With the signing of LHP Oliver Perez, now Mets fans can laugh at the M's front office. ;)

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Originally Posted by darkwinterbeast8

With the signing of LHP Oliver Perez, now Mets fans can laugh at the M's front office. ;)

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It is kinda funny, sorry. You know how you feel about the Pineda/Montero trade? You should feel 100 times worse about this.

As for Darvish, I expected the Rangers would reach a deal with him. It should be interesting to see how he pitches over here and how that could affect the demand for Japanese players in the future (which is currently fairly low, I'd say).

I don't think this affects demand. Japanese players play a different game with different baseballs and different workloads, so how well any one player adapts to MLB is anyone's guess.

I hope he crashes and burns, but only because he's playing for Texas. They could go 1-161 and I'd be disappointed at how much success they had.

Bobby V said Darvish is the real deal and then the Red Sox who need pitching help didn't even try for him. He's gonna bust.

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Originally Posted by darkwinterbeast8

With the signing of LHP Oliver Perez, now Mets fans can laugh at the M's front office. ;)

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Ahahahahaha... Perez isn't even worth a roster spot on a single-A team these days. The guy just doesn't have it anymore, actually, he hasn't had it for a few years now. It's not even taking a chance on a player that was once good, it's just throwing money away at this point.

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Originally Posted by Mega-Tallica

Ahahahahaha... Perez isn't even worth a roster spot on a single-A team these days. The guy just doesn't have it anymore, actually, he hasn't had it for a few years now. It's not even taking a chance on a player that was once good, it's just throwing money away at this point.

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yeah, if his salary is more than a kindergarten teacher's, that's a tragedy.

its gonna be a freaking battle for AL wild card. figure the top three AL East teams are legit 95-win teams, add the Rangers and now the Angels looking like another possible 95 win team, you're looking at some serious competition for that one playoff spot.

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Originally Posted by Dante1847

I don't think this affects demand. Japanese players play a different game with different baseballs and different workloads, so how well any one player adapts to MLB is anyone's guess.

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You've got a point, and you may very well be right, but I think there has been precedent for teams being willing to shell out a little more money for Japanese players after one has been successful here. It's highly possible that teams do now realize that one player being successful here doesn't mean they all will be, though.

You mentioned the differences in baseballs, which I think will be the most important factor in Darvish's success here. I don't know his pitch repertoire off the top of my head, but if he's heavily reliant on breaking pitches, he'll have to adjust to that and that has been a problem for other Japanese pitchers. Granted, none of the people I have in mind came over with quite the fanfare that Darvish has.

yes, in my opinion the breaking pitches are what establish Japanese pitchers' quality. the crucial element though is how well they can maintain those pitches' effectiveness, both in terms of actual throwing ability and in game-calling. what I think we've seen from a somewhat small sample size is that MLB hitters are initially baffled by what they see coming out of these pitchers' hands, but then they quickly get used to it and then it's the pitcher that gets hit around.

I remember Daisuke's first spring training, and media interviews with opposing hitters were saying how they had never seen pitches like what Daisuke was throwing (and yeah, there was a lot of media hype bull**** over his crazy gyroball or whatever). then, all of a sudden, they figured out he was just throwing curveballs combined with a funky, long delivery.

EDIT: Darvish's pitches...from the top of my head, he's got good fastball command and significant velocity change between his 4 seamer and the 2 seamer. At risk of speaking the obvious, when it comes to Japanese pitchers, it doesn't matter so much as what they bring to MLB as what MLB brings to them. They have more to prove. They come to the most challenging baseball league in the world, and you're not gonna convince me has some "magic" pitch that Roy Halladay doesn't already show to big league hitters. As with any Japanese pitcher (except--Ha!--Kei Igawa) there should be some early success followed by significant regression.

One of the more interesting things I've come across regarding Japanese pitchers is the splitter (former Met Ryota Igarashi is an example of this). The Japanese ball is much smaller, so a Japanese pitcher doesn't need as wide a grip to throw a splitter. When they come over here, though, they keep that grip, and the splitter effectively becomes a slow fastball because there's no movement.