Bill Madden at the Daily News reports that before the Yankees made Chien-Ming Wang a free agent they offered him a split contract: a minor league deal that would be guaranteed to turn into a major league deal once he was healthy. Alan Nero, who represents Wang, wanted the deal to have guaranteed money in it, but the Yankees would not agree to that and so, off goes Wang.

As a bonus, Sam Borden has a nice Wang appreciation piece where he shares a story from spring training 2005 when a rookie Wang was given extra running and given the opportunity to pick any player to run with him... and he picked Randy Johnson.

Via Zach Links.