...turned out just fine”. Megdal’s latest.
But he uses former Met Masato Yoshii as one of his throwaway examples of a Japanese pitcher who couldn’t hack it here.
The thing is, Yoshii’s time in New York was actually a quiet success.
Leitch writes:
Hiroki Kuroda is the latest in a long line of Japanese pitchers to come overseas to face the highest level of competition, and while some of his predecessors have had success in the major leagues, none seems to have figured out a way to do it in New York. From Masato Yoshii to Kei Igawa (price tag: $46 million) to, most notoriously, Hideki Irabu, the legacy of Japanese pitchers in this town is one of failure and tragedy.
The problem with equating Masato Yoshii to Igawa and Irabu, in an article pointing out that not all Japanese pitchers are the same, should be obvious.
Yoshii pitched two seasons with the Mets after signing in January, 1998. His signing was not the high-profile, headline-grabbing event of Irabu’s or even Igawa’s. Yoshii’s base salary was just under $500,000 in 1998. In fact, he was brought in as a low-cost alternative to bringing back Dwight Gooden.
Repoz
Posted: April 30, 2012 at 05:00 PM |
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1. RB in NYC (Now Semi-Retired from BBTF) Posted: April 30, 2012 at 05:48 PM (#4120098)Yeah, that roll he went on before the Encarnacion (How about him too?) HR was dominant. He got a ton of swings and misses tonight.
Kuroda wasn't so bad either (7 IP, 3 Ks, 1 BB, 4 Hs, 1 R). His ERA is down to 3.69. Why are people (seemingly) worried about him?
I think it's more that the 100% poor starting performances by Garcia and Hughes have given Yankee fans the heebie-jeebies, and any deviation from near-perfection by the other three starters is going to have them biting their nails. If Garcia had been pitching like he did last year and Hughes had been pitching like he did in Spring training, I doubt if you'd have seen this sort of reaction to Kuroda, even if he did have two horrific starts in his first three performances.
Right, these articles seem to get stupider every year. Most of the Japanese pitchers that have come over were past their primes, and many of them have done quite well:
Darvish (so far)
Kuroda
Nomo
Kaz Sasaki
Saito
Otsuka
Matsuzaka (until he broke down)
Hasegawa
Uehara
Okajima
Ohka
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