[Ardaya] Dodgers sold the recently-DFA’d Ryan Ward to the NPB’s Chunichi Dragons.
…they can do that?
I would assume it requires the player approval but keeps him on his current contract.
i just remember there infamously being a prank where the phillies told a player he was being traded to japan, only to reveal it was just a joke
so its hilariously dystopian if it actually is possible
The plot of Mr Baseball
This one?
https://youtu.be/RIak9GUd19c?is=qrQqneGRM5yQ8hFf
Team- “You’re being traded”
Kendrick- “What?!”
Team- “To Japan”
Kendrick- “SWEEEEET”
Team- “Just kidding, you’re staying in Philly”
Kendrick- “……. damnit”
Kyle Kendricks for Kobiyashi
Didn’t that dude fire his agent for that?
Yeah, he was really upset by the fact that his agent was in on it and it resulted in him doing an interview in front of the media about it before he was told that it was a prank.
So does this work like a transfer then?
Honestly I don’t know why you wouldn’t agree to it unless you just want to get an early start on the offseason. Minor league season is pretty much over so you get to play professionally for a few more weeks and you get to do it in a cool new place. I’d take it in stride and think it was a fun experience
Moving to a country where you don’t speak the language is enough of an explanation. I understand there are factors that would lead most people to get over it but I also understand that alone being enough.
You are getting flak for this. But if you are approaching 30 years of age as a career minor leaguer, playing in the NPB is a pretty good alternative.
Going from OKC to Japan would be jarring, though.
His contract is void and he would have signed a new contract with Chunichi Dragons
Human trafficking.
SLAVERY!
In sports, yes and happens all the time. It’s the transfer market in Europe. In American sports, yes but rare.
Kevin Millar was actually sold to the Dragons by the Marlins and Red Sox claimed him off waivers. The Dragons released him back, the Marlins refunded Chunichi, and the Red Sox acquired Millar for a cash payment in mid-February 2003, setting the stage for his eventual 2004 World Series run with Boston. There is an unwritten rule between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball regarding respecting existing overseas agreements.
Teams can but it is slightly discouraged.
Players have to agree to soccer transfers
I’m sure Ward had to agree to this as well
Only if your team logos look similar
[deleted]
“You’ve been traded…”
“Oh sweet, should be a good opportunity to get back to the majors”
“…to Japan”
“Ah”
“Actually, you’ve been sold.”
“Oh…is that…uh…”
“I thought they outlawed that”
“They did. But you agreed to it. It’s in your contract”
“Are you aware of the current administration?”
Dennis Schroder crash out coming in 3… 2…
Well nevertheless
honestly seems like a cool move for Ward?
He’ll get more playtime, which I assume he wanted
Forget playing time he might win MVP over there lol. This is a sweet deal for him.
It’s not like that in NPB anymore (it’s arguable if it ever was). Bobby Dalbec and Jeter Downs both had more MLB run than Ward and neither exactly lit the league on fire this year. It’s more common to see American pitchers dominate
Yep, If you know the majors aren’t an option because of your age. Playing in packed NPB stadiums is the best outcome possible.
He’s gonna absolutely mash overseas I think
I fucking LOVE when an older AAAA guy overseas and mashes. I don’t know why but it brings me great joy
Randy Bass was the original such guy. 4A player in the US; got sent to the Hanshin Tigers, figured it out, became perhaps the most beloved superstar in that team’s history.
Tuffy Rhodes did the same with the crosstown Kintetsu Buffaloes a decade and a half later.
Fantastic players who didn’t get a leash long enough in the majors, but finally blossomed in Japan. Tuffy even stayed long enough that he stopped counting against the limit on foreign players; after 10 years he was treated as a domestic player.
get ready to learn japanese buddy
There are worse languages to have to learn.
uuhhh, not many? The US state department put out a guideline for how difficult languages are for anglophones to learn:
The School of Language Studies provides training in over 70 languages. Category I: Languages closely related to English. Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish Category II: Languages that take a little longer to master than Category I languages. German, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili Category III: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English. Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Czech, Dari, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kazakh, Khmer, Kurdish, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Tagalog, Tajiki, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese Category IV: Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
The School of Language Studies provides training in over 70 languages.
Category I: Languages closely related to English.
Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish
Category II: Languages that take a little longer to master than Category I languages.
German, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili
Category III: Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English.
Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Czech, Dari, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, Georgian, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kazakh, Khmer, Kurdish, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Tagalog, Tajiki, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese
Category IV: Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers.
Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Iunno, Kanji has been giving me a headache for years…
i gave up tryna learn kanji. i can speak basic conversational Japanese and that’s good enough for me. i still can’t read menus written in Japanese but oh well.
Same lol. I speak enough to converse about everyday activities and basic sports stuff for work. But if I need to read kanji I’m still lost.
which ones?
Ha. Haha, even.
One of those guys that seemed cool when he got his call up but was never given another opportunity but then you see JDP and you go yea that makes sense
de Paula at the plate taking pitches is top tier. Crazy excited for that kid.
Creative way of balancing the insurance books, I’ll give them that
Dodgers really found a creative way to turn a roster move into an international transaction.
^this is a bot comment
Reminds me of what happened with Will Craig, the Pirates 1B from the infamous Javy Baez rundown.
That game was on May 27th, he was DFA’d on June 4th, sent to Indy on June 9th, and then ultimately picked up by the Kiwoom Heroes on July 13th.
THEY SOLD HIM?!?
Dodgers, human traffickers confirmed
There wasn’t a single team willing to take a flyer on this guy? That’s kinda surprising to me considering how solid his MiLB track record is especially his stats in triple AAA
He’s got one skill. And the PCL is a hitter’s league. I think he’ll do well in Japan, so good for him.
It’s not the first time other teams have passed on him he was unprotected from the rule 5 draft 2 years back and didn’t get picked up
I’m honestly not. His stats were borderline replacement level when he had a brief period at the MLB level this season and his AAA stats this year were pretty tepid compared to prior years. He’s at best an AAAA player, but he should be good in NPB I think.
Yeah there was a documentary I watched somewhere years ago where they were interviewing an agent and he knew what type of players NPB teams look for and he works with the teams to get in touch with those players. Usually older AAAA types that have had a lot of time in the minors.
Glad he accepted assignment to our other farm system.
Ward could probably put on a Dodgers uniform and nobody would even notice.
Get ready to learn Japanese buddy
Seems like a good move. He’s 28, seems to profile as a classic AAAA guy, and Japanese teams need boppers…and this guy can hit ‘em.
Plus, US players typically sign for ~$1 million a year, so even if it’s less than that, it’s still possibly more than the MLB minimum and a hell of a lot more than he gets in OKC
Dear teacher,
Chunichi keeps reading over my shoulder and stealing my ideas.
Please make them stop or give me a job.
Sincerely,
u/cynikles
Thought for sure he could get a chance with a team out of the mix. Ward should be a leauge average hitter with regular playing time against RHP
He could come to the Mariners and hit .100 guaranteed
When he’s playing baseball next year and everyone in the US is sitting on their ass through the lockout, he’ll be the one laughing.
That’s allowed? I’d be interested in knowing how much cash they sold him for
My dream of baseball players being bought and sold and put on loan like in soccer is becoming a reality.
This could be the start to making my promotion/relegation OOTP saves a reality!
“Get ready to learn Japanese Buddy.”
Shit I didn’t know we were still allowed to buy and sell people; baseball really is old fashioned.
I guess when a certain asshole says they want to make us great again, this is what they mean.
Please don’t make my joke a political statement. That’s not what it was meant as.
I mean, slavery was always political.
It was never about politics, it was about economy. Slavery proliferated because it was profitable, not political.
Saw a documentary about this in the ‘90s.
I had no idea you could sell someone to another league, unless it’s something like he cleared waivers and they asked the Dodgers if they could buy his contract or something
is this slavery?
Is he Tom Selleck?
He should see how long he can get away with wearing his Dodgers uniform on the field, given the Dragons copied the Dodgers styling.
Further confirms NPB is indeed the Dodgers farm system/s
Shocked nobody took a flier on him. He’s gonna absolutely rake in JPN
I wonder if the Dodgers are gonna take a player or two from the Dragons for cash? Chunichi are so broke right now.
I hope he has to ok this before it happens. It would suck if he had to uproot his family and move a different country without any say.
similar uniforms at least
We take your league MVPs and now gift you one right back! Friedman probably during his ChatGPT translated texts
Second player to do so after Kyle Kendrick
Oh. Interesting. Hopefully he gets a better shot at playing. He deserves that at the very least.
I’m shocked. Is his potential really so bad that no other major league team would give him a chance?
I… Don’t know what this means
I was hoping we’d get to use Ward for the PCL championship series :(
I feel like he deserves it because he’s OKC’s franchise goat
Regardless I wasn’t exactly sure how he was suppose to get playing time last season. We have Ehrhard, Sirota, Tibbs, Chris Newell, Matt Gorski, and Alek Thomas in AAA. Even with Ward gone that’s two odd men out.
There’s probably a loophole where now the dodgers can have any player from that team join them in the playoffs. Well done
Great, now the Dodgers are now stocking up the Japanese team that looks exactly like them. We’re all globally fucked.
Need a graphic that says “SOLD” at the bottom.
OH, but when John Coppolella buys some kid’s cousin a car it’s “human trafficking”
He got sent to the shadow realm
I’m assuming what actually happened was that, given that he had 2 option years remaining and no clear path to the majors, a deal was worked out between Ward, the Dragons, and the Dodgers where rather than assigning him to the miners, the Dragons agreed to pay the Dodgers to release him from his minor league contract and make him a free agent so he could sign with them immediately.
This is literally the plot to the movie Mr. Baseball with Tom Selleck. Only difference is he played for the Yankees.
America I thought we were past this.
What did we say about selling people??