Friday, October 31, 2014

Red Sox Ink Koji To Two-Year, $18 Million Deal

(Exclusive FenwayNation Photo)
Hopefully, this deal won't be remembered for the day we all learned about it—Halloween. The Red Sox took a big gamble on 40-year-old closer Koji Uehara, signing the free-agent to a two-year, $18 million deal. This more than doubles his 2014 salary of $4.5 million. Uehara was—of course—lights out in 2013, but had some pretty serious struggles at various points in 2014. Nevertheless, Boston is clearly banking on the continuance of his overall record in Carmine Hose—a 1.75 ERA over 138.2 innings. GM Ben Cherington talked about the importance of the early signing of Koji, "...as we get into free agency, there will be a lot of other stuff to do." Indeed.