The Twins have worked out an arrangement to part ways with righty Alan Busenitz so that he can join Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles. Dan Hayes of The Athletic first reported (via Twitter) that Busenitz was slated to be shipped abroad.
Financial details are not available, but as usual this sort of deal likely includes some cash for the MLB organization and a nice salary bump for the player. A pre-arb, optionable hurler such as Busenitz faces quite a bit of earnings uncertainty at this stage of his career. But he’ll earn a steady paycheck and get to play at the highest level in Japan.
Busenitz had shown well in his 2017 debut, but everything went sideways last year. In 25 1/3 innings he was knocked around for 22 earned runs and eight long balls while allowing 14 walks to go with his 26 strikeouts. That said, he did continue to work in the mid-nineties while boosting his swinging-strike rate to 11.2%. And Busenitz dominated in forty frames at Triple-A.
Yay! More intercontinental trades.
Looks like the Rakuten Golden Eagles are replacing Frank Herrmann with Alan Busenitz. Maybe because he’s coming back to the MLB.
They gave up on him rather quickly, I get last year was rough but he seemed like he could be a solid reliever
Agree quick hook by the Twins .. Maybe just maybe a new pitching coach could have pushed the right button on a guy like this ????
More exciting T’in’s news… Gonna be a Big year for the Pohlad family.
Man Twins really gave Golden Eagles the Busenitz.
Ill see myself out. Night everyone.
Japan..the new AAAA league
It kinda has been for the last decade now if not much longer. So it’s not all that new.
Don’t mess with Andrew and his knowledge of Asian baseball!
I got into Asian baseball after Matt Murton caught my attention after playing MLB 2k8 and I’ve gotten more into Asian baseball over the last 4 years.
Perhaps a couple of years in Japan he can figure things out. As for the Twins, just another example of a pitcher that they couldn’t figure out what to do with that they finally gave up on.
Previous regime stockpiled lots of weird relievers.
I like Adidas Busenitz model shoes. They are probably made in China, not Japan.
I’ll miss Busenitz and Vargas. I think the Twins gave up on both too soon. But, hopefully, both players will make good use of their time in Japan and return to the MLB in some capacity.
Vargas ran out of options despite getting an additional options year and while I agree the Twins pulled the plug on him too early a couple years ago, he had a few chances. He was known for a very poor diet and poor conditioning, and while by all accounts he took a major step forward in last year’s offseason, the on the field results just didn’t show up. I kept hoping Vargas would start turning it on and force his way onto the MLB roster, but it never happened, even when the Twins really would have loved to have depth at 1B/DH. When the Reds claimed him off waivers and promptly assigned Vargas to their Cincinatti’s AAA affiliate before the season started, the Twins re-claimed Vargas and re-stashed him at Rochester. I feel like that had to be a major blow to Vargas’ confidence and motivation. It’s clear the new FO doesn’t want anything to do with Kennys, but you have to produce to force the issue… like Escobar did with the previous regime.
In regard to Busenitz, he just didn’t throw strikes at all and MLB hitters were crushing his mistakes. It’s hard to justify keeping a guy when opposing hitters have a 50% hard hit rate and he’s walking 5 hitters per 9 innings. That said, there are some peripherals which obviously played up. This is an opportunity for Busenitz to gain attention from other MLB clubs who might be able to fix him.
Ahhh Tanakas old team.nice.
Twins still have not shown any interest in going after big name free agents even though they plenty of salary cap. New management still has to prove they know what they are doing
1) There’s no salary cap, there’s only a few soft limitations that only have any effect on the most preposterously rich teams.
2) Not that I don’t understand the well-earned Pohlad cynicism, but given that the Twins do not and will not have the revenue to support lots of huge FA contracts, they have to spend with discretion. Which big name FA is it that make sense in the long run and would turn the roster around?