the Omaha front office announced today that Takashi Nakamura has been optioned to AAA. That’s the 2054 and reigning Nebraska award winner that annually goes to the league’s best pitcher. The past 2 and a half seasons, Nakamura has won 47 games, and had an ERA in the low to mid 3’s, and struck out 479 opposing batters and accumulated 10.5 WAR and 14.6 rWAR!
Now, he finds himself in AAA.
It’s unknown how long Nakamura will be in AAA, but it was hinted at in the off-season that Nakamura could be optioned to AAA for a few weeks in order for the team to pick up an additional year of control. Nakamura currently has 4 years and 111 days of service time, and would be sitting right at 5 years for the start of the 2056 season had he not been sent down. This would mean he would have been a free agent at the end of 2056, but if he spends at least 16 days in the minor leagues, won’t reach free agency until the end of the 2057 season when he will be almost 30 years old.“We feel like despite Nakamura’s excellent ability, he had a few things he needed to work on.” Said GM Justin Niles. “He won a lot of games for us the past 89 starts, but he also led the league in walks both years and is on pace to walk even more this season as he has seen his BB/9 go from 3.4 to 3.5 and now 3.8 per 9 innings. Thanks to some luck and defense this season against balls put in play, he hasn’t seen his ERA rise despite striking out less batters per innings and walking more per 9 than in prior seasons.”
In a corresponding move, the team announced that they had purchased the contract of Ira Dawson from AAA Lincoln. He is expected to be a right handed specialist in the Omaha pen. To fill Nakamura's void in the rotation, It's expected for the time being that Timo Dooley will go back into the pitching rotation.
