Hanshin Tigers sign Matt Murton to 2-year deal
by Gen on Dec.08, 2009 @ 8:44 am, under NPB
MLB.com is reporting that the Colorado Rockies have sold the rights to Matt Murton to the Hanshin Tigers.
Believing that Ryan Spilborghs will rebound from a down 2009, the Rockies reduced some of the crowd in their outfield by selling the rights to Matt Murton to the Hanshin Tigers in Japan on Monday.
I'm checking the various Japanese news sites for this and haven't been able to find anything as of yet. If it's true, then the Tigers did a fairly good job of keeping their interest in Murton under the radar.
Murton is a 27-year-old, right-handed outfielder that has spent time with the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Oakland A's, and Colorado over his career. He split his playing time between the Majors (29 G, 13-for-52, 1 HR, 6 RBI, .250/.304/.404) and Minors (97 G, 121-for-373, 12 HR, 79 RBI, .324/.389/.499) in 2009.
Career
| Level | G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | HBP | IBB | SH | SF | DP | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| MLB | 346 | 952 | 134 | 272 | 46 | 5 | 29 | 112 | 10 | 3 | 93 | 149 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 27 | .286 | .352 | .436 | 788 |
| MiLB | 488 | 1836 | 300 | 570 | 113 | 16 | 44 | 275 | 54 | 17 | 209 | 270 | 23 | 12 | 4 | 23 | 57 | .310 | .384 | .461 | 845 |
=== UPDATE 12/12/2009 11:38pm JST
The Tigers signed Murton to a 2-year deal worth 100M yen to go along with a signing bonus of 50M yen. The second year is an option year which the club will control.
=== UPDATE 1/15/2010 8:53pm JST
Murton was assigned the number 9.