H'ville, Tn (AP) - Well it has not been a big secret what H'ville's front office #1 off the field priority has been all season. That is the re-signing of what is arguably the best all around hitter in BSA, Mr. Shumei "Yoko" Yokoyama.
Heading into the deadline H'ville had one goal, free up money to re-sign "Yoko". Prior to the deadline the Hitmen only had $3M in extention room.....after all the trades the Hitmen sat at nearly $24M in ext money. Goal Achieved!
Now, the easy part was done, freeing up the money. The hard part was to get "Yoko" down from his demands of 9-years at $17M per.
"It took many long hours and a lot of back and forth," GM Travis Hays told the media. "Both sides wanted to get this done and we had a very open and honest negeoation and in the end both sides are very pleased."
"Yoko" addressed the media with the biggest smile you could possibly have, "Trust me, I wasn't going anywhere. After spending my first 4.5 years in Alaska/El Paso while never being in the playoffs and playing on 3 losing teams and then coming over the H'ville last season and winning a title and being part the first ever back-2-back titles was amazing! The next day I called my agent and told him I don't care about the money get a multi-year deal done, I'm not leaving H'ville!
The official deal is a 6-year, $80.25M
2016 - $12M
2017 - $12.75M
2018 - $10M
2019 - $12.75M
2020 - $12.75M
2021 - $20M
MVP Bonus - $900k
"Yoko went on to say, "When you are on the outside and looking up at the "Evil Empire" you have this envy, resentment and respect all rolled into one cause they have been so damn dominate. I think the fans on blogs and forums call it #HENvy and it's excatly that. But once you are apart of it, it's surreal. The winning is infectious and we have fun! The atmosphere and attitude front the top to bottom is all about winning and you always know the front office will do whatever it takes to make sure that winning the World Series is the only goal."
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