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According to The Japan Times, Junichi Tazawa will forgo playing in Japan next season and will try to sign with a MLB team.
It has been rumored that the 22-year-old Tazawa will draw interest from the Braves, Mets, Yankees and Red Sox.
For more on Tazawa, click here.
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I’m shocked by the teams rumored to be interested.
If we sign ollie and K-rod I say we make a push for this guy as our fifth. In all honestly other than holt I don’t think our pitching prospects are ready to take the role of a good fifth starter.
You think Holt is ready after working in Brooklyn?
everyone does tide….didnt you get the memo…
Mets fan seems to be either crazily optimistic or crazily pessimistic about our players.
So this guy is a pitcher? It’d be nice if the blog post actually said that.
were these the teams that were interested in dice-k?
ya and now dice-k is great so we should get this guy
That’s LSAT worthy logic right there.
It seems like a coin flip. He can be a Daisuke Matsuzaka or a Kae Igawa. Risky
At least he is young, although reading that he is 5′11 doesnt inspire confidence he will hold up long term as a power pitcher.
Billy Wagner and Pedro both lasted to their early-mid 30’s
Get this kid and put him in the bullpen next year.
Let’s remember, Omar is a believer in Japanese baseball. He made what was the second highest posting bid on Matsuzaka. He actually thought he’d had won until Boston blew the competition out of the water. If the Mets can sign a young kid from Asia with a good makeup and upside, there is no reason not to him aboard and hopefully be an effective option out of the pen.
The real Japanese treasure though is Yu Darvish. The Mets have been scouting him for years, even as far back in his high school days. Still only 22 years old, hopefully he jumps ship to the MLB as well.
He’s sworn up and down that he’ll stay in Japan but you and I both know how that goes. He’s the main draw over there right now. His era is ridiculous, under 2.00 for the last two years. He’s like a Japanese Dwight Gooden.
Keep in mind this guy is only 22 years and has not yet played in even the japenesse league. He would be the same as any draft pick, no experience yet and needs minor league seasoning
Yawn……..
dont take the chance unless he is very cheap…he may be like igawa or dice k but u never know.. id rather spend that money and get a starter that is already known.. it is an extremely risky move that the mets shouldnt make
johan, sheets/burnett, pelf, maine, (open)
krod
cmon thats perfect.. its only two big moves they would need to make and the team next yr would be amazing.
i would prefer burnett over sheets..i can see burnett being dirty in the national league.
i dont know about this
remember our last japanese allstar?
Sign him to minor league contract and see if he can add depth to the bullpen. (I’m not that impressed.)
It amazes me how so many fans consider every player that comes over from Japan to be of the same background- there seems to be a general treatment of Japanese baseball as a proving ground whose biggest stars comprise the group of people who come over to the US- and this simply isn’t true. Some that come over, like Dice-K, are established Japanese stars, but many aren’t. I can’t even count how many times I heard people talking about Shinjo as an example of what a Japanese offensive star could do in the majors, when, in fact, he was a very marginal player in Japan- his stats were, actually, generally better here than they were there. Similarly, I’ve heard announcers describe So Taguchi as a “former Japanese star” who came over to make it in the majors, but again, he wasn’t even close to being a star there- his stats have actually been better, if anything, here, and that’s with his being in his mid-thirties. Some players come over as accomplished stars and others don’t, so lumping expectations for all of them together makes as much sense as doing so based on any other national origin- does anyone really say that they do or don’t want to sign someone playing outside of the US based solely on the fact that they’re Dominican, Mexican, or American?
Tazawa is 22, older than the vast majority of draftees, and has been playing independent league baseball (which also means no posting fee). This isn’t about getting a Japanese star, this is about getting someone who hasn’t even been picked up by an NPL team for their affiliated minor league team yet, and would have been years ago if he was thought much of by Japanese scouts. He might develop into a better pitcher or he might not, but this isn’t about getting a Dice-K or an Igawa, it’s the equivalent of signing a 22-year old from the St. Paul Saints, the Bridgeport Bluefish, or any other independent minor league team and should be treated as such.
Wow Kid, You sure told us!
Yea, in retrospect, my post seems a little harsh in tone. I’m just tired of people saying, every time that a Japanese player comes on the market, that we should sign them because of Dice-K or we shouldn’t becasue of Komiyama (who, by the way was 36 when we signed him, cost us only 500,000 dollars and was never able to cut it as a starter in Japan after he went back there, either) as if everyone that comes over from Japan has an equal chance of success or failure….
oh my god i loved shioshi shinjo, honestly one of my favorite mets
So, you realize that that’s generally considered an ethnic slur, right?