The Okada feud

Recently things have not been well in Tigersland. Okada as the coach of Orix has been making plays for several Tigers players. He expressed interest and now has focused his attentions on Yano. As Johjima is going to be Tigers No. 1 catcher Yano is no longer so essential. Regular readers of this blog will know I favour him being put out to grass as a coach or whatever with Kanoh taking his place. Complicating the matter is that Tigers management seem to want to retain him whilst reducing his salary significantly (by all accounts the proposed reduction is massive) due to a poor performance. One can see the mess they got themselves into with the Johjima signing becoming more prominent. Shimoyanagi has also weighed in saying he prefers pitching to Yano even though he is better with Kanoh. Okada would like to arrange a trade and make Yano the number one Orix catcher. This would have milleage in that Tigers might well be able to pick up one or two of the rather useful young Orix pitchers. However, at the moment the management are criticising Okada for his approaches. It would make sense to trade Yano and give Kanoh more playing time as Johjima will need the odd rest.

I favour the idea of a trade...we could definetely use a pitcher in exchange for Yano!

Yano's new salary has been announced and as previously stated the reduction is massive. He goes from 210 million yen to 70 million yen - a 140 million yen drop. Maybe the Orix option might be better paid after all.