaking to Sherman tabbed him a “full [scouting] grade” (on the 20-80 scale) ahead of right-hander Kodai Senga, who signed a five-year, $75MM deal with the Mets this offseason.

Brandon Tew of Sports Info Solutions took a deep dive into Yamamoto’s no-hitter back in June, profiling the right-hander’s “electric” arsenal, highlighting some of his pitch grips and release points while providing some general scouting insight into the tantalizing young righty. The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote back in December that Yamamoto “might be a No. 1 starter in MLB and doesn’t have any of the reliever concerns that Senga carries,” suggesting that he could more than double Senga’s guarantee when he’s eventually posted.

That all depends on health and performance in 2023, of course. Yamamoto has been healthy and dominant to this point in his career, but all players (pitchers, in particular) are one major injury away from changing their outlook. Any scouting report on Yamamoto will point out that his slight frame — he’s listed at 5’10” and 170 pounds — is of at least come concern to big league scouts. There’s simply very little track record for pitchers of this size both holding up physically with a starter’s workload and performing at an elite level. That’s not to say Yamamoto can’t be an exception, of course; the general consensus seems to be that he has a very good chance of doing just that.

Yamamoto is expected suit up for Team Japan in next month’s World Baseball Classic, just as Lee is likely to be on South Korea’s team. MLB fans looking ahead to next offseason might want to keep an extra-close eye on the pair and on the WBC in general, as the tournament provides North American fans some rare access to not only see foreign talents of this caliber, but also to see them against high-end opposition.

If Yamamoto is indeed posted for MLB teams, he’ll be subject to the NPB-MLB posting system, which grants all 30 teams equal rights to negotiate with the player but subjects the signing team to what, in the case of Yamamoto, could be a particularly steep posting fee. The MLB club that eventually signs Yamamoto would need to pay the Buffaloes a fee that is equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, plus 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars committed thereafter.

On, say, a $150MM contract — a purely speculative number for the sake of this example, and one that could ultimately prove low — that’d come out to a $24.375MM posting fee that needs to be paid out to the Buffaloes in addition to the money guaranteed to Yamamoto. Any additional earnings that come via contractual mechanisms like performance incentives, club options, etc. would also be subject to that 15% once the money becomes guaranteed.

If the Buffaloes opt not to post Yamamoto next winter, they could do so again following the 2024 season as well. NPB players aren’t eligible for unrestricted free agency until they’ve compiled nine years of service time. Yamamoto, despite his youth, is entering his seventh season in NPB.

Jharel Cotton Signs With NPB’s Orix Buffaloes

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The Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced last week they’ve signed right-hander Jharel Cotton for the 2023 season. The team also announced the previously-reported acquisition of former Cubs first baseman Frank Schwindel. Reports out of Japan first emerged in December the Buffaloes were in discussions with Cotton.

It’ll be the first overseas stint for the 31-year-old hurler. The East Carolina product has spent a decade in the affiliated ranks, initially entering pro ball as a Dodger draftee in 2012. Cotton debuted with the A’s in 2016, shortly after being acquired as part of the Rich Hill deadline deal between L.A. and Oakland. He made 29 starts over the next two seasons in green and gold but didn’t reappear in the big leagues until 2021 as a member of the Rangers.

Cotton spent the bulk of last year with the Twins. Shuttled on and off the 40-man roster as a depth reliever, he made 25 MLB appearances with Minnesota. Cotton posted a strong 2.83 ERA that was built largely on the strength of an unsustainable .183 average on balls in play against him. He posted much better peripherals through 22 games with their Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul, striking out a massive 37.1% of opponents en route to a 2.88 ERA over 25 innings of relief for the Saints.

Towards the end of the year, the Giants snagged Cotton off waivers from Minnesota. He pitched five times for San Francisco, working eight innings of seven-run ball. At season’s end, the Giants ran him through outright waivers to take him off the 40-man roster. Cotton elected minor league free agency at that point.

He’ll now make the jump to Japan’s top level. Cotton has worked solely as a reliever the past two seasons but was a starting pitcher throughout his early minor league and MLB tenure. It’s possible the Buffaloes give him a shot to stretch back out into rotation work in NPB. Regardless of whether he works as a starter or out of the bullpen, Cotton has a chance to resurface on the MLB radar a year or two down the line if he performs well against NPB hitters. Veteran reliever Scott McGough, for instance, secured a two-year deal from the Diamondbacks this offseason after a four-year stint in Japan.

NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines Sign Hirokazu Sawamura

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The Chiba Lotte Marines of Nippon Professional Baseball have signed right-hander Hirokazu Sawamura, according to Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe (Twitter link).  Sawamura pitched with the Red Sox in 2021-22 and was reportedly looking to sign on with another MLB team earlier this offseason, but he’ll now instead back to Japan.

Sawamura started his career in NPB, pitching mostly with the Yomiuri Giants from 2011-20 before being dealt to the Marines during the 2020 season.  The righty’s first four seasons were spent mostly as a starter, as he delivered some quality numbers and helped the Giants win the 2012 Japan Series, though a full-time move to the bullpen in 2015 turned Sawamura into one of NPB’s best closers.  While his effectiveness had a few injury-related ups and downs over the years, and Sawamura was moved to a setup role, Sawamura’s first stint in Nippon Professional Baseball resulted in an impressive 2.77 ERA, 22.1% strikeout rate and a 7.3% walk rate over 868 1/3 innings.

Exploring a move to North America after the 2020 campaign, Sawamura signed a two-year deal with the Red Sox for $3MM in guaranteed money — $1.2MM in salary in both 2021 and 2022, plus a $600K buyout of a $3MM club option for 2024.  The contract also contained incentive clauses and a player option for Sawamura, though that became a moot point after he asked to be released in September in order to pursue opportunities with other teams.  The Sox obliged, and Sawamura hit the open market after taking a $1MM buyout.

Though Sawamura had a 3.39 ERA and 50.9% grounder rate over his 103 2/3 Major League innings, other statistics weren’t nearly as flattering.  Sawamura had a solid 26.3% strikeout rate in 2021 that plummeted to 18.1% last season, and control was consistent problem in both seasons, with a 13% total walk rate.  With batters also consistently generating hard contact, Sawamura’s ability to keep the ball on the ground (and a .276 BABIP) might have saved him from more serious damage on the scoreboard.  The Red Sox designated Sawamura for assignment and then outrighted him off their 40-man roster in August.

Sawamura turns 35 in April, and he’ll now make his return to NPB for what might be the final act of his baseball career.  His brief time with the Marines in 2020 yielded a lot of success, as Sawamura had a 1.71 ERA over 21 1/3 innings.

NPB’s Yomiuri Giants Sign Lewis Brinson

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The Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball have agreed to a contract with outfielder Lewis Brinson, according to reports out of Japan.  It will be a Giants-to-Giants move for the 28-year-old Brinson, who finished the 2022 season with San Francisco before being outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster in September.

Brinson began the season in the Astros organization on a minor league contract, but didn’t see any MLB action until after Houston dealt the outfielder to San Francisco on September 1.  Brinson went on to appear in 16 games with the Giants, with only a .683 OPS over 39 plate appearances.  While it did mark a sixth consecutive year of big league play for Brinson, his move to NPB presents a turning point in his pro career, as Brinson has yet to live up to the hype once attached to his status as one of baseball’s top prospects.

The 29th overall pick of the 2012 draft, Brinson was selected by the Rangers, but then moved to the Brewers as part of the trade that brought Jonathan Lucroy to Texas at the 2016 trade deadline.  Brinson was part of an even bigger blockbuster in January 2018, when he was one of the four youngsters dealt from Milwaukee to Miami in exchange for Christian Yelich.

Brinson kept up his impressive minor league production amidst these moves, yet his Triple-A numbers simply didn’t translate against Major League pitching.  Brinson has hit .198/.246/.328 over 1150 career PA in the majors, striking out in 327 of those trips to the plate.  After four seasons of struggles with the Marlins, the team finally parted ways with Brinson during the 2021-22 offseason.

The Tokyo-based Giants now represent an opportunity for Brinson to get his career on track.  Though Brinson has never been able to find himself at the plate in the big leagues, his consistently strong production in Triple-A (he hit .298/.356/.566 over 373 PA at the Triple-A level last season) provides some hint that he might be able to produce against NPB pitching.

Luis Perdomo Signs With NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines

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Righty reliever Luis Perdomo has signed with the Chiba Lotte Marines to play the 2023 season in Japan, per ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. The deal reportedly comes with a $1.3MM guarantee and incentives that could boost the total to $1.8MM. Perdomo is a client of CAA Sports.

Perdomo pitched for the Brewers in 2022, posting a 3.80 ERA (105 ERA+) and 4.80 FIP across 23 2/3 innings in 14 appearances. While his top-level results were slightly above average, he posted a career-low strikeout rate in 2022, which implies there may have been some good luck baked into his ERA when combined with his significantly higher FIP. The Brewers non-tendered him earlier this offseason.

Prior to joining the Brewers during the 2020-21 offseason on a minor league contract, Perdomo had been on the Padres for parts of five seasons. He struggled mightily in a swing role from 2016-2018, posting a 5.40 ERA (75 ERA+) and 4.56 FIP in 355 innings across those three seasons. The most successful season of his big league career came in 2019, when he posted an ERA of 4.00 (105 ERA+) and a FIP of 3.60 across 72 innings of mostly relief work. He struggled again in the shortened 2020 season, however, with ERA and FIP marks both well above 5.00.

At just 29 years old, Perdomo now is set to follow in the footsteps of many other fringe major leaguers and attempt to establish himself in Japan before attempting to secure another state-side contract.

Athletics Sign Shintaro Fujinami

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The Athletics announced the signing of right-hander Shintaro Fujinami to a one-year deal on Friday evening. The Japanese hurler reportedly receives a $3.25MM guarantee and can earn up to $1MM more in potential incentives. That deal also come with a 20% posting fee of $650K to be paid out to Fujinami’s former team, the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, which brings the Athletics’ total expenditure on the deal to $3.9MM. Oakland would also owe a 20% fee to the Tigers on any money Fujinami unlocks via incentives.

Fujinami, a hard-throwing 28-year-old, was posted by the Tigers back on December 1. A high school phenom from the same draft class as Shohei Ohtani, incredibly stepping right from high school ball into the Tigers’ rotation and as a 19-year-old rookie and pitching to a 2.75 ERA in 137 2/3 innings as a starter. For several years, he delivered standout results, pitching to a sub-3.00 ERA through his first four seasons as a professional and making the Central League All-Star team in each of those first four campaigns.

However, as Yakyu Cosmopolitan lays out in a video recap of Fujinami’s career that fans will want to check out (YouTube link, video in English), Fujinami was left on the mound to toss 161 pitches — far and away a career high — during his age-22 season in an outing that began with him yielding five runs in three innings. He’d already begun to display some worrying command issues prior to that outing, and the extent to which that outing might have impacted him can’t be known, but Fujinami began to oscillate between the Tigers’ first team (i.e. their Major League club) and their farm system beginning in 2017. Further struggles from 2017-21 caused his stock to fade substantially.

The 2022 season, though, has brought about something of a renaissance for Fujinami. The hard-throwing righty made 10 starts and six relief appearances with the Tigers’ top team, pitching to a 3.38 ERA in 66 2/3 innings. He fanned 23.6% of his opponents and, most crucially, turned in a career-low 7.6% walk rate. That was not only the best mark of Fujinami’s career but the first time since 2016 he’s posted a walk rate under 10%.

As a 6’6″ righty with an upper-90s heater that has reached triple digits and a slider that’s been a plus pitch in the past, Fujinami offers tantalizing potential. The recent struggles and repeated inability to locate the ball with any real consistency obviously limit his earning power, but big league scouts have had Fujinami on their radar since his high school days. The A’s make for a sensible team to roll the dice on catching lightning in a bottle with Fujinami’s impressive raw arsenal, given their spacious home park and status as a non-contender, which will afford them additional patience if the righty struggles to acclimate to North American ball early on.

With the A’s, Fujinami will step into a starting staff that includes Cole Irvin, Paul Blackburn and a host of fellow unproven options. Oakland signed journeyman right-hander Drew Rucinski to a one-year, $3MM deal on the heels of a terrific run in the Korea Baseball Organization, so it’s likely he and Fujinami will slot in behind Irvin and Blackburn. Candidates for the fifth spot on the staff will include out-of-options righty James Kaprielian and prospects Ken Waldichuk, Kyle Muller, JP Sears and Adrian Martinez. It’s at least possible the A’s will use a six-man group early in the season, though their exact plans will be dependent on both the health and performance of this group during Spring Training.

The NPB/MLB posting system allows a posted player to negotiate with all 30 MLB clubs; the player’s former team is subsequently entitled to a posting/release fee that’s equal to 20% of the first $25MM on a contract, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. Given that it’s a one-year deal, the A’s are on the hook for a release fee that’s 20% of the $3.25MM guaranteed to Fujinami. That fee will be paid to the team and is separate from the value of the contract paid to Fujinami himself.

Jon Morosi of MLB.com first reported the A’s and Fujinami were in ongoing contract discussions. Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the A’s were signing Fujinami to a one-year deal. Bob Nightengale of USA Today was first to report the $3.25MM guarantee. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the $1MM in incentives.

Masahiro Tanaka Re-Signs With Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

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The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles have re-signed veteran righty Masahiro Tanaka to a one-year deal worth 475 million yen (roughly $3.6MM), according to the Japan Times and several other media outlets.  This will be Tanaka’s third season back in Nippon Professional Baseball with the Golden Eagles, following his stint in MLB with the Yankees from 2014-20.

Now entering his age-34 season, Tanaka rose to prominence as an 18-year-old with the Golden Eagles back in 2007, and established himself as arguably NPB’s best pitcher over his first seven seasons in Japan.  That success naturally made Tanaka a hot commodity when he chose to explore a move to the big leagues, as the Golden Eagles posted the right-hander prior to the 2014 season.

The Yankees landed Tanaka with a seven-year, $155MM contract (plus a $20MM posting fee to the Eagles), and he mostly lived up to the hype, posting a solid 3.74 ERA, 23.1% strikeout rate, and a tiny 4.8% walk rate over 1054 1/3 regular-season innings in the majors, and then a 3.33 ERA over 54 frames in the postseason.  Somewhat remarkably, most of that production came after a partial tear in his right UCL was discovered midway through the 2014 season, as the discomfort never became great enough for Tanaka to require Tommy John surgery.

Upon entering free agency in the 2020-21 offseason, Tanaka’s first choice was to re-sign with New York, but the Yankees’ chief order of business that winter was resetting its luxury tax penalties by getting under the tax threshold.  The Yankees signed Corey Kluber to a one-year, $11MM deal that essentially closed the door on a Tanaka reunion, and the righty then chose to return to his home country rather than explore other options in North America.  Tanaka inked a two-year deal with the Golden Eagles that had an opt-out clause last winter, but perhaps due to the lockout that ate up most of the MLB offseason, Tanaka chose to remain in his contract.

This latest pact represents a significant pay cut from Tanaka’s previous deal, as he reportedly earned 900 million yen in both 2021 and 2022.  While Tanaka wasn’t quite his ace-level self from his initial stint in NPB, he still had a 3.16 ERA over 318 2/3 innings over the last two seasons, with a drop in strikeouts but continued elite control.  Despite these numbers, Tanaka was most focused on his 13-21 win-loss record.  As he said during an online news conference, “four wins (in 2021) and then nine (in 2022) are far behind the big expectations the club had for me and are a betrayal of the fans’ hopes too.  It’s been a really undignified two years.”

Tanaka’s rather blunt self-assessment would imply that he views the 2023 NPB season as unfinished business, which perhaps explains why there wasn’t any public buzz about a possible return to the majors this offseason. Lack of wins notwithstanding, Tanaka still seems to be pitching well enough that MLB teams might have had interest, especially given the high price tags associated with so many other hurlers in free agency.  Of course, it isn’t known if Tanaka was open to pitching in the majors whatsoever, and if so, anywhere besides the Bronx.  The Yankees were already pretty deep in rotation options even before signing Carlos Rodon to a six-year, $162MM contract.

Kohei Arihara To Sign With NPB’s SoftBank Hawks

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Former Rangers righty Kohei Arihara is returning to Japan for the 2023 season and will sign with the SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball, per reports from Japanese outlets The Manichi and Sports Hochi. Prior to his two-year MLB run in Texas, Arihara had spent six seasons with NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters.

Now 30 years old, Arihara’s brief time in the Majors was tanked by health woes. Originally signed to a two-year, $6.2MM contract, the right-hander posted a 2.21 ERA through his first four big league starts in Texas. His velocity dropped more than two miles per hour over his next four outings, however, and Arihara was shelled for 16 runs over a period of 8 1/3 innings before heading to the injured list. The Rangers discovered an aneurysm in his shoulder that required immediate surgery which sidelined him more than three months. At the time, GM Chris Young noted that it was “a very serious condition if it’s not treated, and we’re very fortunate that this was caught early and we didn’t continue to push it with [Arihara].”

Arihara returned late in the 2021 season but pitched just a dozen innings in September. The Rangers removed him from the 40-man roster over the winter. He remained with the organization in 2022 and spent the bulk of his season with Triple-A Round Rock, though Texas did call on him for 20 Major League frames late in the summer. Arihara allowed 21 runs in those 20 innings, although a staggering 11 of them came in one outing against the Blue Jays where the Rangers seemingly left him on the mound in hopes of sparing the bullpen and designated him for assignment the next day.

All in all, Arihara tossed just 60 2/3 Major League innings for the Rangers in his time with the team. He’ll head back to his native Japan and look to further build upon what was a solid NPB career prior to his MLB audition. In 836 innings with the Fighters, Arihara notched a 3.74 ERA with an 18% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate. He was particularly sharp in his final two pre-Rangers seasons, logging a 2.91 ERA through 297 innings in 2019-20.

Marwin Gonzalez To Sign With NPB’s Orix Buffaloes

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Marwin Gonzalez is heading to Japan, having agreed a deal to join the Orix Buffaloes, according to Yahoo Japan. The MVP Sports Group client will take home a $1.5MM salary, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

Gonzalez, 34 in March, spent the 2022 season as a utility option off the bench for the Yankees, slashing .185/.255/.321 with six home runs across 207 plate appearances. While the bat didn’t really show up, the veteran was generally a positive contributor on defense, appearing at every position bar catcher and center-field.

That’s generally been the case for Gonzalez over a 12-year big league career that saw him spend his first seven seasons in Houston, and then stints in Minnesota and Boston, before a return to Houston and a season in the Bronx this year. Outside of a .303/.377/.530 year in 2017, the switch-hitting Gonzalez has never been an elite hitter, and owns a career .252/.310/.399 line. He’s made up for that with his defensive strength and versatility though, and has compiled 11.1 fWAR over his career.

The production’s been in decline for a few years though, and since 2020 Gonzalez has hit just .198/.272/.313 with a steady increase in strikeouts. That’s been good for a wRC+ of just 63, or 37% below the league average. That period’s also seen Gonzalez bounce around the league a bit, suiting up for four different teams during that time. 2020 saw him play out the second year of a two-year, $21MM deal with the Twins, before he inked a one-year, $3MM pact with the Red Sox in 2021. Boston designated him for assignment late in the season, and he returned to Houston that year to serve as a bench piece down the stretch. The Yankees signed him to a minor league deal last winter, but were impressed enough in spring training to add him to the big league roster on opening day, and he held his spot all season.

The Buffaloes are the defending NPB champions, having won the Japan Series 4-2 over the Tokyo Yakult Swallows this year, their second straight season playing in the Japan Series.

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