P Hisashi Iwakuma to be posted by Japanese club

[TooLiveBrew]

Read this on Baseball America's Prospect Blog. The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are making Iwakuma available to MLB clubs one year before he'd be an international free agent. BA had ranked Iwakuma as #3 on their WBC '09 Top 10 Prospects list (a subscriber article that I otherwise would have linked). Here's their writeup of him at that time:

3. Hisashi Iwakuma, rhp, Japan

 

While many of the players listed on this Top 10 are barely in their 20s, Iwakuma is a pitching veteran.

 

Unlike most of the other pitchers on this list, Iwakuma has had some health concerns, as he missed most of the 2006 season with a shoulder injury, and he struggled in 2007 as well. But he returned to full health in 2008, as he went 21-4, 1.87 to lead the Pacific League in ERA and wins to earn the league's MVP award.

 

Iwakuma doesn't light up a radar gun, as his fastball sits around 89-90 mph and tops out at 93, but he pairs it with a nasty split-finger fastball that dives at the plate and a solid-to-plus slider. As he showed throughout the World Baseball Classic, Iwakuma is extremely efficient. He carved up Cuba, needing only 66 pitches to work six innings.

 

Iwakuma could head to the U.S. as soon as his current contract is up. If he did, he would have little problem finding teams ready to plug him into their rotation.

 

"He would step into any rotation in the majors right now; he might be the No. 1 for half the teams in the majors," an American League scout said. "He's very impressive across the board."

Here's the Japan Times article BA cited in posting about Iwakuma's availability.

 

Iwakuma's '09 WBC stats & NPB stats. The Baseball Cube has Iwakuma's stats through '09.

 

He had shoulder problems in '05 & '06, and had surgery on his elbow in the offseason prior to 2008. NPB banned two-stage deliveries (which is what Iwakuma used) in 2005, and re-working his mechanics may well have led to his injuries. However, he's come back very strong. Not sure what kind of market there will be for him, or if the Brewers could even realistically afford a posting fee. MLBTradeRumors notes that his agent has also represented Hideo Nomo & Hideki Irabu.

 

Here's some video of him (no English subtitles & all audio is in Japanese) --

 

[Viva La Grinch]

An interesting guy, but explain to me the pitch right after the 1:00 min mark in the video?

[TooLiveBrew]

That's his former delivery, the two-stage delivery I mentioned he had to ditch after NPB outlawed them.

[trwi7]

"He would step into any rotation in the majors right now; he might be the No. 1 for half the teams in the majors," an American League scout said. "He's very impressive across the board."

Just like Daisuke Matsuzaka.

[MJLiverock]

Or countless other over hyped Japanese league players. I think Ichiro is the only one to match the hype and I"ll Hideki Matsui was acceptable but hardly the "Godzilla" some claimed he would be.

[TooLiveBrew]

Matsui was a very good player before injuries & age finally caught up to him. Besides, there have been plenty of good Japanese players.

[JohnBriggs12]

Matsui was a very good player before injuries & age finally caught up to him. Besides, there have been plenty of good Japanese players.

I read somewhere recently that Matt Murton broke Ichiro's record for hits in a season over there this year. Now Murton is certainly a quality professional hitter. I was advocating picking him up to be the right handed bench bat for the Brewers last offseason. But the fact that a journeyman like Murton would be setting offensive records is an indication that the pitching there is lacking.

[kramnoj]

JB, it's helpful to get one's facts straight before forming an opinion.

 

When Suzuki set the record, the regular season consisted of 130 games. Since then, the season has been extended by 14 games, and Murton was playing in his 142nd game of the season.

[MJLiverock]

Matsui was a very good player before injuries & age finally caught up to him. Besides, there have been plenty of good Japanese players.

I'll agree there have been some good players but as I said few have lived up to their hype. Matsui was good but he was supposed to be Godzilla, smashing home runs and dominating. Dice-K was supposed to win multiple Cy Youngs. Fukudome was basically benched against LH pitchers. Kenji Johjima was supposed to be super star catcher. I would just take any projections of domination or greatness with a grain of salt for any of the players coming over from Japan. Very few have actually met or exceeded the hype. Doesn't mean there aren't good players just not quite as great as the stories project.

 

[TooLiveBrew]

Dice-K was supposed to win multiple Cy Youngs.

 

I *really* don't remember hearing this. Who said that? Same about Johjima as a superstar. I'm not saying I know these comments were never uttered, but who said them? And I definitely didn't hear anything about Fukudome that would make him performing poorly against MLB LHP a shock.

[sveumrules]

The only problem most of the Japanese players have had is from LMOHS, Large Market Over Hype Syndrome. Johjima put up back to back 3+WAR seasons as a catcher and then fell of at age 32. A catcher? Falling off at age 32? WEIRD. Kendall's 2.3 WAR in 2008 is our best of the fangraphs era, for the sake of comparison.

 

I don't think any responsible individual ever predicted Matsui to hit 45 bombs. While obviously not meant to roam the grass, he has managed to hit the ball well enough to still put up 5 league average or better seasons (OK, he missed by .1 WAR this year) despite getting killed by his own glove and positional adjustments.

 

As for Dice K, he would have been our second best starter this past year (not saying much I know) and has held his own in the AL East 3 of his 4 seasons stateside. If he would waive his no trade clause to come here I'm sure Boston would lurve send him and some $$$ to us for a year of the Prince.

 

Fukudome is a Cub.

 

If we sign a Japanese pitcher this offseason I'd prefer it to be Kuroda but I have a feeling we'd have to offer him a Wolfian 3rd year just to get him to answer the phone.

[MJLiverock]

ESPN and SI both talked about the unhittable Dice-K and how the "gyroball" was going to win him Cy Youngs. Of course that is part of the "charm" of ESPN, anyone the Yankees or Red Sox sign are supposed to be superstars.

 

Sveumrules points out responsible people won't make ridiculous projections but that doesn't stop the hype machine from making irresponsible claims which the media picks up on.

 

I just take any expectations for the Japanse league players with a grain of salt.

[Principessa21]

Athletics won the bidding on Iwakuma. LINK

[dadofandrew]

The A's have plenty of SP's on the roster. There's trade potential there.

[TooLiveBrew]

A's won the bidding, but apparently can't get a deal worked out (via MLBTR). They'll get their posting fee back if they aren't able to sign Iwakuma.

 

The offer from OAK was apparently worth roughly $3.8M per year, so I can see why Iwakuma turned it down (he'll be a FA after this season).

**Could this all be some sort of bargaining ploy?

 

That seems pretty unlikely. We'll know as soon as there's an official announcement, and that could be by the time you're reading this on Monday morning. If it is a ploy, it's fooled me. I've been convinced in talking to sources both here and in Japan that these talks are over. There was a halt in the Matsuzka talks, but I don't recall it getting to this point.

[MJLiverock]

Is the Dice-K era over?

 

http://sports.yahoo.com/m...ke_matsuzaka_bust_052411

[RockCoCougars]

Outside of Ichiro and maybe Livian Hernandez most of these big money international 'bonus babies' have not had long term success. Heck, even Yuni was a hot item a few years back. I'd never get into a bidding war on one of these guys. You'd be better served to take these millions and boost your scouting academies in the DR and elsewhere in Latin America.