NEW YORK — First baseman Richie Sexson and the New York Yankees reached a deal Thursday, a week after Seattle cut the slumping slugger.
A person familiar with the contract said Sexson would be paid a prorated share of the $390,000 minimum salary, leaving the Mariners to pay the rest of his $14 million salary. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made.
ESPN.com first reported a tentative agreement between Sexson and the Yankees.
The Yankees were eager to add a powerful right-handed bat as they start the second half of the season. They went into the All-Star break third in the AL East, six games behind Boston.
Sexson hit .344 with five home runs in 71 at-bats against lefties this year. That was his bright spot during a season in which the 33-year-old Sexson hit .218 overall with 11 homers and 30 RBI. He has hit 30 or more homers six times, and also has six seasons of at least 100 RBI. He started his major league career in 1997 with Cleveland and later played for Milwaukee and Arizona.
Seattle signed Sexson to a $50 million, four-year contract in December 2004. He topped 30 homers and 100 RBI in his first two seasons with the Mariners, but his production dropped off significantly last year.
The Mariners, one of baseball’s biggest disappointments this year, released him on July 10 after manager Jim Riggleman had decided to play him only against left-handed pitching.
“When he left us, he was really swinging the bat good against left-handed pitching,” Riggleman said. “I think Richie will accept that somewhere else. He wasn’t going to accept that here. If Richie would have been happy playing against left-handers here, it would have helped our ballclub.”
Riggleman said that while Sexson might accept a platoon role with a new team, he was skeptical how long Sexson would be happy in such a situation.
“There’s no way you could ask Richie to do that here. Somebody else can take Richie and ask him to do that and he’s going to be fine with it,” Riggleman said. “But eventually he’s going to feel like, ‘OK, I’m hitting these left-handers. I want to get in there. I’m not going to finish my career being a platoon player.’ I think eventually Richie is going to play himself back into a full-time role or he’ll decide that platooning is not good enough for him.”
The Yankees play at Safeco Field on Sept. 5, 6 and 7, and Riggleman expects Sexson to be received well by the Seattle fans.
“Richie did some good things here,” Riggleman said. “For the most part, fans will think he gave us a couple of good years and hit a lot of home runs. It didn’t end the way anybody wanted it to, but I don’t think there will be much of an issue there.”
New York signed Sexson to help fill a gap on its ailing offense. The Yankees are minus two of their top hitters. Leadoff man Johnny Damon is on the disabled list because of an injured left shoulder and Hideki Matsui is sidelined with a sore knee that could require season-ending surgery.
The Yankees’ lineup is packed with left-handed hitters — Damon, Matsui, Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu and Robinson Cano swing from that side — and New York has struggled against lefty pitching all year.
A native of Brush Prairie, Wash., the 6-foot-8 Sexson became a frequent target of boobirds in Seattle over the past two years. He hit a career-low .205 with 21 homers and 100 strikeouts in 2007, and often was benched in favor of Miguel Cairo this season.
Herald writer Kirby Arnold contributed to this report.
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