Satoru Komiyama

I remembered seeing something in Nikkan Sports recently, but couldn't find it in my stack of newspapers. Google found it in seconds: [Link].

Komiyama-rojin (lordless Samurai), after being released by the Mets, isn't getting any offerings here in Japan. Yokohama was apparently still sore about him leaving them for the Mets, and wouldn't give him an offer.

But what's preventing other Japanese teams from picking him up is that Yokohama still has rights to 1.75-oku (175,000,000) yen compensation for Komiyama as a free agent should another Japanese team try to pick him up. The market just won't bear that price. So unless Yokohama sees it in their hearts to release him, Komiyama will be spending most of his time in the announcers' booth this next season.

Komiyama says that he doesn't want to quit, but until he gets an offer, there's nothing he can do. His agent is currently waiting to see if any Major League teams will offer anything, since it's unlikely that any Japanese teams will.

Not good news at all. Komiyama deserves a chance to continue to play. He did well with Yokohama, so I'm rather disappointed that they appear to be punishing him now. That just, well, isn't nice.

I thought Lotte was crewel cutting Komiyama instead of letting him go as a free agent. The market was certainly better back then, and Komiyama wasn't a senryoku-gai player. But now free agency is snipping at him, preventing him from getting any offers at all domestically. If Yokohama doesn't want him, and won't make him an offer, let him go!

Thanks for the great information!

But this year I got to watch him on NHK Sunday Sports News. He is now a news writer!

I recently saw Komiyama on NHK English on one of the local cable stations here. He was reporting about Hanshin clinching the pennant, and Matsui getting his first triple in the MLB, or something to that effect. Anyhow, I'm not to sure if this is a permanent type thing as the regular sports guy (his name escapes me) was back on Monday.