A Response

I love the idea of having guest posts, and one quirk is that if I want to I can respond. I should say I wouldn't post something on here that I wholeheartedly disagree with, that just would ruin the flow of Ben's Baseball Bias, but I wouldn't want guest posts to be just like me that would defeit the purpose. Also, I'm going to be away this weekend and I may not have a chance to talk much about the Yankees on Sunday so consider this part of that. A lot of what Jeff said I agree with too, some main points:

• Hideki Matsui had more hype than he could live up to
• What used to be a strength, his durability, is now a major flaw
  
• His future on the Yankees should be nonexistent
• On the field Matsui has been a disappointment
  

Over his history with the Yankees, they have largely overpaid for Matsui's production. Luckily for our purposes Fangraphs WAR goes back to 2003, Matsui's first year with the Yankees. Looking at their dollar conversion, not counting this year Matsui has been worth $36.8m but he's been paid $60m. That's a large difference, and it's not even factoring another $13m he'll make this year with less than $13m in production. Overall Matsui stands to make $73m with the Yankees in his career while only giving us around $44m in production. So, it's hard to disagree with Jeff, Matsui has been a pretty large disappointment...on the field.

However, he makes an interesting point in the end about his popularity overseas. If Matsui's production has cost the Yankees about $30m what have they made up of that with having a Japanese all-star? Hard to say, I wouldn't know where to begin in calculating that, but imagine the Yankees at least would break even there.

Matsui is a case in point about paying for players in their 30s. Matsui's contract was up in 2005 and he signed a 4 year extension for $52m. There was just no way Matsui would live up to that contract, but the Yankees needed him for at least 2006 so they overpaid. It's something the Yankees can afford to do. They did it with Bernie Williams (who was paid about $50m over his last 4 years for replacement level production), and they're doing it with Jeter and Posada. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last time the Yankees overpay a 35 year old at the end of a long contract.

I definitely agree with Jeff when he says Matsui shouldn't be starting next year for the Yankees. The problem isn't paying Matsui next year it's playing Matsui. If the Yankees give him $5m to sit on the bench, they'll likely make more than that just by having Japan watch him, compared to burning a bridge there in a messy breakup turning away Japanese fans, Kei Igawa already started that fire. As Jeff mentioned the Yankees have 3 young OFs that will need playing time next year and Damon would serve as a fine and better DH/LF than Matsui. So while actually playing Matsui would hurt the team, just having him may not.

It's frustrating watching a broken man DH for the Yankees this year, but so long as we're in first I can't say I mind too much. However, Jeff does and that's what he's here for. Oh and yea, congrats AJ on your prestigious award, hopefully it's just one of many in the future.