Fukudome, Kuroda, Kobayashi

[square634]

That's why I clarified my post with "Or arms from Asia, for that matter."

But the thing is, other than Irabu, I can't think of a total flop who was a Japanese arm. Kaz Matsui was the biggest flop from Japanese position players, but look what he's doing now for the Rockies.

[Moose Milligan]

But the thing is, other than Irabu, I can't think of a total flop who was a Japanese arm. Kaz Matsui was the biggest flop from Japanese position players, but look what he's doing now for the Rockies.

Kei Igawa pretty much blows.

I'll give you that Wang has been pretty good for the Yanks. I forgot about him.

Masato Yoshi wasn't great.

Masao Kida wasn't good for the Dodgers, Tigers or Mariners.

Satoru Komiyama wasn't good for the Mets.

Shige Hasegawa has been pretty good and had a long career in the MLB.

http://www.japaneseballplayers.com/en/

Dunno man, like I said before, I don't trust the O's in getting good value from our own market, I certainly don't trust them getting good value from the Asian markets.

And Kaz Matsui has had a really nice playoff stretch but he needs to put together a good season or two to live up to his billing. I mean, this is a guy who got the ESPN the magazine cover for their annual "Next" issue.

[byrdz]

That is very, very overstated. Any money that comes in from these guys in Japan is put into a pot and shared equally among all the teams. The only exception is team merchandise actually bought at Camden Yards or at official team stores.

Yeah that's right, my bad.

By the way, this is how many hotdogs Kobayashi has eaten in each season of the championships:

* 2007: Second place (63 hot dogs)

* 2006: First place (53.75 hot dogs)

* 2005: First place (49 hot dogs)

* 2004: First place (53.5 hot dogs)

* 2003: First place (44.5 hot dogs)

* 2002: First place (50.5 hot dogs)

* 2001: First place (50 hot dogs)

...and his hamburger run..

* 2006: First place (97 hamburgers)[14]

* 2005: First place (67 hamburgers)[15]

* 2004: First place (69 hamburgers)[16]

Now, if we could just get this many saves out of the other Kobayashi then he would be a great pickup.

[bigbird]

We should be looking to sign Hitoki Iwase.

[Crazysilver03]

Kei Igawa pretty much blows.

I'll give you that Wang has been pretty good for the Yanks. I forgot about him.

Masato Yoshi wasn't great.

Masao Kida wasn't good for the Dodgers, Tigers or Mariners.

Satoru Komiyama wasn't good for the Mets.

Shige Hasegawa has been pretty good and had a long career in the MLB.

http://www.japaneseballplayers.com/en/

Dunno man, like I said before, I don't trust the O's in getting good value from our own market, I certainly don't trust them getting good value from the Asian markets.

And Kaz Matsui has had a really nice playoff stretch but he needs to put together a good season or two to live up to his billing. I mean, this is a guy who got the ESPN the magazine cover for their annual "Next" issue.

Wang is Chinese.

[Crazysilver03]

We should be looking to sign Hitoki Iwase.

That would be a major coup. He is quite possibly the best left handed reliever in all of Japan.

[Moose Milligan]

Wang is Chinese.

For the third time, I'm talking about Asian scouting on the whole.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Why do I get a sickening feeling that our first Asian player will be a 38-year-old Hideki Matsui?

[mweb]

Wang is Chinese.

He's Taiwanese.

[Sports Guy]

We should be looking to sign Hitoki Iwase.

Doesn't he have amazing control?

His K rate would be OK here but if he walks so few batters, that may be ok.

[byrdz]

He's Taiwanese.

Touche!

Isn't there a rule in Japan that players can not leave their leagues until after a certain amount of years? If true, this is another good reason to hit the Latin countries harder because wouldn't the players come cheaper, younger and less fatigued, in general?

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[djp200]

Any talk of 'going harder' for prospects in Latin America and South America is a tad foolish. The O's shouldn't be limiting themselves in ANY region be it Latin America, South America, Asia, Europe, Antartica, or wherever.

For a team that is so far behind in international scouting, they need to be hitting everywhere hard.

For a team weak on homegrown talent, they need to be hitting everywhere hard.

For a team that can't compete against Boston and NYY in terms of spending, they need to be hitting everywhere hard.

No stone should be left unturned. The O's need every small advantage they can find. The past successes and failures of Asian players in the MLB shouldn't bear any weight on the strategic decisionmaking for the team's progress. There are plenty of players from the draft, Latin America, and South America who have arrived with plenty of hype and showed equally disappointing results. Should the O's stay away from investing heavily in these areas?

That'd be ridiculous and it'd be equally ridiculous for the team to close themselves off from a viable source of talent. Furthermore, as the game starts to develop in China, the available pool of talent from Asian will grow even larger. The O's should be looking to get their foot in the door now.

[CrazyTrain]

Know what?

Honestly, I wouldn't go after any Japanese arms. Or arms from Asia, for that matter. I know that there's still an allure there, but honestly, name a pitcher that's had long term success and more importantly, lived up to the billing as being a dominant pitcher? Nomo did it for awhile but faded pretty quickly. Irabu was a colossal flop...Dice K is pretty good, but not the dominant pitcher he was billed as. Chan Ho Park never lived up to the hype, either. Kaz Sasaki was a good closer for the Mariners, though.

Okijima has been good to great, I almost left him out.

As far as positional players go, Ichiro is the only one who's been a bonafide superstar and Hideki Matsui has been really good (and probably a bit underrated) too. Hee Seop Choi (and some others I can't name off the top of my head) have been busts.

So...I think we walk a really fine line when bringing guys over from Japan. Like I said, I'd stay away from the pitchers and let the Yanks and Sox continue to overspend for them. I think we can all agree that Dice K is a good pitcher but not worth what they paid for him.

As far as batters go, I'd explore it, but they'd have to be total studs on an Ichiro or Hideki Matsui level..and at that point, is Baltimore even attractive? Our market is small, we don't have the allure of NY or the pacific coast culture like Seattle. Will we be able to win the bidding wars?

As much as I've said I'd like to see the O's start tapping into the Asian market, it seems to be a pretty fine line. I'd much much rather see the team take that money and spend it in South America and get a bunch of talent from down there...I think it's a better investment of time and resources.

Thank you, I totally agree with you. There are far more complete busts than superstars or even average players coming over.

[DrungoHazewood]

Thank you, I totally agree with you. There are far more complete busts than superstars or even average players coming over.

Doesn't this mean we should get better at scouting and digging up players who'll come to the US cheaply, rather than just punt on a whole country or continent? I just don't understand the logic of saying that Hideki Irabu didn't provide a good return on investment, so we should ignore a country of 130M people who treat baseball as their #1 sport and have a domestic league that's second only to Major League Baseball.

The Orioles can't afford to ignore anything that gives them a leg up in finding new talent. If they're smart they'll radially realign the budget so more goes to scouting and analysis and less to payroll. They need a budget so that no area of the globe is ignored.

[jerios55]

Any talk of 'going harder' for prospects in Latin America and South America is a tad foolish. The O's shouldn't be limiting themselves in ANY region be it Latin America, South America, Asia, Europe, Antartica, or wherever.

agree with the post, but I think we can leave this one on the backburner;)