{"id":89305,"date":"2024-11-25T10:37:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T15:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=89305"},"modified":"2024-11-25T10:38:54","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T15:38:54","slug":"yusei-kikuchi-angels-3-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/25\/yusei-kikuchi-angels-3-year-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Yusei Kikuchi Agrees to 3-Year, $63M Deal with Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/1861041715643117903\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jon Heyman of the New York Post<\/a> reports that left-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kikucyu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-25_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yusei Kikuchi<\/a> is in agreement with the Los Angeles Angels on a three-year, $63 million contract. Kikuchi, 33, had a great second half to his season last year after being trade from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Houston Astros, compiling a 2.70 ERA in 10 starts. Overall, Kikuchi posted a 4.05 ERA in 2024, making 32 starts split between the Blue Jays and Astros.<\/p>\n<h2>Angels Land Yusei Kikuchi<\/h2>\n<p>Many thought the Astros overpaid when they acquired him from the Toronto Blue Jays. However, the critics were quickly proven wrong. In 10 starts, Kikuchi tossed 60 innings and posted a 2.70 ERA (147 ERA+) with an elite 31.8 Strikeout rate and 5.9 percent walk rate. The Japanese southpaw excelled by significantly increasing his slider usage at the expense of his curveball.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Yusei Kikuchi has increased his slider usage since coming over to the Astros at the Trade Deadline.<a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CY24_7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@CY24_7<\/a> dives deeper into the LHP&#39;s success with the AL West champs. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/efKHCiuEaT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/efKHCiuEaT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLBNetwork\/status\/1839138726431072452?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 26, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Kikuchi <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2018\/12\/31\/yusei-kikuchi-signs-seattle-mariners\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">signed with the Seattle Mariners<\/a> ahead of the 2019 campaign after eight star-studded seasons in the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB), Japan&#8217;s top professional baseball league. He showed flashes of dominance but never maintained success. A solid first half of 2021 earned him an All-Star nomination and helped lead him to opt out of his deal despite finishing the season with an ERA+ of 93.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto decided to sign him to a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/03\/12\/yusei-kikuchi-blue-jays-agree-to-a-three-year-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">three-year deal<\/a> that offseason, hoping to help him break out. Unfortunately, his Blue Jays tenure was a bunch of the same. He tossed 384 innings in 2.5 years in Toronto and posted a 4.48 ERA (92 ERA+) with a solid strikeout and walk rates. In a relatively quick tenure in Toronto, Kikuchi had stretches where he was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/30\/yusei-kikuchi-pitching-improvement\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">awful, amazing, and just okay<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That said, Los Angeles will sign Kikuchi with the idea that his improvements in Houston are legitimate and sustainable. Kikuchi became a real strikeout weapon, and that ability plays in the postseason. He would have been a scary weapon had the Detroit Tigers not swept Houston in the Wild Card round this October.<\/p>\n<p>Kikuchi&#8217;s addition adds to a busy offseason for the Angels. The club <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/06\/kyle-hendricks-angels-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">inked right-hander<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hendrky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-25_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Hendricks<\/a> and catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/darnatr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-25_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Travis d&#8217;Arnaud<\/a> to free agent deals and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/31\/jorge-soler-griffin-canning-trade\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">traded<\/a> for outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/solerjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-25_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jorge Soler<\/a>. Los Angeles has been the most aggressive team this offseason so far.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Erik Williams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that left-hander Yusei Kikuchi is in agreement with the Los Angeles Angels on a three-year, $63 million contract. Kikuchi, 33, had a great second half to his season last year after being trade from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Houston Astros, compiling a 2.70 ERA in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4683,"featured_media":90411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,16,35],"tags":[246,780,75,36,686,2298],"class_list":["post-89305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-angels","category-news","tag-houston-astros","tag-jorge-soler","tag-kyle-hendricks","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-travis-darnaud","tag-yusei-kikuchi"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}