12/15/07

Kuroda to L.A. for $36-40?

>Update: The Dodgers have announced a press conference for noon pacific time tomorrow to announce that they have signed Hiroki Kuroda to a 3-year contract worth$35.3 million.

The newest report from the Los Angeles Daily News indicates that Hiroki Kuroda is currently working on finalizing a three year deal with the Dodgers after completing his physical earlier today. This information is pretty damning evidence of what Mariner fans have been fretting about over the last few days, especially since the report even states the hospital where Kuroda was examined; Centinela Hospital. Surprisingly, the deal is said to be worth more money than expected though still only for three years; $36-40 million, which means $12-13.3 million a year.

It's pretty amazing that Kuroda has chosen the Dodgers over the Mariners. Think about this... He is going to a place where there is really no Japanese influence in the community and no prominent Japanese players on the team. Furthermore, he apparently believes that the Dodgers have a better chance to win than the Mariners even though the Mariners won 6 more games than L.A. in 2007! In addition, we sent an envoy inlcuding Bavasi and McLaren to Japan to meet with Kuroda; something I don't believe any other team has done. All things considered, I wonder if Kuroda is just that impressed by L.A. or if our front office just really did a poor job. So what if we may have had to add another $1-2 million bucks a year! I don't think there is another team in baseball with no viable 4th or 5th starter!

By the way, here is what MLB.com says about the Dodgers: "The fifth starter will come from a group of candidates that includes Jason Schmidt and Esteban Loaiza." Wow, what an awesome dilemma to have...

4 comments:

Quinn said...

When we start paying a 3-man 40 million, we become the Royals. Have fun in LA.

Pile up 10 mil more, add a year or two, you got Dice-K. I believe an ace in Dice K is more valuable than Kuroda.

Just look,
Kuroda = 12-13 mil/year as Patrick said.
Dice K = around 10 mil/year.

It averages out, or am I missing something. Is Kuroda actually better than Dice K?

Quinn said...

But oh boy, aren't we glad he didn't go to the other LA team?

R. LeBaron said...

For that kind of money, we're lucky he didn't accept the Mariners offer. It reminds me of when we "missed out" on Carl Pavano a couple of years ago. I think we'll eventually look back on this in the same way.

Anonymous said...

Dice-K would have recieved way more was it not for his astronomical posting fee (50 million). If you do the math and work the posting fee into his yearly salary, it would amount to the Sox paying Dice-K $17million yearly. Kuroda is said to have as good or better stuff than Dice-K, but he getting towards the end of his career while Dice-K is still getting better.