Just about everybody got that one in the prediction contest.

Yeah, Kuroda's good - but he's not worth the salary PLUS a first round pick for one season. The salary alone - yes.

Sounds like a good deal to me. His performance last year was certainly worthy of $15 mil and this doesn't affect their ability to get under the luxury tax line for 2014.

It is mildly Amusing / Sad that...

2008-2012

Kuroda: 14.3 WAR

Matsuzaka: 4.5 WAR

(Granted, Matsuzaka's first year year in 07 had a WAR of 3.8 and he had just 2 health season in this span.. but still)

2008-2012

Kuroda: 14.3 WAR

Matsuzaka: 4.5 WAR

Just pitchers being pitchers.

Kuroda's quietly putting forward a case for best Japanese pitcher in MLB history isn't he?
The main competition is Nomo, or am I forgetting someone else.

Amazingly, Takashi Saito's best season is amongst the best WAR performance by a Japanese pitcher... and he was a reliever.

That says more about how freaken brilliant that season was though.

Yeah, Kuroda's good - but he's not worth the salary PLUS a first round pick for one season. The salary alone - yes.

For the Red Sox, they'd have gotten Kuroda + Kurdoda not on the Yankees - 2nd round pick. That's worth quite a bit.

Kurdoda not on the Yankees

As a Yankee fan, I hope this guy is good!

Double post. Did you know it says you can only post every ten seconds? I wonder if, in some of the political threads, people actually post every 15.

Kuroda's quietly putting forward a case for best Japanese pitcher in MLB history isn't he?
The main competition is Nomo, or am I forgetting someone else.

No other Japanese pitcher has had five good seasons, except relievers (Saito, and Shigetoshi Hasegawa).

Tomo Ohka has a surprising 10.8 career WAR. He was very good for the Expos after repeated false starts with the Red Sox. Still only had 3 seasons of more than 110 innings.

Kuroda's quietly putting forward a case for best Japanese pitcher in MLB history isn't he?
The main competition is Nomo, or am I forgetting someone else.

no, you're not

(Darvish certainly has a chance to catch him, though)

Kuroda's quietly putting forward a case for best Japanese pitcher in MLB history isn't he?
The main competition is Nomo, or am I forgetting someone else.

Best ERA+ seasons:
Nomo: 149, 131, 122, 112, 100
Kuroda: 126, 120, 114, 112, 106

Best WAR seasons:
Nomo: 4.9, 3.8, 3.8, 3.1, 2.4
Kuroda: 4.0, 3.9, 3.6, 2.2, 2.1

Guts 'n Glory:
Nomo: 2 no hitters, 0-2, 10.38 post-season record
Kuroda: 2-2, 3.94 post-season record

I guess career-wise, you gotta give it to Nomo, with his longevity, and slightly higher peak performance, and two no-hitters, while saying nothing pure value-wise, certainly count for something for certain definitions of "great". But Nomo never put together a five year stretch as good as Kuroda's, and Kuroda's been doing it from ages 33-37. Nomo was fading at those ages. If I'm going "narrative", it's all Nomo: first Japanese player since Murakami, longest career, 2 no hitters, thrilling debut and then late-career renaissance, piles and piles of strike-outs. But if I had to choose one to give me a season's worth of work, I go with Kuroda. It'll be interesting to see how much gas he has left in the tank.

Nomo gave back some of the value that he had accumulated in his last few seasons when he was toast.

gave back

You can't give back value that has been accumulated once the season has ended. The book is closed so to speak. The fact that a future season maybe of less or negative value has no impact on the value that was provided to a previous team. Seasons are discrete, non overlapping events.

Tomo Ohka has a surprising 10.8 career WAR. He was very good for the Expos after repeated false starts with the Red Sox. Still only had 3 seasons of more than 110 innings.

My favorite thing about Tomo Ohka is that he decided for three games in 2006 that he'd hit left-handed--and went 3-6.

I was commenting on his career value.

Don't forget one of those no-hitters was in Coors Field.