Wada, Kokubo sign, but not all roses with contract negotiations

There has been good news and bad news on the salary front for the Hawks. First, the good news. Hiroki Kokubo re-signed with the Hawks for a 2011 salary of 300 million yen (no change, $3.6 million) while Tsuyoshi Wada got a large raise to 330 million yen ($3.93 million).

However, not all was well on the SoftBank front. Toshiya Sugiuchi, who has opposed the new salary procedures at every turn, revealed that chief of player development Itaru Kobayashi, who is the head negotiator, pulled out an audio recorder at Sugiuchi's negotiations, which made an already-miffed Sugiuchi even more angry.

In addition, Hiroshi Shibahara was quoted as saying, "He [Kobayashi] was leafing through a player directory during our negotiations. I even asked what he was doing and whether or not he had to do that now. This isn't the type of environment negotiations should take place in." It didn't help that Shibahara was offered a large reduction in his salary (down 78 million to 42 million yen). Needless to say, both players but their respective offers on hold.

Sugiuchi has been stewing on the new contract proposals for quite a while, and the audio recorder incident has only proven to make things worse. No terms of deals have been disclosed on the Hawks' lefty ace, but he has said before that he's looking for Darvish money. He won't (and shouldn't) get that much, not after he continually choked in big games this year, especially in the playoffs. Still, he is the ace of this team, and they need him.

Sugiuchi wants Darvish money, huh? Well, let's compare them.

           W   L    W%    ERA  WHIP  QS  SO   OBP   SLG  BB/9   K/9   HR/9
Sugiuchi  16   7   .696  3.55  1.25  17   5  .310  .356  2.96  10.74  0.59
Darvish   12   8   .600  1.78  1.01  21   2  .268  .273  2.09   9.89  0.22

They each have their pluses and minuses. Darvish played in one less game than Sugiuchi, yet was more dominant in ERA and less so in wins. Sugiuchi had a better strike out rate, but walked batters more often. Sugiuchi was also more than 2.5 times more susceptible to the long ball than Darvish. Overall, Darvish does appear to have been the more dominant, despite the mixed results.

Nonetheless, I'm sure that this whole feud will be worked out before Spring training starts.