Orioles Legend, 5x All Star and 4x Gold Glove Winner Adam Jones Has Signed A Deal To Play In Japan
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Kind of a shocker here as Adam Jones is headed overseas to play with the Orix Buffalos in Japan. Justin Bour made the move last week, and Jones will be following. It blows my mind that the long time Oriole, even at his age of 34, can’t get a MLB contract he feels is worth it. I wonder if this is something we will see more of in the future. I know he signed late into the offseason with Arizona last year, mid-March I believe, and he didn’t wanna wait around this season for a pity invite. He didn’t have an all star year, but he wasn’t a complete flop either. Japanese baseball sure beats riding a bus in the minor leagues. 34 is old, but it’s not ancient in baseball. You’d think that he could do what he did last year, transition to right field and help out a team looking for a veteran presence. Now he’ll eat as much sushi as he can, become an absolute star over there because of his personality, and he’ll fucking kill it.
$8 Million guaranteed for 2 years and an option for a third year isn’t too shabby, again, especially if he was going to get pity minor league offers or a league minimum. But if there is someone who wants to be different and change stuff up, it’s Adam. Why not get one more good payday? He’ll no doubt be an Orioles Hall Of Famer, and I would have loved to see him stick around in the states to reach some milestones like 300 homers, 1,000 RBI, and 2,000 games played, but it appears as if his MLB stats are done for now. You bet your ass I’m googling ways to stream Japanese baseball, and how long it will take to get an Orix Buffalos jersey shipped here.
I don’t necessarily think this means there is something wrong with Adam, I think it signals that there is a problem with baseball. We saw what happened with the free agent market last season, and guys don’t want to wait around for that again. If that means they are taking overseas deals, than so be it. They’ll make a nice chunk of change over there and probably be the face of baseball in another land. Could a team like Cleveland, or San Diego use him? For sure. So what does it say that he’d rather move across the globe than to Cleveland? Something is wrong with the MLB if a 34 year old, 5 time All Star and 4 time Gold Glove winner can’t contribute to a team this instant. He wasn’t going to get close to that kind of deal here, so no real reason not to cash in overseas. And I don’t hate him for not wanting to live in Cleveland.