The Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball have reached a deal with right-hander Ryan Cook, as per a team announcement (via The Japan Times). Cook will earn roughly $1.3MM (or 140 million yen) for the coming season.
Cook chose to become a free agent after being outrighted off the Mariners’ 40-man roster in October. The 31-year-old posted a 5.29 ERA over 17 relief innings for Seattle last season, delivering some strong peripherals (12.2 K/9, 3.29 K/BB rate) but also a bloated 2.1 HR/9 that led to his unimpressive ERA. A 3.48 xFIP and 2.97 SIERA paint a much more favorable impression of Cook’s 2018 performance.
It was Cook’s first taste of Major League action since the 2015 season, when shoulder problems limited him to just 8 2/3 innings for the A’s and Red Sox, and a variety of further injuries kept Cook on the shelf for all of 2016 and 2017. Cook spent much of that stretch recovering from Tommy John surgery, and also had to deal with nerve transposition surgery in his throwing arm, as well as torn hamstring and lat muscles. With this long layoff in mind, Cook’s 94.4 mph average fastball velocity in 2018 was a good sign, as he checked in just a touch below his 94.7 mph career average.
From 2012-14, Cook was a stalwart in the Athletics’ bullpen, posting a 2.60 ERA, 9.3 K/9, 2.66 K/BB rate over 190 2/3 innings and earning a spot on the 2012 AL All-Star roster. He showed glimpses of this form last season now that he was finally healthy, and Cook will look to further re-establish himself in Japan. It’s likely Cook would have had to settle for a minor league contract with an MLB team, so his deal with Yomiuri gives him a nice payday as well as an opportunity in a brand-new environment.
They’re going to be stacked this year!
they always are. it’s the greatest team in japan. may not be always the best but always stacked.
? Your kidding right? The greatest team in Japan is the SoftBank Hawks winner of the Climax Series 4 of the last 5 years. The Giants aren’t even in the strongest league. Pacific League is way stronger than the Central.
how young are you? giants have been the best team in the history of npb. the best players always want to play for it!
Sorry, you’re living in the past my friend. The Pacific League is the division to play in, the SoftBank Hawks are THE team in all of Japan, highest payroll, highest attendance, best players. It’s not 1970.
This is comparable to the Yankees of the late 60’s-early 70’s. They were horrible teams ( Horace Clark , Jerry Kenny ) but lived off of the legend of years past. I was at a game where there were 9,000 people in attendance. Granted the Giants have that type of aura about them, the lore, but, they are not close to being the best team. Hiroshima in their division are much better.
Sayonara!
Love the need to tell us how much that’s in yen, every time. I speak fluent Japanese, been there many times….still not useful information:) $ is fine, dudes. We got it.
Well he will be getting paid in Yen…so to me that makes the info more relevant than the USD amount
American’s are paid in US dollars. Plus the tax benefits are in their favor.
I find the yen amount interesting, because I, like many other people, have not been to Japan, and I don’t know what the exchange rate is.
1 Yen=.0091 US dollars
Not sure If I see this as a big positive for Yomiuri. Hopefully they don’t expect him to be their closer. He’s done nothing since 2014. He should have had to prove himself in the minors, but I guess Yomiuri doesn’t mind rolling the dice.
Many MLB teams make gambles like this. My question is why don’t more of our players who are signing minor league contracts go over there? They get twice the pay, at least, and they get to see a beautiful country.
Japan is careful. They don’t just take anybody that wants to go. Many MLB players have struggled over there and returned home.
Each team can only have 2 foreigners
Each team in Japan is allowed 4 Foreign Players. Latin America and Cuba are foreign countries.
Plus during the 8th season, a foreign player becomes a part of the regular roster, increasing his value, allowing the team to add another foreign player.