Daisuke Matsuzaka -Let The Bidding Begin.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

You have to figure that Zito being reunited with Rick Peterson would help his productivity.

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I'm hoping he signs with the Mets.

[nymr83]

metsmarathon wrote: 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.

you mean the luxury tax? i dont think it does

i think i'd go for zito myself, i'm scared that this guy could simply flop in the states. maybe he won't, but let it be someone else's problem especially with the shot-in-the-dark posting fee system.

[smg58]

ScarletKnight41 wrote: You have to figure that Zito being reunited with Rick Peterson would help his productivity.

I'm leaning to Zito for the same reason. I also think that even the Zito of the past three seasons (or at least the past two) will do better than 3.75 in the National League.

[Willets Point]

Edgy DC wrote: Twenty million could buy a lot of prospects, I imagine.

Or a lot of meat.

[metirish]

I've been thinking,lets say the winning bid is $25 million,would his Japenese team put pressure on him to sign with that team,if he doesn't sign and plays another year in Japan then he can walk as a FA...his team gets nothing,right?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

And I wonder if the Japanese team can give him a cut of the $25 million to make sure he signs with the American team.

I mean, they can, but would it be seen as unethical around the Japanese league?

[metirish]

Excellent point Yancy....they must think we are awful eegits.

[Guest holychicken]

I know it is stupid but everytime this is discussed, I can't shake Kaz from mind and it scares the hell out of me.

[nymr83]

its a legitimate fear, theres alot of risk in bringing in a guy who hasn't played in the majors before and acting like he will suddenly be a veteran star.

heres all the guys i can think of that have come over, and my own 1-5 rating (1 being totally failed to meet expectations, 5 being exceeded expectations)

Nomo- 3
Ishii- 1
Irabu- 2
Yoshii- 3 (or am i just remembering him better than he was)
Shinjo- 3
H.Matsui- 4
Ichiro- 5
K.Matsui- 2
Saito- 5

i'm missing the reliever who came to seattle who i'd call a 2 without checking, am i missing anyone else?

[metirish]

Taguchi for St.Louis and the second baseman for the White Sox...rate them now.....

[nymr83]

taguchi 3...i dont really remember what the expectations were for the white sox secondbaseman, but based on his contract i'll call him a 3 as well

exact numbers arent really important though, would anyone disagree with any of the following theories:
1. Japanese players so far have as often as not failed to live up to expectations
2. With the posting fee included, a Japanese veteran will likely give you less "bang for your buck" than an American who you expected the same stats out of.

[metirish]

My main problem with this guy is that with the huge posting fee and then contract the pressure on him will be freaking huge..Zito has won 102 games in the bigs...I'd rather the Mets give him the big contract.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

]1. Japanese players

Because they're Japanese?

] so far have as often as not failed to live up to expectations

This is silly. 8 of 8 guys you mentioned had a MLB career, which probably beats "white people" or whatever other barely related subset you could come up with in terms of signed baseball players who meet or do not meet expectations. I don't think it's instructive to weigh where a player was born as an indicator of his ability to perform.

Keep in mind also not all players from Japan are posted -- only those yet to acheive free agency there (9 seasons I believe)

[nymr83]

when i said "japanese players" i meant "players who are playing in the japanese baseball league" the fact that so far they have been ethnically japanese as well has nothing to do with it.

] I don't think it's instructive to weigh where a player was born as an indicator of his ability to perform.

me neither, my point is about the leagues there and how highly thought of players who play there are when they seek to come here. in my opinion they are over-valued.

[nymr83]

metirish wrote: My main problem with this guy is that with the huge posting fee and then contract the pressure on him will be freaking huge..Zito has won 102 games in the bigs...I'd rather the Mets give him the big contract.

the posting fee is reason number 1 to avoid the guy, yes.
if it didnt exist i'd probably still give a slight edge to wanting Zito.

[Willets Point]

metirish wrote: My main problem with this guy is that with the huge posting fee and then contract the pressure on him will be freaking huge..Zito has won 102 games in the bigs...I'd rather the Mets give him the big contract.

It need not be either/or. The Mets rotation needs a lot of help. The Mets have a lot of $$$. Why not both?

[metirish]

Ok Mr.Wilpon, sorry Mr.Willets..I'm down with that...

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

] in my opinion they are over-valued.

I dunno if it's fair even to consider modestly paid/expected of guys like Yoshii or Shinjo alongside big-money guys like Ichiro.

Talent is talent.

[Elster88]

You forget how much the man hated Kaz.

It's perfectly logical for such a biased person to espouse opinions that have no basis in reality.

[metirish]

When did this posting bids start,was it with Ichiro...of all the players listed I would say Irabu,Ichiro and this guy came with very big expectations...Irabu was the next Nolan Ryan IIRC,then became the fat toad...

[Guest Edgy DC]

My main concern with treating guys like Zito (and Glavine, for that matter), like an "ace," and paying them "ace money," is they have the pitchablity, but lack the fearsome stuff that allows them to just out-class the back half the lineup. There's typically only five or six such animals in the league.

You can call the Zitos "number-one pitchers", and in a good year they can do everything right and post a statistical season as well as those five or six pitchers, but that doesn't make them aces, and they shouldn't get treated as such because they became free agents in the year a team with money to blow needs pitching.

Let somebody else entertain me with the notion that Chan Ho Park or Denny Neagle or somebody is an ace just because they need him to be.

Even Mike Mussina. He's received $38 million the last two years for throwing up a 3.94 ERA, giving his team 377 innings. You know how many pretty good pitchers there who can give those numbers to a smart team for far fewer dollars?

If the market doesn't have the ace you're looking for, don't go nuts convincing yourself that Kevin Appier is the shit. Build a solid staff and try and grow some aces. The potential is certainly there.

The thing about investments is that good everyday players come with multiple tools. If one fails, they can still provide some return on your investment. A pitcher has his arm and his smarts. But if the arm fails, smarts can only help so much, and then you're hemmoraging money for years.

[Guest Edgy DC]

My thinking is that the only guy who believed Irabu was the next Nolan Ryan was the one who named him "Fat Toad." And he's welcome to his delusions, distoritions, and inability to see the spectrum of gray between those two extremes.

[metsmarathon]

nomo was pretty good there for a while.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]My main concern with treating guys like Zito (and Glavine, for that matter), like an "ace," and paying them "ace money," is they have the pitchablity, but lack the fearsome stuff that allows them to just out-class the back half the lineup. There's typically only five or six such animals in the league. . . . The thing about investments is that good everyday players come with multiple tools. If one fails, they can still provide some return on your investment. A pitcher has his arm and his smarts. But if the arm fails, smarts can only help so much, and then you're hemmoraging money for years.

Hear, hear, Edgy. I totally agree with you.

I do think it's instructive to look at how players from the Japanese League have done once they came over, although of course you have to do it in a systematic way. In 2002, Davenport from Baseball Prospectus compared imports & exports' major league numbers versus their Japanese League numbers, and he came up with a .92-.94 modifier (1.00 is MLB), compared to .86 for AAA.

After converting the pitcher's JL numbers, he tested the results against their MLB performance:

Nomo

]I only have one year of Japanese data for Hideo Nomo (technically, I have Nomo's stats for prior years, but not the league's, so I can't run a DT). Except for walks, and the difference 2.5 walks per game makes on ERA, his overall performance has been identical.

Irabu

]Hideki Irabu's performance has to be rated as a definite disappointment; I don't think his velocity in America was as good as advertised, and the results were definitely less

Hasegawa

]Shigetoshi Hasegawa converted from a starter to a reliever when he came here. He's done a touch better than expected, but not remarkably so.

Yoshii

]Almost identical performances on both sides of the Pacific, in sum, by Masato Yoshii. Age is catching up with him.

Sasaki

]I didn't realize, until researching this article, that Kazuhiro Sasaki was the highest-paid player in Japan before leaving--which means Japanese front offices inflate a closer's value as badly as their American counterparts do. The fact is, though, that he was practically unhittable in Japan, and his performance here, good as it has been, is well below the levels he established for himself over there.

Kaz Ishii

]Kazuhisa Ishii is the left-hander the Dodgers bought the rights to this winter. He has a high-90s fastball and excellent slider, and was the most dominant strikeout pitcher in Japan. However, he has led the league in walks and wild pitches several times, he has missed parts of several seasons with arm trouble, and his strikeout and stuff numbers took a precipitous decline last season.

converted JL#'s in 2001: 4.01 ERA, 1.26 WHIP
MLB 2002-2005: 4.44 ERA, 1.53 WHIP

Satoru Komiyama

]Satoru Komiyama, who played for Bobby Valentine in Chiba in 1996, was picked up by the Mets this year. He's getting up in years--his stuff scores have declined four years in a row, and his strikeouts dropped from an acceptable mid-fives to a dangerous sub-fours level. Despite all that, he finished fourth in the league in ERA. Komiyama throws five different pitches with excellent control, with a reputation as a fierce competitor and team leader.

converted JL#'s (1997 - 2001): 4.21 ERA, 1.22 WHIP
MLB 2002: 5.61 ERA, 1.50 WHIP

Akinori Otsuka

]Japan's premier closer since Sasaki left, Akinori Otsuka throws a mid-90s fastball and a slider. He suffered from some elbow trouble in 1999, but it looks like he has recovered completely.

converted JL#'s (1997 - 2001): 2.89 ERA, 1.09 WHIP
MLB 2004-2006: 2.43 ERA, 1.18 WHIP

And the payoff, here's Matsuzaka's converted numbers from from 1999 - 2001:

3.59 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 3.7 BB/9, 7.1 K/9, 0.9 HR/9

Keep in mind, he's gotten (a lot) better since 2001.

So anyway, there are some hits and some misses in terms of pitcher exports, but by and large, the Davenport translations seem to be in the right ballpark.

At any rate, it seems to me that it's easier to figure out how JL players will do in the majors than AAA pitchers . . .

[nymr83]

]nomo was pretty good there for a while.

and pretty bad there for awhile, which is why i labeled him "as expected"

]At any rate, it seems to me that it's easier to figure out how JL players will do in the majors than AAA pitchers

even if thats true, you've already paid for the pitchers in your AAA system.

]You forget how much the man hated Kaz. It's perfectly logical for such a biased person to espouse opinions that have no basis in reality.

are you still deluding yourself into thinking that kaz came anywhere near expectations?

[metsmarathon]

so then, is it fair to say that your opinion on japanese players is "temper your expectations" as opposed to "avoid at all costs"?

[nymr83]

thats fair, but i'd have to add that i think theres alot more predictability in American veterans and i think the Japanese players have so far, if they haven't "broken even", been more likely to fail to meet expectations than to exceed them.

i still wouldnt touch Matsuzaka because of the posting fee, i mean theres no harm in a low bid, but if its really going to go as high as expected i wouldnt bother

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Of course, you can't tell how high it's going to be at the time you have to place your bid.

It's possible that five teams will all bid about $5 million each, and one team will bid $30 million. In that case, that team will have wasted as much as $25 million.

You can't monitor the bidding; you just have to offer the highest amount you're willing to spend.

[Guest Rotblatt]

]even if thats true, you've already paid for the pitchers in your AAA system.

Yes, but if we wanted, say, a "can't miss" prospect like Ryan Howard in 2003, what would it have taken to trade for him? David Wright? Jose Reyes?

I'd rather give up money for a young, "can't miss" prospect than equivalent talent every time, and make no mistake, Matsuzaka is at least as highly regarded as Howard was a few years ago.

[nymr83]

]You can't monitor the bidding; you just have to offer the highest amount you're willing to spend.

another unfortunate part of this process to be sure.

how much will Zito get? i'll say 13.5 per year and 4 years.
is Matsuzaka worth more or less? he might have more of an upside but i think theres also a bigger risk of crash and burn. if we say he's worth the same amount how much can we really bid? even a "modest" $10 million bid means that you can then only offer the the player 11 million a year (more than that and you'd have been better off signing Zito hypothetically)

i guess my point is just that with the posting fee thrown in there i dont see signing him turning out to be the best decision.