Friday, October 31, 2008

Theo Pursues New Japanese Target


Japan's 12 professional teams granted Junichi Tazawa's request that he not be drafted. The 22-year-old has reached 97 on the gun, and he desires a spot on a MLB team. Playing semi-pro baseball in Japan, 田沢純一 showed excellent control with a walk rate near 0.5 BB/9. His K-rates were consistently at or over 9 K/9. His career totals since 2005 (numbers in parentheses are unconfirmed):

IP

BF

H

2B

3B

HR

SO

BB

HBP

ERA

137.0

512

111

(12)

(0)

(4)

141

(8)

(4)

1.51



Because 田沢純一 has never been signed or drafted by a Japanese professional team, American teams will not have to go through the onerous process by which Daisuke and Kei Igawa were signed following the 2006 season.

6 comments:

Connor Tapp said...

Those are pretty impressive numbers. Of course, I don't know how well success in Japanese semi-pro ball translates to MLB.

Does anyone know if the "posting" procedure is an MLB requirement or a Japanese requirement? It seems like it would make a lot of sense to have that done away with.

Steve said...

it's a Japanese requirement

Connor Tapp said...

I guess it makes sense for them to do that, even if I would ridicule it as wrongheaded protectionism in any other industry.

Somewhat related, I like what that basketball team in Greece is trying to do... It'd be interesting to see if that has any effect on the NBA salary cap. One of my favorite things about MLB is that it doesn't have a salary cap.

Steve said...

any yankees fan who is an economic neo-liberal (because I refuse to surrender the true economic meaning of the word "liberal") must be quite torn.

Connor Tapp said...

Steve, I didn't follow your comment...

But I second your refusal to give up the word liberal to an ideology that is anything but

Steve said...

a neo-liberal would believe in spreading the wealth, which would hurt the yankees. the success of both the yankees and red sox seems to lend credence to the democratic nature of capitalism. more people like the yankees and red sox than other teams, therefore they have more money and do better. fans have voted with their dollars.