Masahiro Tanaka spoke about his reasons for coming back to play in Japan, which touched on a few things that weren’t mentioned when he made the announcement:
- His primary concern was the best interest of his family. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the way he left the States in March 2020. Perhaps anti-Asian incidents weren’t a big issue. He didn’t say. But if it were my family, and I had a choice, I might choose to be where I thought my kids would be safer.
- The offers he received from major league teams were much better than those reported in the media. So it was, as expected, less about being lowballed by MLB and more about not being paid enough to overcome his other concerns.
- He’d never considered playing in the States until 2012 when he said he was approached by MLB teams, although more likely it was people telling him that scouts were interested in them. Sometimes scouts will have intermediaries tell the players that U.S. teams are interested in them.
