Giving Igawa a 5 year $20M deal is a great contract for the Yankees.

At $4M per, if he isn’t quite what the Yankees are looking for…despite the length of the contract…he is easily movable.

I am quite certain that other teams would be willing to take a shot on him.

Not to mention that only $20M counts towards the luxury tax as opposed to $46M.

It was cheaper to sign Igawa than, say, someone like Lilly for the Yankees when the luxury tax is calculated…for an extra year even…and I think it is likely that Igawa will be just as good if not better than Lilly during that time (even counting the NL and AL differences).

Though I wasn’t thrilled with the Igawa signing, I still think he can be somewhat useful, providing they don’t expect a performance last night every time out. Look, Jamie Moyer has been a successful #3 for years and couldn’t break a spiderweb with his fastball if you held a gun to his head. Igawa would seem to have a similar arsenal to Moyer’s with slightly better velocity and slightly worse control. So why can’t it happen?

Yanks started off 1-3 in 1998. I’ll take another season like that

I understand but this has been the case the past few years. This isn’t nearly as bad as 05.

JJay – what I was trying to say with that was…that we shouldn’t let the last two games make us forget that, overall, the Yankees have gotten out of the gate like the last shot out of a roman candle.

Steve! C’mon! RE: — Really, the only bummer at the close of business today is this…even with the Yankees playing great the last two days, their record is only 7-6 on the season to date. —

They were 5-6 and now they’re 7-6. That’s the best you can ask for. They won the past two games in convincing fashion against a good team. Enjoy it! A-Rod is.

bailey, I don’t think Steve is saying he doesn’t like the guy. I won’t call him a #3 and we’ll see at the end of the year what # we’d like to assign him. Can he be valuable? Absolutely. Nobody said he couldn’t be valuable and be a solid #5, but he’ll never be a #3. Isn’t that too high an expectation for the guy?

I don’t really care about the money part as much as Steve, but MJ had a perfectly logical explanation as to what his worth actually is. I think he’ll be better than Jaret Wright, but to what degree? I don’t think it’ll be that much better, and time will tell that he’s more like Jaret Wright – except that he can give you an extra inning (through the 6th) with more frequency. How we interpret that frequency might differ between each of us, but I don’t think it’s going to be the norm – where he consistently gives us 6 or 6+.

Ask yourself this, if we have a week where Pavano, Pettite, Wang, and Mussina can’t go that far in each of their starts and the bullpen is looking for some time off, then how confident are you that Igawa will provide that relief? I sure am not.

Do you think he’s a #3 the caliber of a Dice-K, Chacin, Nate Robertson? I would consider those more true #3. I will give you this, looking around the league there aren’t that many good #3.

I think we have to brace ourselves for the fact that Igawa is the lefty version of Jae Weong Seo. Alotta baserunners and too much contact allowed.

I concur. I still can’t believe the length of the contract that the Yankees gave this guy.
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Given other contracts that were handed out this season, why not? Looking at the contracts given Pavano and Wright, why not?

I’m not going to get worked up after a handful of innings. Talk to me after the season.

Typo. Make that 1988.