Email a copy of 'Andruw Jones Re-Signs With Rakuten Golden Eagles' to a friend
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By Steve Adams | at
Email a copy of 'Andruw Jones Re-Signs With Rakuten Golden Eagles' to a friend
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MB923
Jones and Youk from Yankees to Golden Eagles. Tanaka from Golden Eagles to Yankees? Ehh I’m about 50/50 on it. I think Tanaka goes to either NY or Seattle.
Rally Weimaraner
Maybe NYY can send Wells and Ichiro to the Golden Eagles too
DerekJeterDan
Rakuten has had many former Yankees — Soon to be Kevin Youkilis next year. But last years roster off the top of my head had Casey McGehee, Andruw Jones, and Darrell Rasner as well. Pretty interesting to see the connection.
MB923
Oh my I forgot McGhee last played for the Yankees before he went to Japan.
I completely forgot about Darrel Rasner though
DerekJeterDan
Same here! Had no idea about what happened to Rasner until reading up on Tanaka and Rakuten.
Rally Weimaraner
The Golden Eagles have become the retirement home for former Yankees.
Ruben_Tomorrow
Which is interesting when you think about it, because the Yankees are seen as the retirement home for big leaguers.
MB923
Mehh, most of their old players tend to sign a deal elsewhere after they leave NY – Matsui, Damon, Ibanez, Giambi, and Chavez to name some.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ichiro do the same thing after next year.
Rally Weimaraner
Like all senior services there are different levels of care, assisted living, retirement home, nursing home ect… The Golden eagles are a step beyond the NYY. Instead of just getting a short porch and hitter friendly home park member of the Golden Eagles get to feast on low level pitching talent.
Lionel Bossman Craft
The Yankees aren’t even the oldest team.
MaineBaseball
It’s a shame that Jones regressed this much and at the age he did because he could have been a solid Hall of Fame candidate. Imagine if he had hit around 40 home runs a couple more times?
LazerTown
Yep, he was on the fast track to cooperstown. I remember even thinking he had a very good shot at 700 hr. He completely fell apart before he was 30, and he still has over 400 hr. terrific cfer too in his prime.
Tko11
Are you sure hes natty? A decline like that can very well be because of the absence of a certain substance. I suppose you can question any power hitter in that era though…
ChicksDigTheLongBaII
I think Jones is a solid candidate in a Hall that already includes Andre Dawson. Their offensive stats are close, with very similar slash lines and almost identical home run totals. They both won one home run title and one RBI title each. Dawson was a bit better with the bat, but not by much.
Defensively, same thing but in the other direction. Dawson won eight Gold Gloves (even if a number of them were given on reputation), while Jones was one of the best defensive players ever and arguably the best center fielder of all time.
In terms of WAR, Dawson has just a minor edge, 64.4 to 62.7 for Jones. He also has a bit of extra hardware, with a ROY and an (entirely undeserved) NL MVP award.
If it wasn’t for Andruw’s apparent inability to say no to a box of donuts and subsequent decline, it would even be a question – 500 homers and a dozen Gold Gloves ought to be automatic. But even acknowledging the abrupt end to his superstar days, he was still about as good as The Hawk over the span of his MLB career.
Of course, whether or not Dawson deserved the Hall in the first class is an entirely different question 🙂