Japan's Victory Lap

 

Very fitting that the year Japan takes down the US in WBC play, it also happens to be a big year for Japanese players in the US.

I mean, there have been more monumental years for Japanese exports, like the initial buzz of Hideo Nomo in LA, or the exaltation of the Yankees getting Hideki Matsui, or the gambit of the Red Sox nabbing Daisuke Matsuzaka and then winning a World Series with him, or even the Rangers being the ones to take Yu Darvish. But 2023 has three relatively big Japanese ballplayers touching down on American soil to begin the year, and in an era where Shohei Ohtani is one of the faces of baseball, it's an earned victory lap.

The Mets probably made the most waves signing Kodai Senga, especially considering that it came in the same offseason as their signing of Justin Verlander. Even with Jose Quintana hurt, their rotation is still looking like Scherzer-Verlander-Senga-David Peterson-Carlos Carrasco. Even with Carrasco being an older liability, that's still a strong matchup, especially with Peterson looking insanely good over his spring starts. 

While Verlander and Scherzer are sure to be the crowd-pleasers, Senga does look like an interesting case behind them. In 11 seasons with the Softbank Hawks, Senga sported a 2.42 ERA, a 104-51 record, 1486 strikeouts and a 1.096 WHIP. Those are some pretty solid numbers, even if the seasons are shorter in Japan. There is ultimately the worry of the initial adjustment to throwing stateside, as virtually every Japanese pitcher has had a year of surgeries after trying to adapt to MLB hitting, but the hope is that the Mets at least get some prime years out of him before this, and 2023 would be a nice season for Senga's a-material to aid the Mets.

At the other end of the spectrum is Shintaro Fujinami, who's notably struggled more often in his 10 seasons with the Hanshin Tigers. The 28-year old still has a 3.17 ERA and 80 wins, but a career 1.322 WHIP is a bit scarier to people. Fujinami is also suiting up for the Oakland Athletics, a team with direr needs and sparser run support. At the very least, Fujinami is 3-0 in his 4 spring training starts, and has 17 strikeouts...but he's also walked 13 people and given up 6 earned runs. He is a premeditated risk that could, in theory, pay off for the A's. 

And then, of course, you have Masataka Yoshida for the Red Sox. The dude was on full display during the WBC, people know how useful someone like him is even for a mid-tier team like Boston. In 7 seasons with the Orix Buffalos he has a .327 average, 133 home runs, 900 hits and 474 RBIs. Not bad at all, and close to the production of someone like Benintendi or Devers. In a team that's let so many homegrown contact hitters go, Yoshida is the closest thing to a compromise, a contact-hitting export that has cut out the 'coming to prominence' part of his journey and is right at his peak as the Red Sox need him.

I honestly think Yoshida's gonna have the best season of these three, just on the basis of his WBC production and his career to this point, but Senga could surprise me. I haven't counted out Fujinami either, he could be a tricky aspect of an already-interesting AL West.

And Now, A Word from Jerald Clark and His Bats

"Hi. I'm Jerald Clark.

These are my bats.

I like that black one over there. On the left. It's smooth. Real smooth. One time, I line-drived a man's shin clean open. He needed surgery and everything. I like that one, but...I don't use it often. You know, you wanna keep the knee-splitting one to a special occasion.

This plain one's pretty nice too. Custom wood. Got it from a tree in Denver, 20 minutes from the stadium. Y'see, when you're getting wood to make bats from trees, best to do it in the middle of the night, so they don't see you.

You don't want them to see you.

This is the one I use most often, when they start me. I go ahead and I whack at that thing, man. I try and make like that tree and fall on that pitcher's house.

I mean...uh, yeah.

This bat-holder, that was made custom for me. I got it made especially by, uh...this guy, that...he used to work at an IKEA. And he...you know, he studied how they made those little, um...bat holders. At IKEA. And he studied those, and he made one himself.

...I mean, it kinda LOOKS like this guy stole a bat-holder from IKEA, but no, that...that didn't happen. No.

This one to the far right...that thing is SWEET, man. You what I'm gonna do next year? I'm gonna go to Japan, right? Take only this bat. And just annihilate all the Japanese pitching. With this here bat. This thing is on another level, man. Tougher than American pitchers, tougher than Japanese...tougher than...Scandinavian? I don't know, man, it's a tough-ass bat.

Just you wait. This bat's gonna set Japan on fire.

...And this rack, too. I'm gonna take this bat rack with me. To, uh, to Japan. I'm gonna put it in my suitcase. They're cool with that. Honest. They're real cool with that. That's one of their exports, Japan. Custom made bat racks. That's their industry.

Sometimes I like to look at 'em all. My bats. I like to look at 'em, and I think...'these are MINE. I OWN these. I hit...so many hits with this thing. I DID that.'

Sometimes you just have to own stuff like that. I did all this. And if this is all I end up doing, then...then that's enough.

Isn't it?"

On Tanaka- Lighten Up.

I live in the Northeast, which means that, as you probably heard, I got a ton of snow last night. Needless to say I didn't have to go to school today, so I slept in. For a while.

By the time I got up, which was around 10:45, I called my dad, because I wanted to know about how people had been responding to his latest work, which I will probably go into detail on.

I instantly forgot that when he told me "we got Tanaka".

I double-taked. I asked him to repeat himself, clarify, and tell me he wasn't bluffing me. All three times gave me the same answer- Masahiro Tanaka was joining my New York Yankees.

The easiest thing the critics can say is that Tanaka has never pitched in the MLB before, and that may not have been worth the 155 million. And they have been saying that. Many times. They've brought up names like Masahide Kobayashi, Kyuji Fujikawa, Kazuhiro Sazaki and Kei Igawa to buttress their points.

Okay, fine. Those players didn't adjust to MLB systems. They failed. You're right. However, Tanaka is different from those, in that he's made far more news in Japan, been a potential MLB acquisition for far longer, and is being signed for a lot more money. Besides, Tanaka is being hailed as something really big.

Besides, the numbers can speak for themselves. He's 25, pitched a beautiful 24-0 season last year, and still has a lot left in him. It's not like he's 30 like the rest of our recent pickups. It's not like he's unreliable, because he certainly can pitch.

Maybe people are just fearing what happens if he does pitch as well as he did in Japan. Him, Nova, Kuroda, and newly-thin Sabathia could be really nice next year. He could have a spectacular season and go toe-to-toe with Yu Darvish. He could be excellent, and people are just refusing to believe it, because he's a Yankee.

Just wait until he actually pitches an MLB game. Then you can judge him all you want.