Orioles closing in on Japanese lefty Tsuyoshi Wada (Update: Wada is signed)

[DrungoHazewood]

The O's could potentially have 4 lefties in the starting rotation. How many teams have ever had that many?

There have been eight teams who had five different lefties make at least 10 starts:

                                                                                                                                 Rk    Year Lg                     Tm                                                                                    #Matching1     2009 AL       Seattle Mariners         5  Erik Bedard / Garrett Olson / Ryan Rowland-Smith / Jason Vargas / Jarrod Washburn2     1989 NL  Philadelphia Phillies         5      Don Carman / Dennis Cook / Larry McWilliams / Terry Mulholland / Bruce Ruffin3     1984 AL     Kansas City Royals         5          Buddy Black / Larry Gura / Danny Jackson / Mike Jones / Charlie Leibrandt4     1983 AL       New York Yankees         5             Ray Fontenot / Ron Guidry / Shane Rawley / Dave Righetti / Bob Shirley5     1980 AL      Chicago White Sox         5            Ross Baumgarten / Britt Burns / Ken Kravec / Steve Trout / Rich Wortham6     1976 AL      Baltimore Orioles         5             Mike Cuellar / Mike Flanagan / Ross Grimsley / Ken Holtzman / Rudy May7     1953 NL        Cincinnati Reds         5 Fred Baczewski / Jackie Collum / Joe Nuxhall / Harry Perkowski / Ken Raffensberger8     1951 AL         Boston Red Sox         5             Leo Kiely / Mickey McDermott / Mel Parnell / Chuck Stobbs / Bill Wight

Another 66 teams have had four lefties start at least 10 games.

The 1979 White Sox got over 800 innings out of lefty starters. The '80 Yanks won 103 games and got 110 starts from lefties.

[backwardsk]

^^^ See, I knew you'd come around to converting Patton to a starter.

[KAZ97]

There have been eight teams who had five different lefties make at least 10 starts:

                                                                                                                                 Rk    Year Lg                     Tm                                                                                    #Matching1     2009 AL       Seattle Mariners         5  Erik Bedard / Garrett Olson / Ryan Rowland-Smith / Jason Vargas / Jarrod Washburn2     1989 NL  Philadelphia Phillies         5      Don Carman / Dennis Cook / Larry McWilliams / Terry Mulholland / Bruce Ruffin3     1984 AL     Kansas City Royals         5          Buddy Black / Larry Gura / Danny Jackson / Mike Jones / Charlie Leibrandt4     1983 AL       New York Yankees         5             Ray Fontenot / Ron Guidry / Shane Rawley / Dave Righetti / Bob Shirley5     1980 AL      Chicago White Sox         5            Ross Baumgarten / Britt Burns / Ken Kravec / Steve Trout / Rich Wortham6     1976 AL      Baltimore Orioles         5             Mike Cuellar / Mike Flanagan / Ross Grimsley / Ken Holtzman / Rudy May7     1953 NL        Cincinnati Reds         5 Fred Baczewski / Jackie Collum / Joe Nuxhall / Harry Perkowski / Ken Raffensberger8     1951 AL         Boston Red Sox         5             Leo Kiely / Mickey McDermott / Mel Parnell / Chuck Stobbs / Bill Wight

Another 66 teams have had four lefties start at least 10 games.

The 1979 White Sox got over 800 innings out of lefty starters. The '80 Yanks won 103 games and got 110 starts from lefties.

And indeed the 2009 Mariners had four lefties in the rotation at once:

There rotation in May/June was Felix Hernandez, Bedard, Washburn, Vargas, Olson

[wildcard]

BTW. Props to Wildcard who called these moves yesterday.

Thanks

[Peace21]

Keith Law chimes in w his thoughts on signing.

RT @keithlaw When they make a move worth liking, let me know. RT @prs125: @keithlaw Keith Law hates an Orioles move, no surprise there!

[erb8472]

They are also interested in Win Soon Soon.

[Remember The Alomar]

Shortly thereafter Keith complemented the city of Baltimore and said the problem was purely Angelos.

[Remember The Alomar]

I would love for Duq to pull off a blockbuster like Darvish just to shut these guys up.

"These guys" aren't hating on Baltimore or the Orioles, they're hating on a terribly run organization. I don't think there's anything to be defensive about.

[Frobby]

It's the fact that they don't even give credit where it's due anymore. Good moves by the O's are just completely ignored or brushed aside because of Peter Angelos, and that's just bad journalism. A lot of these guys are former O's reporters who hold grudges. It's just unprofessional. We all know that Angelos is bad - does he have to be a good owner for you to report on the Orioles objectively? I dunno, just a pet peeve.

I disagree. Law doesn't like our moves, so he is entitled to say so. He didn't think much of Chong, and I guess he isn't a fan of Wada, either. Last year he opined that "if Vlad isn't quite toast, he's in the toaster," and said Reynolds was "a butcher" at 3B. Did he say those things because he dislikes the Orioles, or because those were his professional opinions? He was right about both things, though at least Reynolds hit decently. I don't mind getting opinions from those who don't like our moves.

[Remember The Alomar]

It's the fact that they don't even give credit where it's due anymore. Good moves by the O's are just completely ignored or brushed aside because of Peter Angelos, and that's just bad journalism. A lot of these guys are former O's reporters who hold grudges. It's just unprofessional. We all know that Angelos is bad - does he have to be a good owner for you to report on the Orioles objectively? I dunno, just a pet peeve.

I hear where you're coming from, but if Keith thinks that Wada has a 40 grade fastball, then I can understand why he's not a fan of the move.

He complemented Chen for what it's worth. Had him ranked 19th in his top 50 FA's.

[Frobby]

I hear you. I guess where I'm coming from is that if some NL team made those moves, he wouldn't have said those things. That's just my opinion, and we'll never know anyway. But I find it hard to believe that if the Brewers traded for Mark Reynolds, that Law is calling him a "butcher". When you hold animosity towards an organization, it skews your reporting. And yeah, these guys are paid to give opinions more than to report, I get that. Like I said, it's just a personal pet peeve of mine. In the end, the O's need to consistently make good moves to earn national respect.

Why should Law have animosity towards the Orioles? He has never worked for them, nor had any problem with them so far as I ever heard.

[Sports Guy]

Ugh. Uh... how about that JJ Hardy move, that was pretty worth liking.

Law, rightfully so, thought we should trade Hardy.

[MurphDogg]

Law, rightfully so, thought we should trade Hardy.

'Rightfully so" is not a synonym for "agreeing with me".

[NewMarketSean]

There are many Japanese pitchers who have come here and not done well.

It seems like most people here like this move because the Orioles signed a Japanese pitcher and are hitting that market pretty hard right now. That is good in principle but these players could turn out to be the next Clay Rapada and Jeremy Accardo.

As a matter of fact, there's probably a good chance of that.

[NCRaven]

The thing I like most is that Duquette seems able to focus both on long-term and short-term solutions to various problems. Increasing and improving scouting both domestically and internationally are long-term solutions to the problem of increasing the quality and quantity of prospects being developed within our system. Improving minor league coaching is another long-term solution to our problems in player development. These could prove to be very important moves four or five years down the road.

While focusing like a laser on those issues, he's also been able to take steps to make the major league team at least a little more competitive at little cost with moves to improve depth like the signings of Antonelli (a minor deal with upside) and Wada (potential as a starter or reliever), trades for Teagarden (not trying to reopen that can of worms but he did address a need at backup catcher) and Eveland (depth in the rotation or pen), and intelligent non-tender decisions (not tendering fan favorite Scott who should be had at a lower cost).

And, none of the near-term, improve the major league team moves have cost us in terms of long-term development. Low cost in dollars, no loss of draft picks or high ceiling prospects. And, if Chen or Cespedes were added, that would open up other trade options to restock some of the minor league system.