He's baaaack! The Mets and Daisuke Matsuzaka have agreed to a minor league deal with an invite to big league spring training.
After a Japanese report spurred a false alarm ten days ago, the Metsannounced that they have in fact re-signed Daisuke Matsuzaka to a minor league contract with an invite to major league camp. Matsuzaka, who turned 33 in September, made seven starts for the Mets late in the season after Matt Harvey was shelved with an elbow injury. The righty will likely compete with Jenrry Mejia and John Lannan for the Mets' fifth starter job this spring but assuming Mejia's health, it seems likely he'll be ticketed for AAA Las Vegas to serve as depth.
Matsuzaka got off to a dreadful start with the Mets, as the Tigers, Phillies, and Braves rocked him to the tune of a 10.95 ERA in his first three starts. The righty made some adjustments and was much better over his final four starts, throwing to a 1.37 ERA in those games. In sum, Matsuzaka put up a not awful 4.42 ERA and 4.32 FIP over 38.2 innings. He also gave us one of SNY's best technological advances, the Dice-K clock, which measured the time in between his pitches. Matsuzaka's slow pace also spawned this fantastic post from James Kannengieser on things he would rather do than watch Daisuke start.
