Can the Yanks dish Kei Igawa?

Over at the excellent NPB Tracker, Patrick asks a question we’ve been pondering since 2007: is Kei Igawa movable? We know that the answer is “probably not,” but Patrick gets into a bit more detail. Specifically, he notes the Yanks’ failed efforts to move him back to Japan, including Igawa’s visit to his old club over the off-season. Then there was the Brewers scenario, which didn’t work out. Patrick even notes a humorous tale (told by Igawa himself) of a team that was once interested in Kei: “it seemed like there was a team that saw my (AAA) numbers and tried to acquire me. Then I was told ‘we found out the name, and it was you!'” So yeah, looks like nothing doing on the Igawa front. He’ll head to AAA this off-season, with his only real hope of cracking the majors again relying on injuries and/or ineffectiveness in the bullpen. It’s safe to say that none of us want to imagine such a scenario.