Tatsuro Hirooka, who as general manager of the Lotte Marines in 1995, hired Bobby Valentine, and then fired him when he did well, arguing that Valentine had cost the rag-tag team he inherited the pennant, on Monday sharpened his attack on his former club and pitcher Roki Sasaki.
Much of the criticism of the Marines has been leveled at the club for posting a player who can only earn them a few million dollars at most in transfer fees, when two years from now could earn them 20 to 30 times that much as a 25-year-old. But Hirooka isn’t going that route.
“There is nothing one can do about the existence of the posting system rules,” Hirooka said. “It’s the team’s decision to make. But it just seems that the team is once more doing its all to baby the selfish Sasaki.”
Roki Sasaki is leaving the building, or rather what the Lotte Marines portrayed Saturday as a shining city on a hill of human kindness.
The Lotte Marines announced that they will post the hard-throwing right-handed pitcher two years before it makes financial sense for the team to do so, out of the kindness of their hearts.
It almost brings a tear to your eye.
Speaking to reporters a few hours after the team announced the news on its website, senior executive Naoki Matsumoto said the decision was based purely on the sincere desire to go to MLB that Sasaki had expressed in his five years with the team.
Asked bluntly if Sasaki had a prior agreement to be posted with the team from when he turned pro in 2019, Matsumoto said no such agreement existed.
