November 16th, 2019 at 10:30 am 
by Ron Cervenka Ask Dodger fans who their team’s best postseason reliever has been over the past four seasons and their answers will be unanimous: 31-year-old right-hander Kenta Maeda. In fact, it isn’t even close.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the extremely popular Senboku-gun, Japan native, who the Dodgers signed on January 7, 2016 as an international free agent, doesn’t want to pitch out of the bullpen … not ever.
Why, you ask?
The answer is simple and twofold – money and ego.
First the money part. It takes but a brief glance at Maeda’s current 8-year/$25 million contract to see that it is heavily performance structured, as every MLB contract should be. The problem – at least for Maeda – is that many (most) of the performance incentives in his contract have to do with his number of starts and total innings pitched, not his number of appearances, bullpen or otherwise.
The second part, the ego thing, is pretty much self-explanatory: chicks dig starters more than relievers. Yes, I’m being facetious, but not by much. Being a starter is far more glamorous (and Hall of Fame-ish) than being a reliever, unless your name happens to be Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman, or even former Dodger greats Eric Gagne or Dr. Mike Marshall. (I always love making an ‘Iron Mike’ reference!).
On Friday, it was being widely reported that Maeda is very unhappy about being banished to the Dodgers bullpen, this despite his successes as a postseason reliever.
(Image courtesy of @ByMcCullough of The Athletic [subscription required])
In his combined 21 postseason relief appearances, Maeda is 2-0 with an outstanding 1.64 ERA in 22.0 relief innings pitched. He has allowed a combined four earned runs on 15 hits, with 27 strikeouts and five walks. With all due respect to the Dodgers, it would be quite difficult for him to “pitch better” than this.
However (you knew a however was coming, right?), in his three postseason starts – all in 2016 – Maeda went 0-1 with a lofty 6.75 ERA, while striking out 12 and walking seven. With all due respect to Maeda, he definitely needs to “pitch better” than this.
But here again, keep in mind that all three of Maeda’s postseason starts were in 2016, which means that he hasn’t been given an opportunity to “pitch better” in three years.
If this “pitch better” thing is nothing more than another Andy McCullough snarky comment (for which he known), then this entire thing may be completely blown out of proportion. But if there is any truth to it whatsoever, and it’s hard to believe that there is not, then there could definitely be trouble brewing in paradise.
Stay tuned…
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I was very sorry to hear about this, because I’ve been noticing that Maeda pitches much better in relief.
Maeda was a GREAT signing. But all good things do end.
It’s bad news that Maeda can’t see the writing on the wall, he is much better in relief than starting. I don’t know what contract incentives were offered to Maeda to convince him that relieving is his future, but if he wants to remain a Dodger he needs to start negotiating some reliever incentives.
The good news is that Dodgers still have 4 years of control over 32 year old Maeda on a cheap incentive laden contract giving them a valuable trade asset.
I remember reading a long time back that the Basic Agreemtent specified that a re-negotiated contract cannot be for a lesser total value than the original contract.
If I’m correct on this then reliever incentives shouldn’t be an issue unless he’s trying to get more.