Blue Jays agree to send Matt Hague to Hanshin Tigers

[Skin Blues]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-agree-to-send-matt-hague-to-hanshin-tigers/

We are selling an above league-average hitter for about half the cost of the league minimum salary. wow. I understand his AAA numbers won't necessarily translate to MLB, but this seems incredibly short-sighted. Do we really need a 40 man spot that badly??

[Randle McMurphy]

Add 300K to the David Price collection plate.

[TBRunGood]

I dislike this a lot, loved Hague. Did he really have no value to any MLB team that they couldn't gotten at least a PTBNL?

This 300k better go to someone good.

[Randle McMurphy]

I dislike this a lot, loved Hague. Did he really have no value to any MLB team?

This 300k better go to someone good.

30 year old minor league journeymen 1Bs don't tend to be worth very much, I'm afraid.

[Santoki]

I dislike this a lot, loved Hague. Did he really have no value to any MLB team?

This 300k better go to someone good.

30 year old minor league journeymen 1Bs don't tend to be worth very much, I'm afraid.

And then there's the curious case of Chris Colabello.

But in all seriousness, he probably didn't want to play out his last couple of good years in the minors or shuttling back and forth with another team. Instead he'll make more money out there and probably be a top player while getting the life experience of living abroad. Perhaps the Jays granted him that wish. I'm okay with that although I would have preferred to keep him for emergency depth at 3rd base. But if anything happened to Donaldson I'd imagine Matt Hague wouldn't be the long-term solution and he is clearly blocked at 1B.

[Natural11]

We're an AL team that's 4 deep at 1B if you count Jose who will have to move there eventually. Low impact move.

[Steelo Green]

Add 300K to the David Price collection plate.

Don't you mean Jeff Samardzija..

[Randle McMurphy]

Add 300K to the David Price collection plate.

Don't you mean Jeff Samardzija..

[bluerap23]

Probably something he and his agent requested. He is probably going to get PAID in Japan. Hopefully there is some agreement that Toronto will get first crack at him when he returns to MLB. We don't need him this year, but may if EE and JB are gone after this season.

This also opens a spot for Rowdy in AAA.

[CPT]

Do they retain his MLB rights, or is that something that only happens going from KBO/NPB to MLB and not the other way around?

[C Court]

This has to be a favour to the player and his agent whose career opportunities are dwindling. He has an opportunity to play everyday and make some decent coin over the next few years. The Jays would look real bad if they stood in his way.

[UneducatedFan86]

This has to be a favour to the player and his agent whose career opportunities are dwindling. He has an opportunity to play everyday and make some decent coin over the next few years. The Jays would look real bad if they stood in his way.

From what I read, this is exactly it. He had a major offer from a Korean team last year, but the Blue Jays wouldn't allow him to sign it.

The guy is 30 years old, just got married and there isn't any guarantee that he'd even play for us next year. There are some speculation that he's likely to get paid over 1mil over there. Plus a lot of these foreign players get everything paid for them.

This is just them doing him a favor and getting some cash back for it.

[North_of_Border]

Colabelo was in the same situation last offseason. He had a big offer from Japan or Korea but decided to take his shot in the MLB. Might have been his last shot at his age. Lucky for the Jays he exceeded expectations. Took a big risk though.

Cant blame Hague for taking the job security. Not a huge loss for Toronto though. Good luck to him.

[IMAN5]

I liked what he brought at the end of the season but he wasn't key to our playoff run. Best of luck to him.