Disuke Matsuzaka released by Cleveland Indians



When Disuke Matsuzaka, from here on in to be referred to as Dice-K, arrived in Boston in 2007 his expectations were sky high. People expected the "gyro" ball pitcher from Japan to be the Japanese version of Pedro Martinez from the Dominican Republic. The $100 million price tag, $50 for the rights to talk to him and $50 million over a 5 year deal made Dice-K the most expensive Japanese player to ever play for a major league team. Dice-K's first two seasons with the Boston Red Sox was the best of his career in America compiling a record of 33-15 in 61 starts. Since then his career has been on the decline, his worst season being 2012 where he went 1-7 with an ERA of 8.28. He was released by the club after the season and was signed by the Cleveland Indians during the offseason.
Dice-K reported to the Indians spring training camp with the intention of making the teams Opening Day starting roster, and the idea of earning a spot in the teams rotation. This idea quickly faded last week when the team informed him that he would not make the Opening Day roster. The official announcement was tweeted out by the official Indians twitter page (shown below). Dice-K was willing to be sent to the minor leagues but Cleveland would have had to pay a $100,000 retention bonus, which the decided was not something they were willing to do. Dice-K is now officially a free agent and im sure he will get a phone call from some team that is desperate need of pitching, lets just hope that its not the Red Sox who make that call.

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