Daisuke Matsuzaka -Let The Bidding Begin.

[metirish]

] By TYLER KEPNER Published: October 17, 2006 Six years ago, as the major league playoffs dominated the attention of American baseball fans, Bobby Valentine was asked about the potential impact of a player from Japan. Valentine, then managing the Mets, said he believed the player was already one of the five best in the world. That player was Ichiro Suzuki, who quickly proved Valentine right by winning the American League Most Valuable Player award for Seattle the next season. Now, as the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan, Valentine has a more intimate knowledge of Japanese talent. If his instincts are the same, then Daisuke Matsuzaka will be the next big star in the majors. �This guy is the real deal,� Valentine said last week in an e-mail message. �He has the ability to be one of the top starters in M.L.B.� Matsuzaka, a 26-year-old right-hander, was the most valuable player of the World Baseball Classic in March. His team, the Seibu Lions, gave him permission last week to pursue a career in the majors, and the Yankees are among the teams expected to show strong interest. Japanese players need nine seasons before becoming eligible for free agency, but Matsuzaka will be using the loophole Suzuki and others have used. The Lions will post him for blind bids by major league teams. The team that bids the highest will get exclusive negotiating rights with Matsuzaka for 30 days. If there is no deal within that window, the team�s buy-in is returned and Matsuzaka continues to play in Japan. Teams can begin bidding around Nov. 1. �You�re trying to assess how much interest there really is in the player,� said San Diego Padres General Manager Kevin Towers, speaking of the bidding process. �It depends on how much you want the player. If you want him, you don�t want to make a lowball bid. But also, if there�s not a lot of interest, you don�t want to overpay.� After the 2003 season, Towers made a successful bid of $300,000 for the rights to reliever Akinori Otsuka. The Matsuzaka bid should dwarf that figure. Valentine predicted it would cost a team more than $20 million for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka. (The Mariners� winning bid for Suzuki was $13.125 million.) Then the team must negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka, who has leverage because he can return to Japan and put off free agency until next season, when all teams can talk with him. Matsuzaka, who will surely command a high salary, is expected to name Scott Boras as his agent soon. Boras visited Japan this summer to see Matsuzaka. Not surprisingly, he called him an ace who can dominate with his fastball. �He can pitch upstairs in the strike zone at 95-96 miles an hour,� Boras said. �He�s in his mid-20�s, and he�s a strong, disciplined athlete. He certainly has No. 1 potential, no question.� One scout who has seen Matsuzaka extensively said his skills went beyond talent. The scout, who asked not to be identified, said Matsuzaka had the competitive drive to battle out of jams. �It�s not only his stuff � his ability to pitch is even more impressive,� the scout said. �He�s a bulldog.� The scout said that while Matsuzaka could throw 95 miles an hour, his fastball was usually around 92-93; Valentine described the fastball as �a little above average.� But Matsuzaka�s command is excellent, his slider � called a �Gyroball� in Japan � is sharp, and Valentine called his changeup devastating. Matsuzaka will be on display again in the first week of November, when a contingent of major leaguers, including Carlos Beltr�n, Jos� Reyes and David Wright of the Mets and Mike Myers of the Yankees, will play an exhibition series in Japan. It will be still more work for a pitcher who was used heavily this season, perhaps because the Lions expected to let him go. Matsuzaka went 17-5 with a 2.13 earned run average and exceeded 120 pitches in 12 of his 25 regular-season starts. In his final start, a shutout in the playoffs, he threw 137 pitches and had 13 strikeouts. As polished as Matsuzaka is, Valentine said, �he lost a little this year.� �It was probably because of the W.B.C.,� he said. �He did have a few small injuries for the first time in his life.� Fans in Japan are used to improbable feats from Matsuzaka. He rose to fame in 1998, when he led his high school team to a national championship with a remarkable three days of work. On the first day, he threw 250 pitches over 17 innings. The next day, he played the outfield and recorded a save. The third day, he clinched the title with a nine-inning no-hitter. By the next season, Matsuzaka had joined the Lions. According to Time Asia, the Lions allowed him to attend that year�s Braves-Yankees World Series at Yankee Stadium while the other players were in training camp. The magazine called him the biggest draw in Japan�s Pacific League. �I�ve never seen anything like it,� Reggie Jefferson, an American then playing in Japan, told the magazine. �He�s like a rock star.� Matsuzaka went on to compete in two Olympics for Japan, and he is 108-60 in eight years with the Lions. Few seem to doubt that his skills will translate to the majors. While Hideki Irabu and Kaz Matsui have been disappointments, most Japanese stars tend to play as well or better than expected. That group includes Tadahito Iguchi, Hideki Matsui, Hideo Nomo and Takashi Saito, among others. �For every one of them that�s struggled, you have stories like Saito and Otsuka, guys that probably weren�t expected to do as well as they have, but have performed even better than what their clubs hoped,� Towers said. �I don�t know how risky it really is anymore. Most of those guys have come over and improved our game.� The secret is out, and the price is going up. Next Article in Sports (2 of 22) �

Bobby V thinks the bidding will start at $20 mil.....Damn...

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

This "posting" thing is a joke. It doesn't appear to benefit the player at all, and certainly isn't generally equitable for all teams here.

I wouldn't mind MLB owners colluding in these cases, then fighting among themselves to reward the player fairly.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Well, the Japanese team isn't trying to be equitable. They found a way to get a very high price.

I wouldn't object to collusion here either, but I'm not sure how it would work. Would five teams agree to bid, say, $8 million? The way the Japanese system works is that only one team gets the rights. If the MLB teams agree on a maximum, then I wonder what the tiebreaker would be?

Also, an MLB owner can bid $8,000,001 and get the rights to the guy. He'd lose the trust of his fellow owners, but I wouldn't put it past a rogue owner to do something like that.

[Gwreck]

I think Seattle is the most likely landing spot for this pitcher.

Word from Seattle is that ownership has already comitted to personally put up the "bidding money" out of their own pockets as a special expense, separate from the team payroll budget.

In that scenario, I think only Steinbrenner could/would potentially outbid them.

[soupcan]

-Steinbrenner may have the most valuable team in baseball but I highly doubt he is the wealthiest owner.

-Doesn't Seattle also have at least part Japanese ownership?

-Who is the best pitcher ever to come over from Japan - Nomo? He was good when he was good but a top free agent contract on top of a $20 million fee?

Pass.

[Guest Rotblatt]

I think we should go hog-wild with our bid. I mean, we're talking about a probable ace here, and there will be no aces on the market next year. To get comparable talent, you're probably talking about trading for Willis, and what would that cost us in terms of talent (a far harder asset to replace than money)?

We can try to lock Matsuzaka up long-term at a reasonable contract. If Boras makes outrageous demands, then we walk away, and get our posting money back.

Make no mistake, Matsuzaka desperately wants to pitch in the US, and I've no doubt that he'll be pissed if Boras makes him waste another year in the Japanese League.

I mean, does anyone think Seattle's unhappy with their decision to pay Ichiro's team $13M?

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

You guys know I love Bobby. But I also remember how he thought that Kaz Matsui was a can't miss MLB star.

Pass.

[nymr83]

250 pitches in a high school game? i'd like to know what these minor injuries were before i'd bid.
nonetheless you get your money back if you can't work out a deal, so you might as well bid high if you're the Mets.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Kaz Ishii was a probably ace also, but LA took a bath and a half on him.

It's no disrespect to Japanese ball to say that you have little idea of how a guy is going to translate until you seem him over here. No team knows more than the Mets.

Posting fees just throw the risk/reward ratios way out of whack.

[nymr83]

of course you just fator in the amount you posted in your calculations. so if you were going to offer him 30 million over 3 and you post 10 million you'll offer him 20 million over 3, if he doesnt like it he can stay in japan another year and the mets get their 10 million back right?

[soupcan]

I'd just hate it if the Mets won the bid with say 15-20 mil then signed the guy to a 3-4 year deal at 10-12 per and he turns out to be Joe Average-san.

Sure the Mets have enough money to not be completely hamstrung but that didn't stop them from suffering through last season and parts of this with Matsui still getting plenty of PT.

I prefer Zito.

[smg58]

There's a difference between this guy and Ichiro, in the sense that the Mariners didn't really pay Ichiro a whole lot initially. This guy could command a bigger contract than Zito and cost another $20M on top of it.

I don't think anybody over here really knows enough to make a fair judgement on him. Is there a good place online to find his stats? How many innings is he working while running up obscene pitch counts? If he's pitching well upwards of 200, I'd definitely be concerned about his arm falling off. I'd also like to see his peripherals. Kaz Matsui had terrible K/BB ratios in Japan, and a AAA prospect with similar numbers would not have been considered "can't miss" by anybody.

So if Valentine liked Ichiro so much, and the 2001 Mets had a big hole in right field and in the leadoff spot, how did Phillips allow the Mariners to outbid him? Was he that high on Timo Perez?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

The Mariners bid a huge amount.

Not bidding quite so high doesn't mean you prefer Timo Perez to Ichiro Suzuki.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Nobody should be labeled "can't miss."

It's about managing risk, not about deluding ourselves that anybody is risk free. Nor do I think the Mets investment in Matsui suggested that they believed it.

[Willets Point]

Sign Matsuzaka NOW!!!!



Sorry, some things never cease being funny for me.

[Frayed Knot]

Theoretically at least, the contract you sign him for wouldn't need to be as high as a normal FA deal since, after you win the bid, he only has one team to bargain with and can't play your offer off against another like the Zitos of the world can.

The $13mil bid for Ichiro came as 'conventional wisdom' had it going as high as $10 in the weeks leading up to the deadline. The M's surprised folks that they bid as high as they did but the initial contract wasn't all that high (4 yrs @ approx $20 total?) due to the non-competing thing. Plus, he then only had the rights of a reg 4th year player (arb-eligible) when that deal ran out. The Matsui twins, on the other hand, were both true FAs which enabled them to negotiate better deals including getting a clause into their contracts that they couldn't be offered arbitration when the initial deals ran out, in effect making them FAs here earlier then they would normally earn it. Hidecki quickly re-upped w/the Yanx last year (at about a 65% increase) even though he was free to talk to others, while Kaz is now free to either strike a deal w/any U.S. team or go back to Japan since no MLB team currently holds his rights.

One would assume that a Matsuzaka/Boras duo would want that same out in a deal also and that they would be ready and willing to use the 'give me something approaching [u:9cff60caf6]real FA dollars[/u:9cff60caf6] or I'll stay in Japan one more season at which point I'll become a total FA and I don't care how much money you gave Seibu since none of that's going into my pocket' ploy. The success of Ichiro & H. Matsui put him in a stronger position than Ichiro was when he started this dance 6 years ago.

[smg58]

But at the very least, we'd have to beat what he could get in Japan. So how much is he worth over there?

[Guest Rotblatt]

Matsuzaka Stats

2006

Blog about Matsuzaka, with translated stats, etc.

of Matsuzaka pitching.

As for his high pitch counts, he pitches on every sixth day, so it means less. Or does it? I've no idea how to translate his pitch counts, but it's certainly a different animal.

He had a groin injury that sidelined him in July. I'm not aware of any other injuries, but if he had some, they're probably on the above blog.

Davenport from BP translated his 2005 stats prior to the World Baseball Classic, and wound up with something like the following:

200 IP, 4.19 DERA (4.50 is average), 1.21 WHIP, 7 K/9, 3 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9

In other words, pretty similar to Barry Zito. I'm pretty sure the above is on the conservative side, but it'd probably be fair to pencil him in for that.

What we'd be paying for, IMO, would be upside, which I think unarguable Matsuzaka has more of than Zito.

Ideally, I'd like us to sign both of them, but that's probably crazy talk.

[Guest Rotblatt]

smg58 wrote: But at the very least, we'd have to beat what he could get in Japan. So how much is he worth over there?

I think they typically pay top players around $5-$8M but I could be wrong.

I've read that the expected salary for Matsuzaka would be between $8M - $12M per year for 3-4 years. To me, that's perfectly reasonable; it's the posting amount that's questionable, IMO.

Again, though, it's only money, not prospects.

[Guest cleonjones11]

Maybe Warren Buffett and Bill Gates can buy him for us!

[Guest Edgy DC]

Twenty million could buy a lot of prospects, I imagine.

[A Boy Named Seo]

From that blog:

"It's Magic!"

[Guest Rotblatt]

Matsuzaka is skipping out on the MLB/NPB All Star Series, which starts this November.

Makes sense, since he's hoping to get posted and doesn't want to risk that precious arm of his.

Here's an article about Matsuzaka that draws on the experience of "Legendary scout Ray Poitevint, the general manager of International Operations for the Chicago White Sox, has signed more than 200 players who have reached the major leagues during his long career."

The dude from Matsuzaka Watch says Poitevint underestimates his slider and he's wrong on the the speed of Matsuzaka's fastball--according to him, it sits at between 91 & 93, with M getting up to 95 in a pinch. Which completely dovetails with what I saw in the WBC.

And finally, from a Rob Neyer chat on ESPN:

]Anthony (Japan): Who do you see Matsuzaka going to? The latest reports here are saying he is going to the Mets. Rob Neyer: (9:13 PM ET ) I would say the Mets are No. 1 candidate, because I suspect they'd love to have a Japanese star of their own. And they can afford him.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Rob Neyer wrote: because I suspect they'd love to have a Japanese star of their own.

What kind of a reason is that?

Doesn't he know that Omar only likes Hispanic guys?

Rob Neyer wrote: And they can afford him.

That's probably true.

[metsmarathon]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: ="Rob Neyer"]because I suspect they'd love to have a Japanese star of their own. What kind of a reason is that?

marketing, kinda like ichiro and matsui presumably allow the M's and the mfy's

(potential) revenue stream = (sorta) good reason.

[Frayed Knot]

Baseball America's Jim Callis weighs in:

The bottom line is that Matsuzaka has a lively 90-96 mph fastball, a plus-plus slider, a splitter and a changeup. He has dominated in Japan and he dominated in the World Baseball Classic, where he was the MVP. In eight years in Japan, he has led the Pacific League in strikeouts four times, victories three times, ERA twice and won the Sawamura Award (the Japanese Cy Young Award) once. ... He's also 26, so he should have a lot of pitching ahead of him.

Without hesitation, I would take Matsuzaka over Zito or Schmidt or any other pitcher who will be on the free-agent market this offseason. Similarly, if Matsuzaka does come over, he has to rank as the game's best pitching prospect. His stuff is in the same class as Philip Hughes (Yankees) or Homer Bailey (Reds), and he has proven himself at a higher level.

It could cost $20 million to $30 million to win the rights to negotiate with Matsuzaka and at least twice that to sign him. Every big-budget team is expected to at least explore that possibility, and he's worth more to a club that doesn't already have a Japanese star because of the new revenue it could generate from Japanese TV and advertising rights. It's just a guess, but I could see him winding up with the Rangers, who need pitching in the worst way and never have been afraid to spend exorbitantly on Scott Boras clients.

[nymr83]

when you take into account the posting fee, i think zito/schimdt would be cheaper. how much cheaper is a question.

what do you expect from this guy? if i told you now that you could have him for the same amount as zito which would you choose?

[Frayed Knot]

Well, considering that none of us has seen more than a few WBC innings from him it's kinda tough to answer that question.
But Callis from BA - who's not a scout himself but certainly talks to many of them about exactly this sort of thing - says "without hesitation" that he'd take Matsuzaka "over Zito or Schmidt or any other pitcher who will be on the free-agent market this offseason".

So if the money is the same ...

[Guest Rotblatt]

To me, Zito is the safe bet, because you know what to expect with him, but if the money's equal, I'd definitely do Matsuzaka. People have been raving about him for years (since 2003 over on Baseball Prospectus) and he's put up remarkable numbers in Japan.

Of course, the money WON'T be equal--Matsuzka will command more than Zito once you factor in the posting fees. Although Zito will probably net at least a 5 year contract, and Matsuzaka is more likely to sign for 3 or 4, so the net money might be pretty similar . . .

I don't know. All I know is that during the WBC, Matsuzaka was impressive. Not as impressive as Gourriel, if you ask me, but pretty darn impressive nonetheless.

Oh, and as for expectations, this is clearly a shot in the dark, but for next year, I'd think:

200 IP, 3.75 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 170 K, 60 BB

with a range of:

230 IP, 3.25, 1.15 WHIP, 200 K, 50 BB

to

175 IP, 4.25 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 135 K, 65 BB

And figure he'll probably improve a bit the following year.

So in other words, I'd conservatively expect him to put up similar numbers to Zito, but with more strikeouts and fewer walks.

[metsmarathon]

the posting fee doesn't count against the salary cap does it? somehow that has to factor into the discussion in some exceeedingly small way.