Glad that's over. Not that he was particularly worse than Derek Lowe, because he wasn't, but the Braves developed some weird aversion to him in 2011, which made his whole existence in any sort of Braves uniform awkward.
Enjoyed the link about Frenchy. I still think it was shameful the way they treated Kawakami.
I never saw any reason for his banishment to A-ball Miss. They had to pay his contract anyway, why did they have to humiliate him further. They could have traded him. He must have really pissed Bobby and Wren off. I’m pretty sure that none of the Japanese players will want to play for the Braves organization, KK was famous over there.
spending that kind of money for a japanese product rarely pans out…history has shown over and over these kinds of contracts aren’t worth it. keep developing talent in south america. agree with most though, not crazy about the braves relegating him to Miss.
I honestly felt badly for KK. He actually had a fairly decent season in 2009, and banishing him to the minors probably broke him. I hope nothing but the best for him back with his old club.
I can’t help but wonder if there’s some details concerning the whole KK situation that we don’t know or will ever know. How he was handled just seems alittle mysterious. That being said, Conspiracy Theory is one of my favorite movies.
he was used, and solid, in a relief role the year before when Hudson came back. Something almost had to happen in the meeting where he got demoted on JJ’s return two years ago.
I think it would be nice if another Japanese pitcher comes in against us and totally shuts us down. There was a nice SI photo string on the 54 or so Japanese players who have come over, beginning in the 1950’s in SF. Nothing outstandingly bad . Of course I am biased as I was in LA when Nomo was there and watched him pitch against us. As another poster has mentioned KK has had a few killer games both good and bad….Still, something Bobby and KK that really rubbed him the wrong way. I think Bobby prefers the Step-and-Fetchit kind of inscrutable Asian. But that is the breaks of life…I suppose better than the owner calling you a “fat toad” to the media.
Could you provide a link to someone who said he “couldn’t top 86?”
In his last two appearances in 2010 his average fastball was 90.8 mph.
In 2011 he may very well have been done. Even if that’s true, his MLB stats weren’t all that different from Lowe’s, just as Gondee said.106 ERA-, 104 FIP- vs. Lowe’s 116 ERA-, 98 FIP-.
we could look at what both of them did for their entire careers in Atlanta….but that would actually go against the point you are trying to make, so I can understand why you are using only his AA stats after being banished from the Big Leagues.
Take Kawakami’s name out of the equation, and just think back to how many guys in the past have ended up in Bobby’s doghouse, for reasons nobody will ever know. As much as many of us love Bobby Cox from an emotional standpoint, the guy wasn’t without flaws, and everyone knew he held grudges or that once you lost Bobby’s trust, it was almost always gone forever.
I’ll agree with you that the overall picture was a wash of a deal, and I agree with you that he did have his chance, and that he in fact had several. The numbers don’t lie. But most of them reeked of the unholy small sample sizes and he continuously kept getting banished to worse conditions before he could work anything out.
My biggest objections were that the Braves had opportunities to recoup something from him, and didn’t, and for an organization that lauds itself as one of class and integrity, they certainly let one man’s Major League career end with humiliation and without any chance to redeem any dignity.
My biggest objections were that the Braves had opportunities to recoup something from him, and didn’t, and for an organization that lauds itself as one of class and integrity, they certainly let one man’s Major League career end with humiliation and without any chance to redeem any dignity.
Your comment brings me back to a train of thought I’ve had with the KK situation from the beginning. The Braves are known for being an upright organization, doing things The Braves Way. Why would they have a sudden change of character face in dealing with KK? It seems out of character for the Braves organization to behave like this which makes me wonder what role KK played in how he was treated. As I stated above, the whole situation strikes me as odd.
While he definitely deserved to be in the minors, even I was really perplexed by him getting pushed down to rookie ball near the end of the year.
I mean, here’s a 35 year old Japanese pitching veteran surrounded by a bunch of 17 year old latin american kids and highschool draftees. Couldn’t have been an enjoyable stay.
As an observer, this is all I can figure out. I could be wrong here, but this is just how things seem to me as a student of human nature.
First of all, it’s clear that Cox really had it in for KK in his 2nd season and eventually gave up on the guy. It was reported that KK refused to go to Gwinnett the previous year and it just may have been some kind of personality clash or KK may just be an enormous douchebag, but something definitely happened and Cox essentially said “That’s it. This guy is never pitching for me again unless it’s a blowout or injury situation”.
The second thing is that whatever personal issues Cox had with KK, Wren apparently had his own issues with him. When it became apparent that Wren’s idiotic plan to trade KK and 100% of his salary was going to fail, rather than trade him for something and eat between 4 and 5 million of salary it apparently made more sense for Wren’s little personal vengeance show to stuff KK in Mississippi for the season in an attempt to get him to walk away from his contract and go back to Japan. It failed. I think it says a lot of really bad things about Wren that he would even resort to this kind of petty thing just to stick it to one player, especially on a team like the Braves where they count pennies. KK may be no saint here and if we could talk to the players for all I know we might find out that he had a sense of entitlement that pissed everybody off, but as a GM I think that Wren should be above displays of petty revenge against a player. He wasn’t. And as a result I question Wren’s fitness for his job.
The Braves are no longer an “upright organization” as adc62 says and they haven’t been for years. The Smoltz and Glavine situations were absolutely ridiculous. Not to digress and I’m not going to argue that it was a huge mistake to get rid of both of them, but the way in which both situations were handled was completely and utterly classless. Glavine in particular has room to complain (which he never has) in that he was signed to a contract that the Braves never intended to honor and released when it became clear that they were going to have to honor it. To me the whole KK debacle in 2011 was just more typical low class Wren bs which he’s been doing for years.
There’s a lot to the story that we’ll probably never know the whole stories of. I imagine between KK and Kei Igawa, both have some horror stories of American baseball, and unless they do some sort of tell-alls in Japan, we’ll never know the whole story from their sides, and the organizations sure as hell won’t come clean.
From what I can gather, most conflicts are simply at their cores, cultural differences that neither side seemed willing to bend and adapt with. Like many NPB pitchers, KK was a nibbler, and frankly that doesn’t always work in MLB. No matter the coaching and McDowell’s influence, nothing really could break KK from returning to it, and I imagine the language barrier made it more frustrating for both sides. Instead of more patience, it seemed like it turned into extradition out of ultimately exasperation.
In regards to Wren and the possibility of sending him back to Japan, again, another what seems to me, a cultural difference. I distinctly remember KK not wanting to go back to Japan via trade, because it simply meant failure. I may be being a little melodramatic here, but remember KK comes from a culture where historically, emperors and nobles killed themselves rather than succumb to failure. By nixing this deal, he essentially put cultural beliefs over the opportunity to leave on a positive note and probably pissed off the Braves to where they sent him to whatever low minor level had roster space, where I agree with you, they tried to make him walk and void the remaining financial obligation, which didn’t work.
These are all conjectures, and I don’t expect them to be taken seriously, but we’re just discussing theoreticals anyway.
But again, I agree with you in the astute assertion that the Braves aren’t as upright and classy as the rose-colored glasses a lot of us wear have them out to be. I’m not saying the team is dirty, and I certainly hope they’re not doing stuff like finagling tax loopholes (ahem, Marlins) or constantly creating front office stirs (Red Sox), but there is a definitely a more cut-throat business approach to the team’s management that wasn’t so much the norm with JS and Bobby at the helm. I can’t say I dislike it, but I’m also not ignoring its presence. Smoltz and Glavine may have “earned rights” to leave on their own terms, but ultimately no one individual should supersede the team; given the fact that Smoltz’s last year was bad, and Glavine would have been blocking Tommy Hanson, neither was the wrong decision. Both situations could have been handled better, from both sides, but all’s in the past now. The KK debacle was a battle of dueling middle fingers, that could probably have been better handled with some better communication and cultural understanding, but KK sticking it out in the minors and going back to Japan with his last $6.7M seemed to have gotten the last laugh.
the Glavine thing could have easily been alleviated by not signing Lowe or Kawakami, at which point both messes are avoided. We had the rotation depth to get by until Glavine was healthy, or Hanson “ready” (which he was for all except service time I assume). I’d have really liked to have seen if Glavine could have junkballed and slow pitched his way as a 40+ arm ala Jamie Moyer. And then there’s Charlie Morton who could have gotten one more opportunity to show his stuff in Atlanta, joining the already acquired Javy Vazquez, Jair Jurrjens, Derek Lowe (or another FA signing), along with whoever won the remaining gigs in Glavine and young arms Kris Medlen, Jojo Reyes, Morton, Hanson, etc in the rotation.
But with JoJo and Morton likely filling the two vacancies until the arrivals of Tom and Tommy, I would’ve been willing to bet the Braves don’t have a playoff chase like they did in 2009. Lest we forget, both Lowe and KK weren’t nearly as bad as they were in 2009 as they were in 2011, combining for +4.3 WAR.
It’s wasn’t and isn’t the most storybook and prettiest methods of running a ballclub, but Wren has shown willingness to put the emotional history in the backseat for attempting to construct a more effective ballclub in the present. Letting Smoltz walk in spite of a fair, incentive-laden contract, cutting Glavine in favor of a young stud. The Lowe deal was obviously an overpay, but it filled glaring need.
And in the case of KK, the earnest attempt to break into the NPB market and establish a foothold was admirable with good intentions, but I’m guessing neither party wants to share a bed again in the future.
Meh, chasing the playoffs without making it doesn't mean much to me
missing the post season by 5 games, or 15, to me is half a dozen in one hand, 6 in the other. (Which while we’re beating dead horses, was always my anti-Tex argument from day 1. We didn’t have the staff to make a World Series. So give up a load of prospects to miss the World Series, or don’t give up the prospects, and still miss the World Series, I’d rather keep the kids.)
Agreed though, both Lowe and KK had solid seasons initially, and it was after that first year in 2009 where things went sour. But I’ve always said, and will stop for this thread on this topic, that with the emerging young arms we had, not just the now developing Morton, and Hanson (plus Medlen among others), that our best choice that off season wasn’t long term signings in Lowe or KK, but was to go with any of the multiple veterans willing to accept one year deals, then reevaluating the following winter once we had a better idea how Hudson’s recovery went, how Javy produced on returning to the NL East, and how well Hanson, Medlen, etc made the transition up from AAA. Simply put, with Vazquez already on board, among the other above mentioned options on staff and in that FA market, I’ll never consider Lowe a “glaring need”. Some do, and I can see the reasons for that feeling, but it’s just not something I can go with.
got to wonder if KK could have carve out a role in the MLB as a reliever
like Koji Uehara, who was signed by the Orioles at the same offseason for similar amount of money
after not making it as a MLB SP, Uehara got converted to be a reliever and has enjoyed some success
KK’s stuff is equally good enough, but one has to wonder maybe it was pride or Bobby Cox’s refusal to use him when KK was demoted to the pen that killed KK’s big league career
Amidst this obvious story
Is this fine little nugget of a story:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/outfield-assist-of-another-kind
royhobbs - January 27, 2012
Nice find!
Don’t want him on my team but I still like the guy!
jraypritch - January 27, 2012
Wow
impressive.
Mr. Sanchez - January 27, 2012
Isn’t it about time we acquire Jeff Francoeur for Jason Heyward?
GumpBrave - January 27, 2012
Frenchy
Great guy, all I ever wanted was for him to take a BB once and awhile…
HansonManCrush - January 27, 2012 via mobile
Reply fail
Thank goodness ST is only a few weeks away I need it
HansonManCrush - January 27, 2012 via mobile
Enjoyed the link about Frenchy. I still think it was shameful the way they treated Kawakami.
I never saw any reason for his banishment to A-ball Miss. They had to pay his contract anyway, why did they have to humiliate him further. They could have traded him. He must have really pissed Bobby and Wren off. I’m pretty sure that none of the Japanese players will want to play for the Braves organization, KK was famous over there.
jimmontg - January 27, 2012
it's probably best
spending that kind of money for a japanese product rarely pans out…history has shown over and over these kinds of contracts aren’t worth it. keep developing talent in south america. agree with most though, not crazy about the braves relegating him to Miss.
toppleprone - January 27, 2012
Most multi-year free agent deals in general rarely pan out.
YakuzaFro - January 27, 2012
I honestly felt badly for KK. He actually had a fairly decent season in 2009, and banishing him to the minors probably broke him. I hope nothing but the best for him back with his old club.
John Holton - January 27, 2012
I can’t help but wonder if there’s some details concerning the whole KK situation that we don’t know or will ever know. How he was handled just seems alittle mysterious. That being said, Conspiracy Theory is one of my favorite movies.
adc62 - January 27, 2012
Agreed...
he was used, and solid, in a relief role the year before when Hudson came back. Something almost had to happen in the meeting where he got demoted on JJ’s return two years ago.
Mr. Sanchez - January 27, 2012
I suspect the same thing
I think it would be nice if another Japanese pitcher comes in against us and totally shuts us down. There was a nice SI photo string on the 54 or so Japanese players who have come over, beginning in the 1950’s in SF. Nothing outstandingly bad . Of course I am biased as I was in LA when Nomo was there and watched him pitch against us. As another poster has mentioned KK has had a few killer games both good and bad….Still, something Bobby and KK that really rubbed him the wrong way. I think Bobby prefers the Step-and-Fetchit kind of inscrutable Asian. But that is the breaks of life…I suppose better than the owner calling you a “fat toad” to the media.
KomaGawa - January 28, 2012
Bahahahaha
Yeah, that’s why Kenshin was throwing up 6+ ERAs below A ball and and Lowe was starting in Atlanta.
The Kawakami apologists play their roles right to the final writeup.
ATLandUNC - January 27, 2012
I mean, or we could look at what they both did at the MLB level…
justincredubil02 - January 27, 2012
Obligatory...
Mr. Sanchez - January 27, 2012
Damn it, that said # 3 starter...
how did it end up being 1.?
Mr. Sanchez - January 27, 2012
Yes, because his decent 2009 season is relevant 3 years later.
Kenshin Kawakami had an 8.41 ERA with a 1.71 WHIP in AA 2011
Money well wasted.
ATLandUNC - January 27, 2012
If my club took a big steaming shit on me...
And flushed me into AA-ball, I probably wouldn’t have performed very well either. Way to look at things from another perspective, Tarheel.
Chopaholic - January 28, 2012
Or maybe
He got “flushed” to AA because he couldn’t top 86 on the radar anymore and he gave up 5+ ER in 3 of his final 6 appearances in Atlanta.
He had a chance, and he went from mediocre to awful. He was sent to the minors and he only got worse. Nothing to feel cry over.
ATLandUNC - January 28, 2012
Could you provide a link to someone who said he “couldn’t top 86?”
In his last two appearances in 2010 his average fastball was 90.8 mph.
In 2011 he may very well have been done. Even if that’s true, his MLB stats weren’t all that different from Lowe’s, just as Gondee said.106 ERA-, 104 FIP- vs. Lowe’s 116 ERA-, 98 FIP-.
YakuzaFro - January 28, 2012
Get out of here with your facts that prove his point wrong!!!
justincredubil02 - January 28, 2012
Or, you know
we could look at what both of them did for their entire careers in Atlanta….but that would actually go against the point you are trying to make, so I can understand why you are using only his AA stats after being banished from the Big Leagues.
justincredubil02 - January 28, 2012
derp
YakuzaFro - January 27, 2012
Astute commentary, as always.
ATLandUNC - January 28, 2012
It's not that so much of us are apologists
Take Kawakami’s name out of the equation, and just think back to how many guys in the past have ended up in Bobby’s doghouse, for reasons nobody will ever know. As much as many of us love Bobby Cox from an emotional standpoint, the guy wasn’t without flaws, and everyone knew he held grudges or that once you lost Bobby’s trust, it was almost always gone forever.
I’ll agree with you that the overall picture was a wash of a deal, and I agree with you that he did have his chance, and that he in fact had several. The numbers don’t lie. But most of them reeked of the unholy small sample sizes and he continuously kept getting banished to worse conditions before he could work anything out.
My biggest objections were that the Braves had opportunities to recoup something from him, and didn’t, and for an organization that lauds itself as one of class and integrity, they certainly let one man’s Major League career end with humiliation and without any chance to redeem any dignity.
royhobbs - January 28, 2012
Your comment brings me back to a train of thought I’ve had with the KK situation from the beginning. The Braves are known for being an upright organization, doing things The Braves Way. Why would they have a sudden change of character face in dealing with KK? It seems out of character for the Braves organization to behave like this which makes me wonder what role KK played in how he was treated. As I stated above, the whole situation strikes me as odd.
adc62 - January 28, 2012
While he definitely deserved to be in the minors, even I was really perplexed by him getting pushed down to rookie ball near the end of the year.
I mean, here’s a 35 year old Japanese pitching veteran surrounded by a bunch of 17 year old latin american kids and highschool draftees. Couldn’t have been an enjoyable stay.
ATLandUNC - January 28, 2012
As an observer, this is all I can figure out. I could be wrong here, but this is just how things seem to me as a student of human nature.
First of all, it’s clear that Cox really had it in for KK in his 2nd season and eventually gave up on the guy. It was reported that KK refused to go to Gwinnett the previous year and it just may have been some kind of personality clash or KK may just be an enormous douchebag, but something definitely happened and Cox essentially said “That’s it. This guy is never pitching for me again unless it’s a blowout or injury situation”.
The second thing is that whatever personal issues Cox had with KK, Wren apparently had his own issues with him. When it became apparent that Wren’s idiotic plan to trade KK and 100% of his salary was going to fail, rather than trade him for something and eat between 4 and 5 million of salary it apparently made more sense for Wren’s little personal vengeance show to stuff KK in Mississippi for the season in an attempt to get him to walk away from his contract and go back to Japan. It failed. I think it says a lot of really bad things about Wren that he would even resort to this kind of petty thing just to stick it to one player, especially on a team like the Braves where they count pennies. KK may be no saint here and if we could talk to the players for all I know we might find out that he had a sense of entitlement that pissed everybody off, but as a GM I think that Wren should be above displays of petty revenge against a player. He wasn’t. And as a result I question Wren’s fitness for his job.
The Braves are no longer an “upright organization” as adc62 says and they haven’t been for years. The Smoltz and Glavine situations were absolutely ridiculous. Not to digress and I’m not going to argue that it was a huge mistake to get rid of both of them, but the way in which both situations were handled was completely and utterly classless. Glavine in particular has room to complain (which he never has) in that he was signed to a contract that the Braves never intended to honor and released when it became clear that they were going to have to honor it. To me the whole KK debacle in 2011 was just more typical low class Wren bs which he’s been doing for years.
Zontar - January 30, 2012
In the end
There’s a lot to the story that we’ll probably never know the whole stories of. I imagine between KK and Kei Igawa, both have some horror stories of American baseball, and unless they do some sort of tell-alls in Japan, we’ll never know the whole story from their sides, and the organizations sure as hell won’t come clean.
From what I can gather, most conflicts are simply at their cores, cultural differences that neither side seemed willing to bend and adapt with. Like many NPB pitchers, KK was a nibbler, and frankly that doesn’t always work in MLB. No matter the coaching and McDowell’s influence, nothing really could break KK from returning to it, and I imagine the language barrier made it more frustrating for both sides. Instead of more patience, it seemed like it turned into extradition out of ultimately exasperation.
In regards to Wren and the possibility of sending him back to Japan, again, another what seems to me, a cultural difference. I distinctly remember KK not wanting to go back to Japan via trade, because it simply meant failure. I may be being a little melodramatic here, but remember KK comes from a culture where historically, emperors and nobles killed themselves rather than succumb to failure. By nixing this deal, he essentially put cultural beliefs over the opportunity to leave on a positive note and probably pissed off the Braves to where they sent him to whatever low minor level had roster space, where I agree with you, they tried to make him walk and void the remaining financial obligation, which didn’t work.
These are all conjectures, and I don’t expect them to be taken seriously, but we’re just discussing theoreticals anyway.
But again, I agree with you in the astute assertion that the Braves aren’t as upright and classy as the rose-colored glasses a lot of us wear have them out to be. I’m not saying the team is dirty, and I certainly hope they’re not doing stuff like finagling tax loopholes (ahem, Marlins) or constantly creating front office stirs (Red Sox), but there is a definitely a more cut-throat business approach to the team’s management that wasn’t so much the norm with JS and Bobby at the helm. I can’t say I dislike it, but I’m also not ignoring its presence. Smoltz and Glavine may have “earned rights” to leave on their own terms, but ultimately no one individual should supersede the team; given the fact that Smoltz’s last year was bad, and Glavine would have been blocking Tommy Hanson, neither was the wrong decision. Both situations could have been handled better, from both sides, but all’s in the past now. The KK debacle was a battle of dueling middle fingers, that could probably have been better handled with some better communication and cultural understanding, but KK sticking it out in the minors and going back to Japan with his last $6.7M seemed to have gotten the last laugh.
royhobbs - January 30, 2012
While we're in the past, for a moment if you will
the Glavine thing could have easily been alleviated by not signing Lowe or Kawakami, at which point both messes are avoided. We had the rotation depth to get by until Glavine was healthy, or Hanson “ready” (which he was for all except service time I assume). I’d have really liked to have seen if Glavine could have junkballed and slow pitched his way as a 40+ arm ala Jamie Moyer. And then there’s Charlie Morton who could have gotten one more opportunity to show his stuff in Atlanta, joining the already acquired Javy Vazquez, Jair Jurrjens, Derek Lowe (or another FA signing), along with whoever won the remaining gigs in Glavine and young arms Kris Medlen, Jojo Reyes, Morton, Hanson, etc in the rotation.
Mr. Sanchez - January 30, 2012
Such may have been the case
But with JoJo and Morton likely filling the two vacancies until the arrivals of Tom and Tommy, I would’ve been willing to bet the Braves don’t have a playoff chase like they did in 2009. Lest we forget, both Lowe and KK weren’t nearly as bad as they were in 2009 as they were in 2011, combining for +4.3 WAR.
It’s wasn’t and isn’t the most storybook and prettiest methods of running a ballclub, but Wren has shown willingness to put the emotional history in the backseat for attempting to construct a more effective ballclub in the present. Letting Smoltz walk in spite of a fair, incentive-laden contract, cutting Glavine in favor of a young stud. The Lowe deal was obviously an overpay, but it filled glaring need.
And in the case of KK, the earnest attempt to break into the NPB market and establish a foothold was admirable with good intentions, but I’m guessing neither party wants to share a bed again in the future.
royhobbs - January 30, 2012
Meh, chasing the playoffs without making it doesn't mean much to me
missing the post season by 5 games, or 15, to me is half a dozen in one hand, 6 in the other. (Which while we’re beating dead horses, was always my anti-Tex argument from day 1. We didn’t have the staff to make a World Series. So give up a load of prospects to miss the World Series, or don’t give up the prospects, and still miss the World Series, I’d rather keep the kids.)
Agreed though, both Lowe and KK had solid seasons initially, and it was after that first year in 2009 where things went sour. But I’ve always said, and will stop for this thread on this topic, that with the emerging young arms we had, not just the now developing Morton, and Hanson (plus Medlen among others), that our best choice that off season wasn’t long term signings in Lowe or KK, but was to go with any of the multiple veterans willing to accept one year deals, then reevaluating the following winter once we had a better idea how Hudson’s recovery went, how Javy produced on returning to the NL East, and how well Hanson, Medlen, etc made the transition up from AAA. Simply put, with Vazquez already on board, among the other above mentioned options on staff and in that FA market, I’ll never consider Lowe a “glaring need”. Some do, and I can see the reasons for that feeling, but it’s just not something I can go with.
Mr. Sanchez - January 30, 2012
best memory of ol' KK
the game he pitched against the Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays. shut them out.
jrodisjust2cool - January 27, 2012
My favorite
is the no-hitter he had going in Yankee Stadium (granted, it was only through three innings) until he got hit in the head with a liner.
He was never the same after that.
justincredubil02 - January 28, 2012
That was in Atlanta
Get it right, n00b
royhobbs - January 28, 2012
Dangit. That takes away from the awesomeness.
justincredubil02 - January 28, 2012
got to wonder if KK could have carve out a role in the MLB as a reliever
like Koji Uehara, who was signed by the Orioles at the same offseason for similar amount of money
after not making it as a MLB SP, Uehara got converted to be a reliever and has enjoyed some success
KK’s stuff is equally good enough, but one has to wonder maybe it was pride or Bobby Cox’s refusal to use him when KK was demoted to the pen that killed KK’s big league career
LEastCoastBears - January 27, 2012
I still
think the Atlanta Braves treated him like sh*t.
Jareth Cutestory - January 28, 2012
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