By Blaidd Drwg

You know you are in trouble defensively when a statement like this is made:

Sources said that there is a good deal of sentiment within the Yankees organization to go after Raul Ibanez — who wants to play for the team — to be their designated hitter against right-handers, partly because they believe he can give them some days of outfield play.

Although Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui are also available, they are generally regarded as unplayable defensively, sources said.

That is from an espn.com article on the Yankees trading AJ Burnett to the Pirates. Raul Ibanez was a terrible outfielder when he was with the Mariners and 5 years younger. I wonder if anyone in the Yankees organization has actually watched Ibanez play in the field. Damon, Matsui and Ibanez are all guys you don’t want out in left field for you team if you can absolutely avoid it. Besides the Yankees already have a more than serviceable outfield rotation with Curtis Granderson, Brent Gardner, Nick Swisher and Andruw Jones. Where and when do they think they will need Ibanez in that mix?

In other “old guy” baseball news, Tim Wakefield has finally decided to retire after pitching so long for the Red Sox that I believe he was Ted Williams’ last active teammate.

By Blaidd Drwg

It appears that Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter’s doctors have found more cancer. Carter has been battling brain cancer off and on for the last few seasons. It is probably not good – the cancer was aggressive and inoperable, when he was first diagnosed. Normally I would not go out of my way to mention this, but Gary Carter is one of the good guys out there. He has spent a good part of his life raising money for charity, even during his playing days, and is very sincere and humble if you ever get a chance to talk to him. I had the opportunity to meet him in Montreal in 2002 during an Expos game and I asked him about his charity work, especially as a player when he would go to visit children’s hospitals to bring some cheer to the kids there. He said he felt it was his responsibility as a celebrity to give back to the community.

In 2011, MLB made a “Stand Up to Cancer” commercial. At the 19 second mark, the Baseball Tonight Crew is pictured. On the left, you have John Kruk, who is a cancer survivor. On the far right, you have Ron Darling, who was Carter’s teammate with the Mets in the late ‘80’s. Darling is holding up a sign for “My Catcher” referring to Gary Carter. I am not sure how many people even realized what that referred to, but it still gets me choked up when I see it.

The commercial is here:

Update – ESPN is reporting that Gary Carter has passed away at age 57.

 

By Blaidd Drwg

There is always the “next big thing” pitcher coming out of Japan. First it was “Nomo Mania”, then it was Hideki “Fat Toad” Irabu, then “Dice-K” Matsuzaka and his mysterious “gyro-ball” and “No-Kei” Igawa and now you have Yu Darvish. Darvish just signed a $60 million dollar contract with the Rangers. The Rangers also had to pay $52 million to Darvish’s Japanese League team as a posting fee, so they essentially signed him to a 6 year, 112 million dollar contract, roughly what Matsuzaka cost in 2007 and roughly the average of what Jered Weaver is making a season.

Japanese starters have largely been unsuccessful making the leap to MLB (there are a number of relief pitchers that have done well though). Nomo is far and away the best and Matsuzaka had a couple of decent seasons (there were a few other decent back of the rotation guys, but no one worth mentioning) , but neither had been dominant to the point of being called a franchise pitcher. Both Nomo and Matsuzaka entered the league at age 26, so let’s take a look at how they did, year by year compared to Jered Weaver. Yes, Weaver had already been in the league 3 years by the time he turned 26, but it is a fair comp since Nomo and Matsuzaka were both expected to be top of the rotation starters the second they entered the league.

Year 1 – Age 26

	Year	W-L	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA+	WAR
Nomo	1995	13-6	2.54	191.1	11.1	3.7	150	4.9
Matsuzaka	2007	15-12	4.40	204.2	8.8	3.5	108	3.2
Weaver	2009	16-8	3.75	211.0	7.4	2.8	117	4.5

 

Year 2 – Age 27

	Year	W-L	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA+	WAR
Nomo	1996	16-11	3.19	228.1	9.2	3.4	122	4.4
Matsuzaka	2008	18-3	2.90	167.2	8.3	5.0	160	5.1
Weaver	2010	13-12	3.01	224.1	9.3	2.2	132	5.6

 

Year 3 – Age 28

	Year	W-L	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA+	WAR
Nomo	1997	14-12	4.25	207.1	10.1	4.0	91	1.7
Matsuzaka	2009	4-6	5.76	59.1	8.2	4.6	82	0.3
Weaver	2011	18-8	2.41	235.2	7.6	2.1	158	6.6

 

Rest of Career

	Year	W-L	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA+	WAR
Nomo	1998-2008	80-80	4.66	1349.1	8.1	4.4	92	9.6
Matsuzaka	2010- Current	12-9	4.81	191.0	7.5	4.6	90	1.0

Nomo basically became league average in his 3rd season and then broke down after that, posting just 1 season with an ERA+ over 105 the rest of his career. Matsuzaka basically broke down in his 2nd season and, despite some nice looking numbers in 2008 (thanks to a ton of run support), really wasn’t all that good – he threw a lot of pitches and averaged less than 6 innings a start when healthy. He also probably won’t pitch in 2012 due to arm injuries. It really seems to be a trend where Japanese pitchers come into the league, take it by storm for a year or two and then fade away. These guys should be following a career curve like Jered Weaver, putting up their best seasons between the ages of 26 and 29, but they are not.

I have a few theories on as to why this is:

• They are abused and throw a ton of innings in Japan prior to coming over to the majors. I can’t find pitch counts for Japan, but I would be willing to bet these pitcher routinely through in the 120-130 pitch range early in their career.
• Their conditioning is not sufficient enough for the longer MLB season (the season is longer by about 20 games or 4 starts). Four starts may not seem like a lot, but it is roughly 15% more pitching than what they are used to. To put it in perspective, imagine running a 26 mile marathon and then being told you have to run another 4 miles before you are actually finished.
• They don’t adjust to the talent level in MLB. Basically, they are getting by on raw stuff their first couple of years until hitters figure them out and make adjustments. Once the hitters make adjustments, the pitchers don’t and become hittable.
• They don’t adjust to the strike zone. If you look at the stats of Matsuzaka in his last few seasons in Japan, he walked 84 hitters in 401 innings; he walked 80 in 205 innings in his first big league season. The same hold true for Nomo.
• Their deliveries put too much torque on their arms. Hence the breakdowns at around age 28.

I am not saying that Darvish is going to flop. He shares a lot in common with Nomo and Matsuzaka – they are all power pitchers, they all threw a ton of innings in Japan at an early age, they are all 26 in their first MLB season. Maybe Darvish will be different and have a long career as a top of the rotation starter. Then again, maybe he will fall apart after a couple of seasons.

My prediction: Darvish will have a 135 ERA+ type season, winning the ROY in 2012 and then basically be a league average starter by 2015. I figure he will have ERA+ of something like 118 in 2013, 108 in 2014 and 100 in 2015, getting hurt sometime in 2014-2015 for an extended period of time. I would love to come back to this post in a few years just to see how accurate I am.