Needed to be done. Just agreed to a deal with the Marlins. Was nails for us for years. Thank you Tazawa. Hope he has continued success against every team but Boston.
Thank you Taz
- Thread starter Tyrone Biggums
- Start date
Taz did a great job here, I will miss him. We got a lot of great innings out of him, and he was a big part of the 2013 World Champs. I'm glad he went to the NL and glad he is going to get paid.
Thanks Taz!
Thanks Taz!
Between Oki, Taz, and Koji, the Sox have done well with Japanese relievers. Taz never had the personality of Koji, but he just did his job, day after day, without fuss or complaint. Every so often he would comment that he really wanted to be a starter, but he didn't let it be a distraction.
302 games, all but 6 in relief.
302 games, all but 6 in relief.
That's what I'll always remember him for, the K of Miggy. Really great career for a guy taken out of an industrial league.
When Dice-K is thrown in, Japan has played a significant role in our success over the past decade. Bobby V. should have stayed there. Domo arigatou.
That particular iteration of Miggy was definitely hurt, and his swing was all hands and no lower body to prove it. Taz was absolutely brilliant in that postseason, but in particular vs Cabrera since the book on his injury was that he couldn't catch up to plus velocity. Of the relievers in the 2013 Sox pen, Tazawa was really the only guy you could go to with that particular combination of velocity and competence, since Koji was really topping out at 90.
You know the industrial league story, right? It's probably fair to say that guys like him pretty much never start in the industrial league, and they changed the rules after he asked teams not to draft him so he could go overseas and skip NPB. He certainly had an eventful time with us, and I am very grateful for his work, especially in '13.
@Ken_Rosenthal
Source: Brad Ziegler in agreement with #Marlins, two years, $16M plus incentives, pending physical.
Marlins want our whole up & down '16 pen apparently
I had forgotten the story, so I looked it up. Gave us an exemplary 8 years during which time he was probably severely underpaid. Almost certainly has more good years left in him. I wish him the best.
I wish Otani had followed through on that. The Sox were the heavy favorites to land him at 18 years old.
Yeah, pretty good story right. That article lists his industrial league team as "Nippon Oil"; you may better recognize them as ENEOS, who last season signed some kind of sponsorship deal with the Sox and are now the "Official motor oil of the Boston Red Sox." Obviously Taz being on the team was a huge part of that. I also have to confess I slightly mis-remembered the story; I was sure that Orix actually did try to draft him against his instructions and he just didn't sign, but I can't find anything online to that effect now.
Another cool bit of the Tazawa story was that when he was coming to MLB the Rangers apparently offered him significantly more money but the Sox' extensive reach in Japan made him more comfortable with Boston.
@snowmanny, I love that song. Thanks for posting it.
At the time I thought so too (and probably posted as much), but everything I've seen recently indicates that while the Sox were in the hunt, the Dodgers may have been the front-runners. As they probably still are. Otani never would have gone that route though anyway; unlike Tazawa he was too high profile.
I'm not sure that's true. It sounded like he very much wanted to go that route and eventually caved to all the public pressure. To be fair, 18 year old kid in Japan seems far less likely to be rebellious than say...Bryce Harper.
I actually liked one idea I read that said Otani should move to the US. Even if he has to go through the draft he can get a higher bonus than under the current rules. And he can negotiate being non-tendered by a certain time (like Matsui).
Not sure if that last part is true since amateurs can't sign MLB contracts right away, but still was an interesting thought.
If Tazawa had Boras as his agent, I suspect his tenure/usage in Boston would have evolved differently.
Kudos to Tazawa for his many contributions over the years.
Sorry I think I was unclear in my initial post and we're now using "that route" to mean different things -- you said you wished "Otani had followed through on that" which I took to mean, went to the industrial league a la Tazawa to avoid being an indentured servant in NPB. When I said he "would never have gone that route" I meant to the industrial league. You are correct that he definitely wanted to head straight to MLB out of high school but yes, eventually caved to the pressure.
All good.
Either way it was a costly decision for him.
And if he's seriously going to be posted no matter what next year it's a $150M-ish mistake.
This leaves only 3 players on the Sox who played in the 2013 World Series, and 3 others on the Sox who played in the 2013 season but were not on the WS roster
And I'm afraid we'll never see Workman in Boston again, so it's really just Pedey and X.
You may be right there.
And only 3 other guys who played on the 2013 team but weren't on the WS roster are still with the club
And only 3 other guys who played on the 2013 team but weren't on the WS roster are still with the club