The Blue Jays completed a trade with the Diamondbacks today, sending Aaron Hill and John McDonald to Arizona for Kelly Johnson. Here's the latest news from the AL East, starting with a note on today's trade…
- Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos told Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio that Hill and McDonald cleared waivers earlier in the month (Twitter link). The deal started when Arizona GM Kevin Towers called about McDonald.
- Anthopoulos says he acquired Johnson from the D'Backs to get an up-close look at him before deciding how aggressively to pursue him this offseason when he hits free agency, according to Sportsnet.ca's Shi Davidi.
- Alex Speier of WEEI.com takes us inside Boston's front office in a must-read look at how the Red Sox approached the signing deadline. “Between 11:50 and 12 it was straight chaos,” one person told Speier. “Five people were on the phone at the same time with five different agents negotiating five different deals.”
- Joel Sherman of the New York Post explains that MLB teams, even rich ones like the Yankees, have to develop their own starting pitching, since the few elite starters who do reach free agency are prohibitively expensive.
- The Yankees have scouted Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish heavily, according to Sherman. Darvish, 25, "is coming" to the Major Leagues this offseason, according to one of Sherman's sources.
If Yu comes to the Yankees, we should give his former team the services of AJ Burnett.
Hey leave the fleecing to AA
If that is part of the deal Yu’s team will just say “no english” after Yu’s contract is sold.
With a deal that great, might as well throw in Igawa.
That will be the best trade that the yankee’s have ever made. Oh throw some cash in there too for them taking A.J. Burnett off our hand.
Since Weaver got extended, I hope the Yankees at least seriously consider Darvish.
i don’t know enough about him to know if he’s legit. but if he is, i fully expect the yankees to pay what it takes. as talented as their young starters are, there’s too much uncertainty in prospects to count on them alone when the rest of the rotation is so shaky
A very basic comparison is this:
Dice-K NPB Career Stats = 108-60, 2.95 ERA, 1,355 Ks in 8 seasons.
Darvish NPB Career Stats = 75-32, 2.12 ERA, 974 Ks in 6 seasons.
What I’ve heard is the Yu has better stuff than Dice-K. He’s also younger, but again, Dice-K was thought to be a top of the rotation guy when he came over.
I’d say Yu would be a 2 or 3 guy on most teams (again based on what I’ve heard).
Career Stat-line for Yu:
W L W% GS CG SHO IP H R ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
75 32 .701 136 45 12 1036.1 760 268 244 53 297 974 2.12 1.02
Sorry formatting sucks. Cant seem to fix it.
Why didnt you just put the number next to the stat?
I copied and pasted each line in its entirety from another site. When I click edit, they line up perfectly above/below one another, but when I hit save edit it shifts the top line left.
Too lazy to re-copy and paste next to each number, sorry! haha
If any team is smart they would pay the what 1300 dollars to fly to Japan with an official Allen H. Selig baseball and have Mr. Darvish throw it to home plate, in Japan they use a smaller ball and when they get to the majors here they feel like they are throwing a softball, probably why Ichiro has so many hits here, it is like hitting a grape fruit for him, seriously though, all teams need to fly a scout out there with a ball in hand and that will tell you how he will do in the majors.
yea i’d seen the stats, i just don’t put much as much stock into them after mister “4 plus-plus pitches” matsuzaka. daisuke’s stuff was electric in japan too. and in japan only
Yeah which is where I’m at (as you can see by my heated argument below haha).
The scouting reports seem better, but I wouldn’t peg him as an ace for any team except maybe my O’s :(.
yea i hadn’t read the thread yet
gyroball or GTFO
Hahahaha. I can throw one in wiffleball. It’s pretty sick actually. Breaks about 6 feet.
You can’t really compare yu and dice k, yes they may be similar in k’s, ERA, etc, but the real problem was with his innings pitched for dice k
i’d argue the real problem for daisuke was the size of the baseball he had to pitch with in MLB. the drop in strikeouts and spike in walks when he switched leagues isn’t really attributable to a durability issue. he’d have comfortably thrown 150 pitches per game if he could get that far without giving up 6 runs in 6 innings
Exactly, I posted above that smart teams need to have Mr. Darvish throw an Allen H. Selig ball, see if he can spin that bad boy.
I think the size of the baseball is of smaller consequence. Not saying there isn’t a strong connection, but I think if the size of the ball was the greatest factor regarding the transition, there would be more consistency in the failures of the Japanese pitchers.
I still think it comes down to a combination of overwork, and the difficulty to adjust to the American game. I think every one of these pitchers that comes over should spend a year and a half in the minors. But that isn’t what the big clubs are paying for and most of the guys coming over are already in their 30s…. so time for a premium American career is already slipping.
And yet plenty of other Japanese pitchers have come over here and had success, yet the argument against Yu almost invariably turns to Dice-K alone and his relative failure, as if he defines all Japanese pitchers. Obviously they can and have gotten over the difference in the slightly larger ball.
is this an argument against yu? i’d say it’s more like a word of caution
the two are compared because they were the two modern super-aces in japan making the switch. the other switches were not the same
and daisuke had success too, to be sure. he just didn’t have the tremendous success that was expected of him based on his track record and his repertoire. and that was in large part due to the fact that his stuff wasn’t as good here as it was there and neither was his command. that’s easily attributable to issues with a bigger ball
maybe matsuzaka has smaller hands than some of the others and that’s why they’ve been less hindered by it, i dunno. how big are yu’s hands relative to daisuke’s? he’s 6’5” to matsuzaka’s 6’0”. that’s a good start
I hope the Royals or Pirates sign him.
Japanese guys coming over are always a huge question mark. Dice-K was heralded as the next huge thing and though he was solid, I don’t think that he was worth the posting plus the salary. Darvish could be different and with very limited options in the market this winter he will get paid, but its a huge risk in my opinion.
Like I have said before. IMO japaneese pro ball is the equivalant to AA in america. But if he has a ERA under 2.00 over there I would like to think that he has a very good chance of having success in the show. That said, it is always a huge risk with pitchers from Asia cause of the money they demand. But I think that he has a better chance of succeding than a Minor league prospect because of the experience factor.
Look at my response to Larry above. Dice-K’s stats were mind-blowingly good as well. And he’s proved to be less than advertised. If Darvish is commanding the $75M posting fee that once floated about then I want no part of it.
I doubt the posting fee with go that high. Though another $30M-$50M posting fee isn’t a ridiculous possibility.
Yeah, a few years ago rumor was it could go as high as $100M. However, the real costs come in because with Dice-K the Sox paid just over $100M when all was said and done (if my memory serves me). I don’t see Yu’s total cost being (much) less than that.
When you consider total costs including the contract, yeah $100M seems very possible. Matsuzaka’s contract will be an obvious comparison.
Speaking of which, does Boras represent Darvish?
Arn Tellem & Don Nomura. So no haha.
I hope yu goes to yankees, dude has bust written all over him. I live near japan so I have seen him pitch. He would get mad handled in majors. The hitting in japan ball is atrocious. He reminds me of the asian aj burnett. Great stuff, but melt down waiting to happen.
Cool story, bro.
Yu has more dominant stuff than Dice-K ever did so hopefully he translates well to the MLB, but im not setting my hopes tooo high before I see him for a season over here. As of late Kuroda has probably been the most consistantly above average Japanese import, next to a lot of flops and let downs.I would like to see the Nationals come out and steal him though.
To all of the comparing Darvish to Matsuzaka, understand that Matsuzaka has a ring from 2007, if that is a bust, why won’t the Cubs do this? Matsuzaka had absolute control over the ball and a wizard like craft over his pitches, or was I the only one who watched him pitch in the WBC? Darvish was on the team with Matsuzaka and who recieved the MVP? Hype over a gyro ball landed him more money but he was rock solid, just really slow, and I mean slow, Darvish has a lot to prove before he can have the establishment of being the better version of Dice K.
Also recall the 2007 (and later) MLB seasons when he returned to nit picking pitches and could not get anything out asl well.
The WBC and MLB seasons were night and day difference, just like matsuzaka’s Japan and MLB career’s have been. Even his fluke 2008 season was filled with so called “luck” with his horrible bb splits.
AJ Burnett has a ring from 2008.
No he doesn’t. he never played for the Phillies.
Yu to Toronto please 🙂
The Yankees are going to go H.A.M on Darvish. They have no rotation after CC (Nova looks promising but doesn’t have enough sample size, Hughes is questionable due to health, Garcia is decent but a junkballer, Colon is falling off and I won’t start on AJ).
I mean with Weaver off, who else are the Yankees going to go after in the next few years…Lincecum/Cain? We’ll see.