Interestingly, Hideki Matsui’s agent, Arn Tellum has written a short piece for the Huffington Post, basically explaining the one year contract Godzilla signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim this week.  The piece is very pollished, and without sharing any blame clearly explains how hard it was for Matsui to leave the Yankees, but that the timing was important.

Think about last year, when  Bobby Abreu sat on the open market forever.  Matsui couldn’t risk not ending up with either the Yankees or the Angels and so had to take the contract.

What is surprising to me, is that Matsui signed only a one-year contract- there is no option year here.  For a player, as his agent describes who has played for only two teams during his career, and who was just named the MVP of the World Series that he couldn’t get an option year at least.

Perhaps next year the economy will be better.  Perhaps a year of playing in the outfield will make him seem like a more viable, valuable signing.  But it seems risky for a player like Matsui to take a one-year contract so easily.  The Angels have no reason now to protect his knees, just like the Phillies had no reason to worry about the future of Pedro Martinez’s arm.  Its his agent that needs to protect those things.

Tellum has been in this business for a very long time.  There is a reason why he wrote this nice piece for a place like the Huffington Post (one read by many in both the New York and Orange County markets).  But it seems to me that he should have pushed for a little harder line for some sort of guarantee/buyout for his client for 2011.