Thank you from breaking the story on Yu Darvish, subby. No one who follows baseball hadn't heard of him before. Are you sure he isn't a practical joke played on the MLB by Sports Illustrated again?

well, if this is his first year of being post-eligible that is somewhat news.
This kid was just about light's out in the 2009 WBC.

For some reason these pitchers do not succeed in the MLB. I cite both Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Both had great years over seas before coming here. Neither one of them could sustain more than a few years of success. Hiroki Kuroda comes to mind but he is average at best. Hisanori Takahashi is another one that I have heard of and he is average as well.

There may be others too but none come to mind. I say good luck to him if he wants to succeed more than a few years like these guys.

scotty3281: For some reason these pitchers do not succeed in the MLB. I cite both Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Both had great years over seas before coming here. Neither one of them could sustain more than a few years of success. Hiroki Kuroda comes to mind but he is average at best. Hisanori Takahashi is another one that I have heard of and he is average as well.

There may be others too but none come to mind. I say good luck to him if he wants to succeed more than a few years like these guys.

I think you're forgetting this legend (new window)

... with pictures of what a hurling Darvish might look like.

Cruiser, that posting system's a bit of a wild card. There isn't any one team that dominates it. I wouldn't go immediately awarding him to the Yankees. 'Put up a bunch of money just to open negotiations, and then you're the only team that gets to sign him' wreaks havoc. You need some money to compete, but once you win the right to negotiate, you don't have to worry anymore about the Yankees or Red Sox driving up the price on you.

Impulsive thought. Yao Ming of Baseball?

I like baseball so I'm posting but have no opinion.

But...but....he's half-Iranian! He could be part of a sleeper cell that will infiltrate the US, enslave us all and impose Sharia law!

Or he could sign with the Yankees or Red Sox, get paid a shiatload of money and blow his arm after two seasons.

Gosling: Cruiser, that posting system's a bit of a wild card. There isn't any one team that dominates it. I wouldn't go immediately awarding him to the Yankees. 'Put up a bunch of money just to open negotiations, and then you're the only team that gets to sign him' wreaks havoc. You need some money to compete, but once you win the right to negotiate, you don't have to worry anymore about the Yankees or Red Sox driving up the price on you.

One could argue that favors the Yankees and Red Sox more than anything. The posting fee is essentially money flushed down the toilet, and doesn't go towards the contract. Dice-K's posting fee was $51.1M. How many teams can just throw that kind of money away BEFORE you start even talking about the contract?

scotty3281: For some reason these pitchers do not succeed in the MLB. I cite both Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Both had great years over seas before coming here. Neither one of them could sustain more than a few years of success. Hiroki Kuroda comes to mind but he is average at best. Hisanori Takahashi is another one that I have heard of and he is average as well.

There may be others too but none come to mind. I say good luck to him if he wants to succeed more than a few years like these guys.

Nomo was great to start, had a few down years, and then had another couple good years for the Dodgers. There have been a lot of good japanese relievers, but people tend to forget about them. Also, many of these pitchers are coming over late in their careers. Takahashi came to the majors last year at 35 years old.

Well, he was awful in the World Baseball Classic, so I figure he'll do the exact opposite in the MLB, just like Matsuzaka, so I'd like to see the Red Sox spend another half billion to earn the right just to negotiate. Really, though, I just want the Red Sox to release Matsuzaka.

I met him once while living in Sapporo. He's kind of a smug prick.

No. Wait a second. I do have an opinion.


Take a really great 5-tool player, say Barry Bonds, and jack him up on steroids and watch him go. Wow!

Did you see what he
did you see
did you see that?

Holy cr-p that was amazing.

They intentionally walked him when the bases were loaded. That's how good he was.

I remember when baseball was FUN.

scotty3281: For some reason these pitchers do not succeed in the MLB. I cite both Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Both had great years over seas before coming here. Neither one of them could sustain more than a few years of success. Hiroki Kuroda comes to mind but he is average at best. Hisanori Takahashi is another one that I have heard of and he is average as well.

Japanese pitchers only start once per week. Likely has something to do with it...

Even more interesting is that he's half Iranian. How many Iranians are in the majors?

CreativeFarkHandle: Well, he was awful in the World Baseball Classic, so I figure he'll do the exact opposite in the MLB, just like Matsuzaka, so I'd like to see the Red Sox spend another half billion to earn the right just to negotiate. Really, though, I just want the Red Sox to release Matsuzaka.

I met him once while living in Sapporo. He's kind of a smug prick.

Hm? I wouldn't call that performance awful. Yeah, he had a stinker that first game against Korea, but he was pretty effective all other appearances.

The thing that bugs me about Yu is that he has a "secret buy in" to speak with him when he hasn't even proven himself yet. The Japanese league has good players yes, but they don't have top to bottom killers like MLB. Until he proves he can face an MLB lineup, I won't believe the hype.

I trust Japanese hitters more than Japanese pitchers.

degenerate-afro: The thing that bugs me about Yu is that he has a "secret buy in" to speak with him when he hasn't even proven himself yet. The Japanese league has good players yes, but they don't have top to bottom killers like MLB. Until he proves he can face an MLB lineup, I won't believe the hype.

I trust Japanese hitters more than Japanese pitchers.

A further problem is that, you have to pay those obscene numbers just to negotiate an even bigger contract further down the road. Dice-K got 50 million just to TALK to him about a contract. And since baseball contracts are guaranteed, you're basically just playing the lottery.

Kind've a broken system...but when there's big money teams out there that are screaming for starting pitching in a weak free agent market this year, Yu will get many GMs throwing money at him. Pretty sad.

The Bestest: Gosling: Cruiser, that posting system's a bit of a wild card. There isn't any one team that dominates it. I wouldn't go immediately awarding him to the Yankees. 'Put up a bunch of money just to open negotiations, and then you're the only team that gets to sign him' wreaks havoc. You need some money to compete, but once you win the right to negotiate, you don't have to worry anymore about the Yankees or Red Sox driving up the price on you.

One could argue that favors the Yankees and Red Sox more than anything. The posting fee is essentially money flushed down the toilet, and doesn't go towards the contract. Dice-K's posting fee was $51.1M. How many teams can just throw that kind of money away BEFORE you start even talking about the contract?

You do know that if the team can't sign him in 30 days, it gets the money back. There are a lot of people in baseball who think that Oakland put in an excessive bid for Hisashi Iwakuma last year just to keep him from signing with Seattle. Look for Iwakuma to sign this year since he is a free agent and doesn't go through the posting process.

Last time I explained why Japanese pitchers tend to struggle in the MLB, someone insinuated that I was a racist. Let's see if that happens again!

panamahighway: Japanese pitchers only start once per week. Likely has something to do with it...

This is a good place to start. Not only do they go with 6 man rotations, but there's a guaranteed offday each week (they don't play on Saturday, I believe. Could be wrong). Each pitcher is given a day of the week (like, Tuesday), and in general, that's the day they pitch. Moving to a 5 man rotation with no guaranteed offdays is a huge difference.

degenerate-afro: The Japanese league has good players yes, but they don't have top to bottom killers like MLB

This is another problem, especially in the league that doesn't use the DH.

But even the good hitters tend to have a few problems. Much like in the Caribbean, walking tends to be frowned upon, so batters are more likely to swing on 3-ball counts. And if a batter does walk, well, that means there's a man on first, so the next batter usually bunts, because bunting is considered a good thing to do. This tends to teach Japanese pitchers some bad habits.

And it probably doesn't help that the strike zone is called somewhat differently. Plus the ball is smaller.

Generally, if a Japanese pitcher has success immediately upon arriving in the States, he probably has a gimmick of some sort (Nomo & Okajima had weird deliveries, DiceK had a bunch of different pitches)...which can again lead to bad habits. After all, if his stuff worked upon arrival, there's no reason to make any adjustments, right? Never mind that the batters will adjust.

Kuroda's really the only guy I can think of who has successfully made the transition (so far) without depending on a gimmick...and even his windup is a little weird. Maybe Kaz Sasaki? I don't remember if he had anything weird going on.

I'm not saying Yu will be terrible in the MLB, but if my team signs him, I'd hope they either start him in AAA, or I'd hope he has some rough luck in his first few games. The worst thing that could've happened to Dice-K was his 2008 season, where he was the luckiest player in the game. The Red Sox seem to have the right idea with Junichi Tazawa, but I don't know if Yu would accept that path.

The Bestest: CreativeFarkHandle: Well, he was awful in the World Baseball Classic, so I figure he'll do the exact opposite in the MLB, just like Matsuzaka, so I'd like to see the Red Sox spend another half billion to earn the right just to negotiate. Really, though, I just want the Red Sox to release Matsuzaka.

I met him once while living in Sapporo. He's kind of a smug prick.

Hm? I wouldn't call that performance awful. Yeah, he had a stinker that first game against Korea, but he was pretty effective all other appearances.


He underperformed as a starting pitcher during the WBC. Maybe I have astronomical expectations considering how well he plays for the Fighters.

until he gets here and everyone finds out that his fastball was really 96kmph

If there's one thing that Out of the Park Baseball has taught me ... foreign prospects suck 99% of the time.

zarberg: If there's one thing that Out of the Park Baseball has taught me ... foreign prospects suck 99% of the time.

In OOTP 11, at least, a bunch of foreign prospects are guaranteed to show up eventually, and they're all pretty good. Keep an eye out for Herb "Unser Choe" Nordahl, who generally turns into the best CF in the game (if you move him to CF, at least...he starts as a RF). Naboru Sato turns into a top COF, too. There's an excellent catcher too, but I can't think of his name right now.

But, yes, the rest are terrible.

What I learned from Daisuke Matsuzaka:
1. The speed exchange rate from Japan to US is about 8 MPH. 96 is really 88.
2. The ball used in Japan is smaller and is easier to create pitch movement. A ball thrown the same way in the MLB will stay on a flat plane and get hit very far.
3. The strike zone in Japan is 10 feet wide. The way to win is to nibble the corners. The MLB strike zone is 3 feet wide (though there are exceptions).
4. Nibbling the corners in MLB creates a high pitch count. MLB pitchers throw roughly 100 pitches per game. A Japanese pitcher needs 642 pitches to complete 9 MLB innings.
5. A Changeup in Japan is always left up and over the plate. In MLB, when a changeup is left up in the zone, the utility infielder's batboy can hit it 400 feet.
6. It's OK to take 1 minute in between each pitch
7. It's OK to be out of shape (this is a Red Sox pitching trend)

scotty3281: For some reason these pitchers do not succeed in the MLB. I cite both Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Both had great years over seas before coming here. Neither one of them could sustain more than a few years of success. Hiroki Kuroda comes to mind but he is average at best. Hisanori Takahashi is another one that I have heard of and he is average as well.

There may be others too but none come to mind. I say good luck to him if he wants to succeed more than a few years like these guys.

Nomo had a good run on the Dodgers early on and then gave them two more good years at 36-37(I think he was). Something to remember is he was born in '68 and didn't enter the MLB until '95: He was already almost 30, so he had a good deal of wear on his arm. After he started passing his prime, which is the 30~ years(He dropped off at 30 exactly), he dropped until having two good comeback years. He might not have been an All-Star, but he wasn't terrible and was probably worth his price.

Kuroda did pretty good when you consider he was 33 when he got to the MLB.

Matsuzaka did good his first two years but just couldn't adjust after that, which combined with arm troubles. Considering he was relatively young coming over, it's too bad.

Nana's Vibrator:
4. Nibbling the corners in MLB creates a high pitch count. MLB pitchers throw roughly 100 pitches per game. A Japanese pitcher needs 642 pitches to complete 9 MLB innings.
)

Maddux and Glavin made pretty darn good careers nibbling on the corners. Hell, they had umpires practically leaning into the dugout on 2-2 counts calling pitches 5 inches off the plate a strike on a routing basis.

RockNStroll: Even more interesting is that he's half Iranian. How many Iranians are in the majors?

Iranians getting involved in a decadent American pastime?

meh.... as Johnny Chimpo mentioned... I'm waiting to see who Sidd Finch signs with...

Dinobot: CreativeFarkHandle: Well, he was awful in the World Baseball Classic, so I figure he'll do the exact opposite in the MLB, just like Matsuzaka, so I'd like to see the Red Sox spend another half billion to earn the right just to negotiate. Really, though, I just want the Red Sox to release Matsuzaka.

I met him once while living in Sapporo. He's kind of a smug prick.

Who is, matsuzaka or darvish?

Darvish. Never met Matsuzaka. Only saw him a few times. On TV.

Persian on Japanese hardcore sex

DeWayne Mann: zarberg: If there's one thing that Out of the Park Baseball has taught me ... foreign prospects suck 99% of the time.

In OOTP 11, at least, a bunch of foreign prospects are guaranteed to show up eventually, and they're all pretty good. Keep an eye out for Herb "Unser Choe" Nordahl, who generally turns into the best CF in the game (if you move him to CF, at least...he starts as a RF). Naboru Sato turns into a top COF, too. There's an excellent catcher too, but I can't think of his name right now.

But, yes, the rest are terrible.

I usually let the Brewers pick up Nordahl. It just fits, even if his name isn't Joe.