Hey Blue Jays, I'm sure Brandon Fahey is available

[Art Wing]

His last year in Japan he had a .636 OPS, and was under .700 two years before that, too. I don't know what the Mariners and now Jays saw in him. He really doesn't have much plate discipline. In his last five years in Japan his best walk rate was 47 in 640 PAs, that was his best. He looks like a Japanese League version of Alexi Casilla. Would you sign Alexi Casilla if he put up his same numbers in AAA?

I guess I need to have a second cup of coffee and look over those numbers again. I was completely ignoring slugging and just llooking at obp.

[SteveA]

Watching both high payroll teams visiting town the past few days, LA and Toronto, I see a lot of good players but I don't see TEAMS. The Dodgers have some great players and then all of a sudden they are starting Jerry Hairston and Nick Punto and Luis Cruz. Toronto has guys like Kawasaki out there, and they are letting JA Happ throw 100+ pitches without warming anyone up in the pen.

They both look like teams to me that will never perform on the field as well as they look like they should on paper.

[CanadianOriole]

Best of all - despite being their worst hitter - the Blue Jays are batting him lead off. Despite all the analysis and metrics we have now - and all the really smart people working working in the game - there are still a shocking number of really dumb things done every night all around MLB. Without exaggeration - a somewhat baseball savvy 9 year old could look at Kawasaki's stats, watch him play for 5 innings and tell you without a doubt he should never lead off under any circumstances - yet here's a major league team with pre-season World Series aspirations trotting him out there in the 1 hole.

[DrungoHazewood]

Best of all - despite being their worst hitter - the Blue Jays are batting him lead off. Despite all the analysis and metrics we have now - and all the really smart people working working in the game - there are still a shocking number of really dumb things done every night all around MLB. Without exaggeration - a somewhat baseball savvy 9 year old could look at Kawasaki's stats, watch him play for 5 innings and tell you without a doubt he should never lead off under any circumstances - yet here's a major league team with pre-season World Series aspirations trotting him out there in the 1 hole.

Maybe they see something we don't. Or more likely they're batting him there becuase they think things besides raw performance numbers are more important for the short-term period he has to play. Today you have to think that no front office is stupid. There aren't any more teams being run by cigar-chomping ex-coaches who laugh at Moneyball and fill out their roster on gut instincts they learned from Leo Durocher and Paul Richards.

What appears stupid is usually a case where the difference between stupid and optimal is a small handful of runs a year and personality, political and clubhouse issues take precedence.

[Tony-OH]

Maybe they see something we don't. Or more likely they're batting him there becuase they think things besides raw performance numbers are more important for the short-term period he has to play. Today you have to think that no front office is stupid. There aren't any more teams being run by cigar-chomping ex-coaches who laugh at Moneyball and fill out their roster on gut instincts they learned from Leo Durocher and Paul Richards.

What appears stupid is usually a case where the difference between stupid and optimal is a small handful of runs a year and personality, political and clubhouse issues take precedence.

I don't know, but I do know that despite all the evidence, John Gibbons is leading off with Kawasaki and had no one warming up with J.A. Haap on the mound at 100+ pitches the other day. Both of these instances seem a bit old school in their approach and that's being kind. Now saying that, Gibbons doesn't have a ton of other good options, but I'd probably have Cabrera leading off. Either way, I'd be batting Kawasaki 9th if I had to have him in the lineup at all. BTW, I looked through the Blue Jays system and holy smokes, they literally have no depth at all at this position. Reyes was the one guy they could not afford to lose and they lost him. Makes you have a new respect for Duquette and the depth he's acquired for the system at the upper levels.

Flaherty, Casillo, Niuman Romero, and Schoop would all be better options at SS than Kawasaki in my opinion. And that's not even including Machado.

[SteveA]

Also: Kawasaki to Bonifacio to Encarnacion doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily as Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

[Tony-OH]

Never fails Tony. We disrespect a player, he comes back to beat us. Kawasaki has a key hit in Blue Jays win today.

Wasn't that his only hit of the series? JJs inability to pitch a second inning after three days of consecutive work was on Buck more than anything else. It didn't change my opinion of Kawasaki one bit. He's one of the worse major league starting shortstops I've aver seen.

[DrungoHazewood]

Wasn't that his only hit of the series? JJs inability to pitch a second inning after three days of consecutive work was on Buck more than anything else. It didn't change my opinion of Kawasaki one bit. He's one of the worse major league starting shortstops I've aver seen.

Wow, and you've seen Alex Cintron, Freddy Bynum, and Luis Hernandez (maybe all on the same day)!

[LA2]

2013 OBP:

Kawasaki .324

Casilla .296

Quintanilla (2012 with O's) .284

Flaherty .182

OPS+:

Casilla 77

Kawasaki 74

Quintanilla (2012 with O's) 73

Flaherty 5

[Orioles4Life21]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9211737/munenori-kawasaki-becoming-fan-clubhouse-favorite-toronto

Here's a new piece on ESPN about Tony's boy.

[CA-ORIOLE]

I guess the joke is on us. The little pecker kicked out butts.

[jabba72]

Kawasaki lets the good times roll.

[Jurczak]

I hate this guy so much. Might be my least favorite player right now. This thread, man, it's all I've been able to think about all night. I loathe Munenori Kawasaki. I detest him. Reyes can't come back soon enough.

[benefactor]

This is basically what he's been doing to us all season:

[Frobby]

I never want to hear about the Frobby jinx ever again. This thread takes the cake.