Bye-bye Juan

I have to admit that I am not sad to see Juan Rincon go after he was assigned yesterday. Today he declined assignment so the Twins have 10 days to trade him or release him. I know that he was a good pitcher for us in the past, but I am admittedly an emotional supporter of players, and he just never cut it as far as I am concerned. If I don't feel good about them, they will never rate with me no matter how good they are for the team. I am, however, easy to turn. Just show motivation, dedication and an absolute love of what you are doing, and I can forgive a lot. For some reason that I cannot put my finger (no jokes people) on, I have never been a huge Rincon fan. Maybe because every game (literally) that I went to that Juan pitched in, we ended up losing because of his pitching. Hard to watch time after time... Pitchers struggle from time to time, I am not naive enough to believe otherwise. It just seemed to be more than that for him last year. Then I started to notice a drop in excitement from him with each passing failure. Sort of a downward spiral, I think. Could he have turned it around eventually? My hope for him is that he can, even if it is for another team.

So the assignment made me curious on how the whole contract part works. (Newbie - remember?) So, for those like me who don't know - here is the scoop.

Juan's twelve years on the teams earns him the designation as a veteran. Only five years are required to be deemed a veteran. Being a veteran gives you a few extra rights. So, when he was assigned to the Rochester AAA he had the right as a veteran to reject the assignment, which he did today. Had he been with the team less than 5 years, he could have been sent down once during his career without his permission. Since Juan chose not to go to Rochester, the Twins have 10 days to try to trade him to limit the financial burden. If they trade him to a team for a smaller contract, they will have to make up the difference. However, if they cannot trade him, they will pay the full remainder of the contract. So I guess we hope he gets traded.

There has been a lot of discussion about carrying 13 vs 12 pitchers. I am in a way worried by the fact that our pitching has been inconsistent at best and having one more pitcher available could help during one of the horribly out of control games. However, I like Buscher, so we will have to see if this is the spark that ignites the team.

Good luck to you Juan!