“Toronto shouldn’t have calculated his expectations yet.”
Yusei Kikuchi (32, Toronto Blue Jays) shows off his good condition in the demonstration game. Total of 2 games, 4 innings, 1 hit, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts, no runs, zero ERA. He played a total of 4 innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates on the 26th of last month and the Baltimore Orioles on the 2nd, allowing only two batters to get on base.
But the American press still doesn’t believe in Kikuchi. Is it because the slump in the first season of the 3-year, $36 million (approximately 46.8 billion won) contract was too intense? Kikuchi had an average ERA of 5.19 with 6 wins, 7 losses and 1 save in 32 games in the 2022 season. He even suffered the humiliation of being dropped from the starting lineup mid-season. 먹튀검증
21 wins, 31 losses, 1 save in 102 major league games, ERA 5.02. Looking at him soberly, he hasn’t made an impact since joining the Seattle Mariners in 2019. The WBC Japan national team also naturally turned away from Kikuchi.
Bleacher Report selected the worst contracts of 30 major league clubs on the 6th (hereinafter Korean time). Toronto is definitely Kikuchi. A $36 million contract is not a very big deal in the major leagues, where contracts of more than $100 million are numerous. But it’s not even a small deal.
Bleacher Report said, “Toronto gave Kikuchi $36 million after finishing the 2021 season in Seattle. It was reminiscent of the ERA in the 5-point range posted in 2019 (ERA 5.46) and 2020 (ERA 5.17). Imagine again that your ERA falls above the 5-point range. It could be encouraging to look really good this spring, but Toronto shouldn’t be counting the expectations out of him just yet.”
On the other hand, Bleacher Report said of Jose Berrios, who fell short of expectations in his first season after signing a 7-year, $131 million extension, “It wasn’t really impressive, but at least Toronto got 172 innings from Berrios. And at 28, he’s too young to assume that last year was the beginning of the end.”
