Good WSJ article on Japanese players in MLB
July 26th, 2007 by Tank
on the unpredictability of success or failure for Japanese stars in America, and an interesting companion to the recent NY Sun article on Japanese relievers in MLB.
3 Responses to “Good WSJ article on Japanese players in MLB”
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July 29th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Either the Sox have a better crystal ball than the Yankees (and the rest of MLB) when it comes to Japanes pitchers, or they just got really lucky (or most likely, a combination of the two)… but half-a-year in, they appear to have gotten the best two Japanese pitchers this year and the Yankees got the worst. And as the article notes, it’s Okajima - not Dice-K - that’s been the best import, so far this year.
It’ll be interesting to see how these guys adjust in the years to come - and how the rest of baseball adjusts to them. Will they be Ichiro (excellent, arguably HOF-caliber), Hideki Matsui (very solid, although probably falling short of hype), or The Toad aka Hideki Irabu (pretty much complete failure, especially relative to the hype)?
July 29th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I agree that luck is a factor, though I must concede that if any team has figured out how to extrapolate potential MLB performance from actual NPB performance, it is likely to be Boston. Funny you should say that about Ichiro - see my most recent post. As Jake, Elwood and Albert know, great minds do indeed think alike. I think Godzilla has pretty much performed as promised, though obviously there can be no disagreement over the Fat Toad.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Hideki Matsui has done a very nice job for the Yankees - and I sincerely doubt they have any regrets, but the hype of Godzilla when he came over was that he as gonna be a HR machine and an offensive monster. Hasn’t happened. Again, I believe they got their money’s worth - I just don’t think he lived up to the hype.
As you note in your post (and I’ll comment there separately), Ichiro has not only met his hype but exceeded it - with realistic discussion for his HOF possibilities (which has never, and will never, be the case for Godzilla).
Put another way, given the hype, Dice-K would need to go to Cooperstown to live up to that hype. If he doesn’t, but rather settles into a Schilling-esque or Mussina-esque type of career (”only” the Hall of the Very Good), I submit the Sox (and most of their fans) would be very pleased. However, it’d be accurate to say that he didn’t live up to the (ridiculous) hype. Now if Dice-K performs like Pedro, except for a longer time, then he will somehow have exceeded his hype - and we could then put him in the Ichiro category. This seems quite unlikely, mind you - but I’m just trying to clarify what I mean.