The Yanks claim to be interested.
Well... they fukkin oughta be. Guy plays 3B, a Yankee sinkhole. Last year, Ryan McMahon batted .213, Anthony Volpe moved to 2B, Cabby ran out of gas, and nobody bubbled up from Scranton.
So, who is Teruaki Sato? Ten observations...
1. He bats left, throws right, plays 3B/1B/OF and turns 28 in March.
2. He's no Goliath - -just 6'1", 207 - (by comparison, Ben Rice is 6'2", 228) - but won the Triple Crown last year in Japan.
3. Defensively, he's said to be an average 3B who might eventually move to 1B.
4. His dad was a Japanese national champion in judo.
5. His nickname is "Teru." Rhymes with "Hey, you!" (His Yankee nickname could be "Apollo Investment.")
6. He opened his career in the Japanese major leagues with two back-to-back HRs, then added a game-winning three-run shot.
7. In Japan, he's been an all-star in four of the last five years.
8. Last year, in the World Baseball Classic, he went 3-10 with three doubles. In the regular season, he hit .309 with 39 HRs and 106 RBIs.
9. Supposedly, to maximize his value, Sato's agent wants to market him as a 3B, his favorite position. That would seemingly undermine interest from the Mets and Dodgers.
10. But not the Redsocks, Angels and/or Phillies, who are letting free agent 3B Alec Bohm walk. Their GM, Preston Mattingly - (ah, shoot me) - scouted him last year in Japan.
In Japan, he wore jersey number 8, replacing Kosuke Fukudome. That's Yogi's number. (How about 88?)
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Anybody here think that these NY Yankees are going to sign! “Hey You” ?
Let me see a show of hands.
Never gonna happen. Which sounds better if you say it like Dana Carvey imitating George H.W. Bush.
Shelly Duncan to the Red Sox
Read today that the Yankees are thinking about Belli to center field. I've written before that Spenser was a rookie and seeing all these stadiums for the first time.
That said, it is so The Yankee Way to take a Gold Glove outfielder and move his out of the position where he excels. Stupid.
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As to Seto. Normally I'm all in on any Japanese All-Star who comes over. El Duque heard he was an average fielder. I've read he's bad. Not worried about the hitting or the high K rate. Seto can hit. But the idea that they might have to move him to first base (where we already don't have enough at bats for Rice and Garcia is just stupid.
That's my new word around here... Stupid! I used to use incompetent. But the Yankees FO is so, so much worse than that. They are stupid.
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Letting Shelly Duncan go... Stupid!
Why wouldn't the Yankees want a bench coach who was Manager of the Year last year and worked with all of their young kids? That would be intelligent.
Actually this one isn't about stupidity. They know exactly what they are doing. They let him go because if he were the bench coach of the Yankees he would be the heir apparent to Boone and they can't have that. Boone must remain...
Wait a minute, I'm wrong. That is stupid!
They should get Sato, but they won't. Almost 100% sure they won't.
So if you don't want him, I wouldn't worry....
The reason they should get him is that he instantly makes the offense a lot better. Defense, well, the year before last, he made huge improvements, was reportedly excellent. Last year, he retrogressed defensively. But with good coaching, he'd be all right. (I know, we always have terrible coaching. Maybe he could bring a personal infield coach/interpreter along with him.) Plus, 3-4 years playing 3B is not that long. He could easily get a lot better.
But Food Stamps HAL will come up way short in the bidding. Might not even make a bid. Very risk averse here. We may never have another Japanese free agent again, ever. (Unless he absolutely sucks and nobody else wants him, in which case we'd win the bidding, of course.)
Horace....I just saw your post from yesterday linking in your guest opinion piece in the Times. You the man! My only mention there was about 30 years ago when William Saffire responded to my observation in one of his "On Language" Sunday columns. I miss his wit and intelligence even though he was a Nixon guy. How far from sanity have these Republicam MAGA morons strayed!
Thanks so much, Carl! And I know what you mean. I never thought I would miss one of Nixon's leading apologists. Or, for that matter, Nixon. But comparatively...
I would sign Sato. The Yankees will not. They will not do it because they still owe Ryan McMahon 1 year and $16 million.
It does not matter that McMahon, quite possibly, blew a World Series championship all by his onesome this year, in botching the very first ball hit off of Schlittler. Or by, you know, playing like the worst third baseman on the Yanks since Charlie Smith last year.
What they should do, of course, is eat most of McMahon's salary and deal him away for whatever magic beans look like they might sprout. But they won't. They will play him all 2027—if there is a 2027—then release him.
That is the Yankee way.
Yep, that's what'll happen, most likely. Stanton's gonna be around too. Until all this dead wood expires, they won't bring in any new ones. If there is a salary cap, they'll use that as an excuse to wait until all the big contracts are expired. I can see HAL's strategy. It's becoming clear.
Do we really need another aging player who may or may not be able to field their position?
The problem is that THIS batch of dead wood will be replaced by MORE dead wood in the future. There's a lot of old-growth forest in the MLB and Brian seems to like the smell of dead wood in the morning. He might like the feel of dead wood, too, but that's another story...
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