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When will the Sox sign a great Japanese player, or at least a very good one?

caulfield12

By caulfield12
in Pale Hose Talk

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Quin Grand Master

Quin

Posted
Posted
24 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Otoh, Ichiro and Shohei Ohtani…

I mean, if your bar is a Hall of Famer that would be baseballs all time hits leader if he came over earlier and a guy whose only plausible comparison is Babe Ruth, I don't know what you're expecting.

And since you're going back to Ichiro, we can include Iguchi in this thread and be done with it.

The Sox still should be more active in the Asian market and just hire @Eminor3rd, but you've got your answer.

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Eminor3rd Grand Master

Eminor3rd

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, Quin said:

I mean, if your bar is a Hall of Famer that would be baseballs all time hits leader if he came over earlier and a guy whose only plausible comparison is Babe Ruth, I don't know what you're expecting.

And since you're going back to Ichiro, we can include Iguchi in this thread and be done with it.

The Sox still should be more active in the Asian market and just hire @Eminor3rd, but you've got your answer.

Haven't read the FG article, but:

Murakami is a generational talent, but he's a pure slugger and actually less athletics than Matsui was at his age. If the Swallows post him in the next couple years, he has a chance to be a star hitter in MLB. But if he doesn't come over until 29, he may look a lot like Matsui did. Which is fine, but not terribly exciting. 

The next name to watch for this offseason is Kodai Senga. I'll probably start a thread about him like I usually do, but the TL;DR is that it's the best raw stuff from a posted NPB player since Darvish. Can touch 100 mph, high spin, with three pitches (Fastball, slider, splitter) that should be plus in MLB. The command is NOT a plus, it's passable but can abandon him at times. On average, he is wild in the zone but has been overwhelming to hitters here for a long time. He's been long-sought by MLB teams but the Hawks refuse to post anyone, so he's had to wait until free agency despite having been telling the media he's wanted to be posted for the last four or five years. I think he's the safest bet to be successful in a long time simply because if he can't cut it as a starter, the stuff is so good that he could absolutely fallback into a high-leverage relief role. I think every team is gonna kick the tires and I think he's going to make a lot of money. If he would have been posted when he wanted at 26, he'd be a no-doubt $100mm+ contract. Now he's 30 and has been a bit banged up, but the stuff has generally held and the injuries have been scattered around his body and not elbow-related.

Sasaki is the only player in Japan with better raw stuff than Senga, but he's 20 and a phenom and very popular. He'll come over but it won't be for a while. He's also still a prospect. He's already thrown a perfect game, but will get tagged for 5+ sometimes when his mechanics are off. He'll be a thing for MLB fans soon, just not yet. He'd go 1:1 in the draft if he was available.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is also super young and is a thousand times more polished. Mid-90's when he wants to, 4 or 5 good pitches though usually only 3 are on at once. I expect he'll be next in line after Senga.

Edited by Eminor3rd
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Eminor3rd Grand Master

Eminor3rd

Posted
Posted
On 9/9/2022 at 9:32 PM, caulfield12 said:

Fine, a dreaded list.

Hideki Matsui

Kaz Matsui

Seiya Suzuki

Kenji Johjima

Kosuke Fukudome

Shogo Akiyama

Nori Aoki

So Taguchi

Akinori Iwamura


Granted, the majority of studs have been pitchers.

 https://www.mlb.com/news/best-japanese-baseball-players-of-all-time-c262514038

Of those, only Kaz Matsui, Hideki Matsui, and Seiya Suzuki were actually "expected" to be real impact players. Maybe Fukudome as well. People often assume that any player who comes over is the best that Japan has to offer, but it's most often not the case. Aoki and Akiyama are examples of great players who were clearly past their prime and everyone on both sides of the water knew it, Taguchi and Iwamura were examples of players that were "above average" NPB players at the time but were more like top 50-ish players than elite in that league.

In other words, Kaz Matsui was certainly a bust, maybe Fukudome was. I think the jury is still out on Seiya. Hideki had a good career. The rest may have been disappointing, but were never really expected to be anything other than average-ish players anyway.

It's really difficult not to think of NPB as just another minor league, but the reality is just that there are so many political and developmental differences that you just can't compare the players and opportunities apples to apples with other prospects/international signings, etc. The pitchers tend to get posted at the "right" time much more often than the hitters do, for sure. Which is probably part of your point.

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