Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 04, 2008
Kei Points

Kei Igawa pitched in what turned out to be a five-inning perfect game by the Yankees on Tuesday. Brian Cashman and Hideki Matsui both makes good points about Igawa in this NY Times story. Cashman takes the positive view:

"If I felt that our evaluations were improper, then I would think that he's failed, and I'm not ready to concede that yet," Cashman said. "It took José Contreras some time to adjust, and although he possesses a different ability, he led the White Sox to a world championship.

"All I can tell you is Igawa was the strikeout leader in Japan -- and not just for one year -- and those guys are contact hitters over there. Swing-and-miss is still a big part of his game. You can't deny that; just look at his statistics."

I remember looking at Matsuzaka and Igawa's stats when they signed. Daisuke had the better record, but Kei appeared to be close behind. Godzilla talks about Igawa's pitch selection:

"In Japan, he had pretty good velocity and he was the type of pitcher that usually threw fastballs and changeups to strike out hitters," Hideki Matsui said through an interpreter.

"In Japan, you don't see that many pitchers throw changeups, as opposed to here, where a lot of pitchers throw changeups. And in Japan, his fastball was pretty fast. But when you compare it to pitchers here, it's not as fast."

So what Cashman missed was the reason for the strikeouts. Something that was unusual in Japan was common place here.

The Baseball Musings pledge drive continues through March. Please consider making a donation.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:47 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Should have spoken with the V. Yanks have been off in Japanese scouting, the Fat Toad bombed, they were off the Dice market (a distance third), and Cashman was a huge proponent of Kaz Matsui. Kei is not an AL East starter, not in NYC anyway.

Posted by: abe at March 5, 2008 07:50 AM

Abe, I'm just curious but how did that Hideki Matsui thing work out for them?

Posted by: raymagnetic ™ at March 5, 2008 10:17 AM

It worked well. What's your point? They've connected once after repeated attempts? My point: Yankees were first into the market, should have done more with first mover advantage, fattest wallet, marketing opportunities.

Posted by: abe at March 5, 2008 10:25 AM

One thing that seems to be rarely mentioned is the differences in the ball in the japanese leagues and the MLB. The laces are a bit higher and the ball a bit rougher in the Japanese leagues so there is a bit of a transition that has to be made to really get the 'feel' back on your pitches. Kei's ineffectiveness or inconsistency might have been influenced a bit by this last year.

Dice-k mentioned this during spring training last year.

Posted by: Subhash at March 5, 2008 02:53 PM

Of course Igawa does this after I passed on him in every round of the 30-round AL-only BP kings draft.

Posted by: jake luft at March 6, 2008 12:30 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?