11:23am: ESPN.com's Buster Olney confirms (via Twitter) that Millwood has opted out of his contract with the Yankees.
11:10am: The Yankees have received surprising contributions from veteran starting pitching additions like Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia so far this year, but it appears that not all their offseason gambles will pan out. The Yanks expect Kevin Millwood to opt out of his contract and become a free agent today, tweets Jack Curry of the YES Network.
Millwood signed an incentive-heavy minor league deal with the Yankees late in Spring Training that included the option to opt out by today if he hadn't been promoted to the bigs. Curry adds in a second tweet that Millwood's final Triple-A start, in which he lasted just two innings, likely squashed his chances of a call-up.
I don’t know why, but I read this as “Corky Miller opts out of contract” and I was like “NOOOOO!”.
I read this response as “‘Corky opts out of contract’ and I was like ‘NOOOOO!'” and wanted to let you know that Life Goes On.
This should read, “New York Yankees opt out of Kevin Millwood”
how do the yankees expect to win the 2002 world series NOW?
Besides the Millwood family, does anybody really care?
Just us poor bastards that have him on our team.
Might be collecting an Iowa Cubs jersey by next week Al Briggs.
Yep here come the Cubs! :/
Good riddance.
When does his plaque go up in monument park? Soon I hope.
This has the Pirates written all over it
Oh, he over it.
See Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
How did this not pan out for the Yankees? They didn’t call up Millwood because he didn’t show what he had to in the minors and their other two signings have been brilliant. This implies the signing didn’t work out because they had to pay Millwood for one month of his minor league service. That’s not a loss. It didn’t work out for Millwood, not the Yankees.
Didnt work out for the yankees cause he sucks; didnt work for millwood because the yankees didnt want him… you can say it either way. what came first, the chicken or the egg?
smart move. No other team was offering him a big league contract and only a few were offering him Minor league deals so he goes out and has a few good starts even though most scouts said his stuff was gone and his velocity was no where to be found. So what does he do? opt out and not make any more money for the rest of the year thinking, “oh well if the yankees wont call me up then someone will’ Well kevin no one will let you step foot onto a baseball diamond unless literally half their rotation is hurt and half their AAA rotation is hurt and their AA high A and low A team were all killed in the middle of the night. Say good bye to baseball Mr. Millwood because it is clearly saying good bye to you.
Unless an injury accounts for his reported lower velocity and lousy stuff, I’m going to respectfully disagree with you and predict (a) that another team will eventually give him a shot (probably sooner than later), and (b) that, if used correctly (given enough rest between starts, not asked to pitch more than 90-100 pitches per start, etc., that he’ll have a WAR well in excess of what he’s paid.
Also, it wouldn’t surprise me if Texas wound up being the team to give him a shot — although it wouldn’t surprise me if it wound up being Boston or the Mets either.
In any case, unless he’s injured, I don’t think he’s done.