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Lookout Landing

Bye, Kenji

Larry LaRue breaks the news that the best catcher in franchise history is opting out of his contract and going back to Japan. Sounds like the real deal, too - Zduriencik is holding a press conference in a couple of hours to discuss it.

Thanks for the years of service, Kenji. I'll miss the silly red glove and the powerpitch swing. Good luck in Japan.

Can't talk too much about the impact of all this now but this isn't a big surprise. Dave's been talking about the possibility of Johjima heading home for the past couple of months. This should free up some significant money for next year, but it comes at the cost of more Rob Johnson.

Matthew's Update: According to Shannon Drayer, no other confirmation yet, there is no buyout. The Mariners owe him no money.

Graham's Update: Section changed to great news. Party time!

0 recs  |  211 comments

Comments

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good riddance.

Enjoy Rob Johnson.
I will. Rob Johnson/Adam Moore is/are only gonna get better.

If the pitchers favor Johnson over Joh thats all I need to know. Who knows the language barrier might have been worse than we thought.

Adam Moore, yes.

But I don’t see Rob Johnson, even fully healthy, being as good as Kenji was when Joh was at his worst. And what good does it do for the pitchers to favor Johnson when he has trouble performing probably the most important aspect of being a catcher, which is, of course, catching the ball? Not that I put much behind a pitcher favoring a catcher anyway.

I hope you're joking.
I for one love passed balls and "wild pitches"
I prefer to have poor defense combined with below average hitting at the catcher position.
Is there a negative rec button?

I’d like to do that right now.

Flag them.
Isn't that more for rule infractions?

I just want a way to tell David89 that his opinion sucks donkey balls. Maybe I’ll just say “Hey David89! Your opinion sucks donkey balls!”

I would not be pleased if you did that.

You can certainly express disagreement in a more civil manner than that.

While Kenji's contract was horrible, he was the best Major League-ready catcher the team had.

I would still take Kenji at $8 million over any more Rob Johnson. I’m happy that Kenji opted out, though. Hopefully Jack finds someone to unseat Johnson.

More Rob Johnson :(

But also more Adam Moore :) (?)

Would have preffered Kenji and Moore catching than Rob Johnson.
I'll take Moore and Johnson and the 8 million in payroll space
Well, good luck to the FO in using the $ to compensate

for the whole more Rob thing.

I always liked Kenji, and I hate seeing him go because it seems like he was often ufairly treated.

at the same time any any event that puts more money in Zduriencik’s hands is a net positive. So, I;m going to shed one tear for Joh and meanwhile dream of Jack declining Wilson’s option and buying a nice shortstop for us.

This sucks.

I’ll miss Kenji. Was he really the best catcher in franchise? I’m questioning your statement, I just have not spent any time going through the numbers.

Also my dog loved him. Occasionally, when he was up to bat she would get right up to the television.

His first two years

are the best two hitting years from a Mariners catcher ever. Yes, that is as sad as it sounds

You can probably put the money to better use.

Take this as a blessing. There’s gotta be a guy you can pluck off the pile who’ll give you more bang for your buck than Kenji, right?

Oh my God Oh my God

On the one hand, AWESOME. On the other hand, awww. I liked Joh, and I always got the feeling he never really “fit”. I hope he finds success, or happiness (either / or) back in Japan.

Jeff Clement!!
I have bad news.
Clement hit .224 after the trade

Perhaps the M’s sold high

Clement hit like a crazy man for two weeks, hurt himself, and tried to play through it
And rec'd my good man.

I’m glad Joh’s gone…wont even shed croc tears for him. Wish he hadn’t sucked for a year and a half, but thems the breaks.

You mean Matt Clement?

;-)

This is a Improvment for the Ms

Fell free to point out anything wrong here but the average market value is about 1win/4Million dollars. Kenji leaving us saves us 8 million and I doubt the difference between 300 Kenji ABs/300 Johnson ABs and just 600 Johnson ABs is to the order of two wins.

Provided that this allows Z to go and make a move elsewhere. Kenji leaving is great for the Ms.

I think it's possible to be happy that the Ms just got a lot of money back

but also feel bad for Kenji over the way he was treated here the season or so.

True, Yes

I just find the excitement of Z and the front office having an extra 8 Million this off season to be bigger then the sadness of the circumstances around Kenji’s departure.

Kenji leaving certainly does not save us $8M
Unless it does.
More quotes in the official release

here

But if he had stayed, he would have gotten it all!
My approval of this event will be entirely centered around how much money we still owe Mr. Johjima.
Yeah wish we knew what the buyout was
Drayer says no buyot
So,we owe him nothing?
I don't have inside knowledge

But Drayer is reporting exactly that.

Okay so I feel a little bad about how much I love this now
Bruce Hines also gone

per Baker

The fact he hadn't worked as a base coach in years really showed, unfortunately.

and the infielders didn’t really show a lot of signs of being coached up …

Oh, and it was actually Larry Stone :)
whoops, sorry about that
It's tricky when he signs in under Baker's byline photo
Dan Wilson would like a word on that "Best catcher in franchise history" thing
Dan Wilson might like a word but he'd be hilariously wrong
Well

The best catcher in Mariners franchise history ranks somewhere in between “the best fiscal responsibility of Mike Tyson’s life” and “the best not-getting-assassinated-ness of James Garfield’s life.”

Nice

Steve Yeager ranks towards the James Garfield end of the continuum

I don't care what the numbers say...

Scrapiron Stinson will always be the best in my book.

Until Adam Moore’s career takes shape.

Come now

Garfield made it thought the Civil War without stopping a bullet.
It’s more a “tallest dwarf” sort of category.

Dan Wilson would also like eleventy bazillion dollars and a sparkly pony

“most fan beloved” doesn’t mean “best”.

You mean .691 career OPS hitter Dan Wilson?
But longevity!
I'm going to agree.

Kenji may have the better offensive numbers, but Dan was stellar behind the plate. He was able to hide his offensive woes with the lineups we had and was able to focus on his catching.

I know we like objective numbers around here, but I will side with Dan being the better catcher based on his defense and game calling. Kenji had his issues the first season he caught, but he did improve to become the better all-around catcher. However, he didn’t have enough years to take the overall title. Longevity does count.

Being bad for a very long time is a pretty poor argument for being the best at something
To be fair we have no way of measuring a catcher's defensive contribution.

Kenji has Dan beat in OPS by about 30 points, but Dan had his .752, .774, and .749 OPS 3-year stretch as well. I’m not sure how we would park adjust for numbers put up way back in the mid-90s…I realize the Kingdome was an easier place to hit in without a doubt, but it’s not like Dan wasn’t decent for a catcher in his prime. Plus, we know that a player can make up more the .010 difference in wOBA Kenji and Dan had in their careers. .314 for Kenji, .304 for Dan.

Honestly, I probably side with Kenji here too. Just playing Devil’s advocate. We have no real way of knowing if Dan’s defense did or did not make up for the offensive gap, but it’s not as much of a long shot as you make it seem.

And once again, for the record, I’d take Kenji too. There are still two not totally invalid sides to this argument.

Make up for the difference in wOBA with defensive contributions, I mean. I should really proof read.
It's a ridiculously long shot

Dan Wilson had a comparable but worse peak if you don’t bother compensating for park, and if you do it’s not close. He then proceeded to really suck for quite a long time.

I have a way of knowing if Dan’s defence made up for the offensive gap because there’s frankly no way in hell that it did if one doesn’t take Johjima as being Victor Martinez behind the plate. You make think there’s an argument here, but that doesn’t stop you being wrong.

I love Johjima.

actually, I do.

He came over as a veteran catcher, with metal plates in his catching hand, and a good 20-years of ingrained habits … setting up, to moving around the plate, interacting with pitchers and umpires in a certain way … and he tried to change, he tried to do everything he was asked to do. He worked with Roger Hansen (and every other ex-catcher in the organization), he worked on his English, he wrote voluminous notes about the hitters and pitchers around the league, he apparently reined in his natural aggressiveness behind the plate, and for a while he actually hit, as well ..

At the start of this year he made the mistake of caving to Japanese pressure to play in the WBC, which put him behind with the new staff & pitchers, and then when he was back, Rob had the opportunity to play once a week, and spend the rest of the time talking to every pitcher for hours, making them all feel very special, and when Joh got hurt, and Rob took over, there was the perception in place that Rob had the magic CERA touch.

Wonder what would have happened had he come over as a younger man, had he allowed his emotions to show more in the beginning the way they sometimes did towards the end (reportedly he was a very demonstrative catcher in Japan), had his command of the language been greater from the start ….

When Joh first came over, I loved his aggressiveness behind the plate.

I wish that had stayed.

Holy mcgoodness is it sad that Kenji is the best catcher we've had in our 32 year history
Thank you so much for doing this Kenji

He could’ve just stayed around in a backup role and raked in the dough. But instead we get out of a truly awful contract for nothing.

I hope he enjoys his last few years in Japan,

Second time we've been saved by this
The Sasaki thing wasn't that good for the team
Fortunately, Joh didn't wait until the verrrrrrrrry last minute.
No shit it wasn't good

I was devastated

You've been more devastated
My life is a series to corresponding devastation but this was still when I was young and naive and so this hurt more
Ah, I love Kenji. :(

But hooray! This is pretty awesome for the Mariners. And I’m happy for him that he can go home and still make a living while being more comfortable and close to his family.

I always liked Kenji

And now I know why!

Seriously though, best of luck to him. And we all truly do appreciate his first few seasons. On a sidenote, we really need to find a decent damned catcher one of these days and keep him around for a while. But this is really, really good for the organization.

Good catchers are really really hard to find.
Fair point

Just sucks the M’s have been around for 32 years and haven’t had any sustained success from that position for, well, the entirety of their existence.

Yup.

Contrary to popular belief, Mauers aren’t found every draft.

But we got Steve Baron!
Aw fuck yeah Matt Holliday time
Thanks for the service, Kenji. I hope you find the happiness you are looking for.

Also, $8M WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Beltre?

A man can dream, no?

Felix!
Well partially
That's what Batista's and Washburn's contracts coming off the books is for!

And maybe a wee bit of Bedard’s $8M too.

We better not use it to sign that no good underachieving Beltre
Beltre has been worth his contract
Oh wow you can parrot Dave Cameron I'm really impressed
Is Jason Varitek available?

I think it would cost about…oooh….$8 million to sign him.

Yes, because he's been fantastic as of late
Bill Bavasi does not run the team anymore
You mean the Jason Varitek that can barely walk?

Much less actually perform the duties of a professional baseball player? No thanks.

But ... Captain!!!
Leadership, grit, World Series rings

It really is frightening how fast Bavasi would have written a blank check to Varitek.

Oh Captain, My Captain ... eh ... it didn't work out that great for the Dead Poet's Society kid.
Pretty sure Johnny Bench is available as well.
This is good for the team

That said, I will definitely miss having Kenji around. Like you said, Graham, I will miss the wacky red glove and the power-swing and corresponding bat flip when it connected. Godspeed, Mr. Johjima. I will forever remain curious as to why you bucked convention and drove around in a blacked-out and lifted Hummer H2

Really? He drove a Hummer like that?
Happy trails amigo.
Zduriencik on 710 at 11:40
Wasn't Kenjis' extension sort of an "off-the-books" expense?

That didn’t count against the alotted payroll as it was dictated by Yamauchi. If so, does this really free up money for GMZ to spend?

Player salary is player salary?
I thought this was a "special expense" that didn't count against payroll, but am happy to see that I was mistaken.
No, it was part of salary
I'll choose to view this as neither a net gain nor a net loss

and simply sit back and trust that Z knows what to do. And I like being able to talk about faith in the GM with sincerity.

If the motivation for benching Kenji was to force him to opt out then I feel pretty bad for him
Is it really a benching when the playing time is split down the middle?
It is when it's split with Rob Johnson
I'm starting to think it may have played a part in it
That's just punishing Kenji for the previous FO's mistake

and it seems like a shitty way to treat a player

Yeah I'm not really crazy about that tactic either if it's true

It may not have been the reason at all, but it does provide a motive for the way he was handled this year that isn’t “Rob Johnson calls a great game” or “All the pitchers have good chemistry with Rob”. When it comes down to it I don’t think Rob ever really clearly earned the playing time he got so it’s a little suspicious that they stuck with him so much.

Maybe that's why Ichiro was so happy this year.
This org values character, it's not uncommon for pitchers to choose their catchers, and he was shitty last year, so I doubt it.
Old article by Brad Lefton

here

Huh.

one from ’07 with JJ lavishing praise on him,

:(

Still, the extra money’s nice.

This is really great news

I liked kenji, but that contract was just stupid. Hooray for good news

I wonder what the ownership and Japanese media have to say.

Also the Japanese online comments.

This makes me sad

What an honorable thing to do. I’ll always respect you, Mr. Johjima

I love Johjima!
I'm amazed it took this long.
I'm shocked this didn't come sooner.
FUCKING CHRIST
Perhaps the best part of this is that we never have to hear that stupid meme again
If I was Jeff I would just post Family Guy Youtube compilations
At least he did it correctly
So when will we announce the signing of Gregg Zaun?
I don't know but,

Barring any ridiculous circumstances I would approve of this

He's the perfect stopgap fit to be cheap and hold the position down better than Rob Johnson until Moore is ready
So Dave probably has some redrafting to do on his offseason plan post
I would guess that Dave probably had a good idea that this might happen as he's hinted to it for a while
But could he (or anyone) have predicted that we would save all the money?
Living up to your username?
Yeah, sorry; I had just remembered this being talked about before as a buyout...my mistake
Be nice
I am sorry.

That probably was mean, I just felt set up for that.

It's all good...I basically gave you a Silva fastball
Speaking of Silva, Opt out?
That is hoping for too much.
Living up to your profile pic?

/jk

I always saw it referenced to as an "opt-out clause," so sure.
An odd contract from the get-go

Team gives player contract extension worth >$20M(?) for no apparent reason; player opts-out of additional $16M in income for limited reason.

I’m guessing money is getting moved under the table (or something else of value).

They must be Illuminati
I wrote the post assuming Kenji would do this

I’ve been waiting for the announcement in order to hit publish.

My misunderstanding...I apologize
I hadn't thought about it

but his son is of an age to be starting school, which would mean the family stays back in Japan.

Now that you have mentioned it, I'd like to think that this is the reason he's leaving

Instead of him having the realization that he’s playing backup to Rob Johnson.

Shannon has more

here

I can't wait for Pedro Calderon to weigh in on this situation.
I think it may be becoming a dead meme to even reference him.
The cool people reference him by his real name
JI?
Yeeeeeeeesss?
When are you going to weigh in on the Kenji situation on your Mariners blog?
I think you have mistaken him/her for someone else
I'm not wearing a What Would Poochie Do t-shirt.

Pedro Calderon sounds cool, I hear Latino sounding names are going to be the big thing next year anyway

I'd rather hear from Pedro Cerrano

I always feel in good hands with his suggestions

We should be able to give out assist recs on this site
So Kenji basically played at a 2-win pace this year.

Which is not counting his defense, which seemed to be above average. That sounds like a pretty good catcher to me. I hope he’s appreciated more by fans and coaches wherever he ends up.

For all those who think there isn't money changing hands in this deal here:

Come on. Be realistic. Kenji’s definitely getting a little something off-the-books from Yamauichi or persons close to that part of the ownership. I don’t have to have any inside knowledge to know that this is far and away the most likely scenario, and that it’s furthermore consistent with Jack Z. claiming there was no buyout. (If it were to ever come to light it would merely be characterized as something else, a “gift” perhaps.)

And if I have to watch a full season of Rob Johnson I swear to God I'll open a vein.
It's possible

But he’s also going to get paid a lot to play in Japan and he’ll get to start and be close to his family, so it’s not that unreasonable that that would be enough motivation.

Even so

Would still seem more plausible than not that someone’s agreed to make up the difference.

While that may be true, the Ms are still gonna come away with extra money

and since our pitching staff and coaching staff have decided that were gonna be riding the ‘Rob Johnson, Professional catcher’ Train next year. We might as well put Joh’s Salary into improving the other holes we have like DH/SS/3B/ect.

How do you know?

I don’t have to have any inside knowledge to know that this is far and away the most likely scenario

If you don’t have knowledge, by definition you don’t know.

Pardon my imprecision, but colloquially speaking my point was perfectly clear.

Let’s not be nitpicky here, although yes technically you got me.

I would disagree that there is enough information available to you to make such a conclusion reasonable.

It is fine to say that you think that it is the most likely scenario, but what pdb pointed out is far from nitpicky.

You admitted you had no basis for knowing what you then said you "definitely" knew

I don’t think that’s being nitpicky. I think it’s pointing out how silly it is to make statements like that. Especially on a site that prides itself on its analytic/evidence-based slant.

Awww..

I just hope that Rob’s surgeries make it so he has to be released. I can imagine that he’s really happy about this, that smug grin on his fat face…god I hate him…

This is unbelievable.

Finally he has more time to camp out under that bus.

Apparently

last friday they were running articles in Japan about the likelihood of Joh’s return

Are there any good stopgap catchers available right now?
We re-signed Guillermo Quiroz.
I'm officially on the Gregg Zaun bandwagon
Wowzers!!

I’m going to miss him.

The return of Pat Borders.
We must have traded for him about 30 times

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