MLB: Fiasco! Rangers put Japanese pitcher on assignment for whom he invested 7.5 million dollars

The Texas Rangers they announced that the right Kohei Arihara has been designated for assignment. The measure opens a place on the poster for Mike Foltynewicz, who returns to action after being reinstated from the COVID-19-related injury list.

Arihara was the Rangers’ biggest free agent expense in the 2020-21 offseason, as Texas spent a total of $ 7.44MM to get the right on a two-year contract. $ 1.24MM of that money went towards a posting fee at the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (Arihara’s NPB club), while Arihara himself received $ 6.2MM in salary, $ 3.6MM this season and $ 2.4MM in 2022 :

Now, it all seems like some kind of sunk cost to the Rangers, as it seems pretty unlikely that another team would absorb that cost by claiming Arihara from the Waivers. If Arihara signed elsewhere on a minor league contract, a new team would only owe him the prorated portion of a minimum wage, leaving Texas on the hook for the rest of the money.

The 29-year-old Arihara started his MLB career impressively, posting a 2.21 ERA in his first four starts and 20 1/3 innings. However, he struggled a lot in his next three starts due to what was ultimately revealed to be the development of an aneurysm in his pitching shoulder.

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Arihara underwent surgery to remove that aneurysm in May and did not return to the Rangers until September, posting a 6.75 ERA in the 12 innings after Arihara’s surgery.

Rafael Martinez

I am fond of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and in general all of Mexican baseball. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover major events such as the Caribbean Series, LMB All Star, LMP (uninterrupted since 2009), signings of important players. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, albeit as a fan. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even an NBA friendly 10 years ago, but I carry baseball in my veins. Bachelor of Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I came to El Debate as a journalist reporter and it was almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to the radio providing my services in Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and after a few days, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

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