Yu Darvish or Haven't They Learned Their Lesson Yet

I've been thinking about this one for a while and I wanted to elaborate on what the title mean. First off, in case you don't know, Yu Darvish is currently the best starting pitcher in the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB). The 25-year old pitcher for the Nippon Ham Fighters is currently one of the heavily scouted players by MLB teams in Japan. Why? Well, according to Jason Coskrey and Kaz Nagatsuka in their MLB scouts doing due diligence on Fighters' Darvish from the Japan Times dated September 5, 2011:

In his seventh year as a professional, Darvish is 91-36 with a 2.04 ERA and 0.99 WHIP. So far this season, Darvish is 16-4 with a 1.54 ERA. Through 21 starts, he has 206 strikeouts, marking his fourth season with at least 200.

So on paper Darvish seems to be a jewel of a find for any MLB team that would be open to post for him. A quick and concise explanation on how the posting process works can be found here at the page Posting System on BaseballReference.com. This is where things can get complicated. First off, Darvish is not a free agent at the end of the year. In the NPB the rules concerning how free agency is attained are stricter than how free agency is attained for players in MLB. According to Ryan Webber in his article Japanese Free Agency from Sportsagentblog.com dated November 13, 2009:

Starting in 2009, there are two classes of free agents: international and domestic. Domestic free agents can only sign with other NPB teams while international free agents are free to try their luck overseas as well as sign domestically...In order to qualify as an international free agent, players must play nine seasons in the NPB. To qualify as a domestic free agent, players drafted before 2007 must wait eight seasons. Players drafted after 2007 are only required to wait seven seasons before being declared domestic free agents. This is a much longer period than in MLB.

Also, in contrast to MLB regulations, players must be on the team’s top roster for 145 days in order for it to count as a “year” for free agency purposes. Time spent injured or in the minors does not count. Therefore, it can take much longer than eight or nine years for a player to be eligible for free agency in Japan.

So in Darvish's case he can become a domestic free agent during next season and an international free agent during the 2014 season. It is believed that Darvish will asked to be posted by the Nippon Ham Fighters. If approved by Nippon Ham and the league then there will be a mad dash on MLB teams to try and put together the highest posting fee and hope their's gets picked. There are at least 10 teams scouting Darvish among them being the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Herein lies the meaning of the second part of the title to this post.

I was telling a couple of friends of mine who are Yankees fans of the Yankees' attempts to scout Darvish and after a couple of perplexing looks from them, they both almost voiced the same statement in unison: Haven't they learned their lesson yet? In case you don't know, the Yankees have been burned when it comes to Japanese pitching in the form of Hideki Irabu and Kei Igawa. Theoretically you can say that every MLB team has been burned by Japanese starting pitching not living up to their expectations though Daisuke Matsuzaka did put up a 33-15 record with a 3.72 ERA in 61 games (61 starts) with 355 stikeouts and 155 walks his first two seasons with the Red Sox before injuries and ineffectiveness have limited him to a 16-15 record with a 5.03 in 45 games (44 starts) with 213 strikeouts and 127 walks. Perhaps if the Red Sox hadn't shelled out a whopping $51,111,111.11 posting fee on top of a six-year, $52 million dollar contract the ineffectiveness would be felt less by the Red Sox Nation. Position players such as Hideki Matsui, Ichiro Suzuki and to a certain degree Akinori Iwamura lived up to the expectations. No Japanese starting pitcher since Hideo Nomo has been able to meet up to the same kind of expectatios. But back to Darvish.

In the Coskrey and Nagatsuka article, they say that MLB scouts view Darvish favorably when compared to current MLB starters. How can a team looking to stay competitive such as the Yankees and the Red Sox who play in Baseball's most competitive division ignore a potential ace such as Darvish. As with any player who is scouted, it can be a crap shoot. Look at Jose Bautista, who could have predicted two years ago that he'd be such a dominant player. On the flip side, look at Jason Heyward who had an impressive rookie season and is struggling this season. The scouting is never guaranteed to bring success. Teams just have to sometimes take a chance on a player and hope for the best which is what teams hope to do with Yu Darvish. This whole thing can be made moot if Darvish does not ask to be posted or if he does ask to be posted and the team decides not to. Until then we'll just have to wait and see.

*** Photo Credit goes to the Japanese Baseball Card Blog Page

FH

For Further Reading:
- Click Here to access Yu Darvish's career statistics from the NPB website

Hey Scoop we got all brothers out here

September 1 in Major League Baseball is known as the day when the rosters are expanded to accommodate the minor leaguers that have earned a brief promotion to the major leagues. But on September 1, 1971 in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania something happened in a major league baseball game that had never happened before. 

Pirates manager Danny Murtagh had prepared the lineup that he planned to field against the Philadelphia Phillies as he would have done for any other game for the exception of one little detail. Before I go into the little detail, here is the lineup:

Rennie Stennett (2B)
Gene Clines (CF)
Roberto Clemente (RF)
Willie Stargell (LF)
Manny Sanguillen (C)
Dave Cash (3B)
Al Oliver (1B)
Jackie Hernandez (SS)
Dock Ellis (P)

What was different about this lineup from any other lineup that Murtagh  (or any other manager in Major League baseball up to that point) had ever written up was that this lineup was the first starting lineup that was made up of players of color. Considering  that they color line was broken only 24 years prior by Jackie Robinson in 1947, it was an amazing and historic event.

Was there a reason past just winning the game for Murtagh's decision? It's hard to say. Murtagh had been quoted as such when asked about the lineup for the article "Pirates Starters All Black" which was printed in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin:

"When it comes to making out the lineup, I'm color blind and my athletes know it. They don't know it because I told them, but they know it because they are familiar with the way I operate."

The Pirates roster was a cosmopolitan blend of 14 whites, six African-Americans and seven Latinos. According to Bruce Markensen's article Thirty Years Ago...The First All-Black Lineup:

In 1971 the Pirates represented baseball’s most heavily integrated team, with black and Latino players accounting for nearly fifty percent of the club’s roster.  The Pirates also featured one of baseball’s most harmonious teams, with friendships and gatherings often crossing racial lines

The reason for the team being called the "All-Black team" rather than let's say the "All-Black/Latino Team" (as I chose to do so) is that at the time there wasn't much in the way of distinguishing African American and Latino players past the color of their skin which always seemed to upset Roberto Clemente. Clemente always stressed that he was Puerto Rican and should be regarded as a Latino because of it rather than the color of skin. So what happened in the game?

In front of just 11,278 fans, the Pirates defeated the Phillies by a score of 10-7. History and continued progress was made that day.

FH

For Further Reading:
There are two excellent articles that cover the subject of the Pittsburgh pirates starting lineups of September 1, 1971

- Click Here to access Bruce Markensen's article Thirty Years Ago...The First All-Black Lineup from baseballguru.com

- Click Here to access Charlie Vascellaro's article Bucs broke ground with first all-minority lineup dated September 1, 2011 from MLB.com 

The First All Black-Latino MLB Starting Lineup

September 1 in Major League Baseball is known as the day when the rosters are expanded to accommodate the minor leaguers that have earned a brief promotion to the major leagues. But on September 1, 1971 in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania something happened in a major league baseball game that had never happened before. 

Pirates manager Danny Murtagh had prepared the lineup that he planned to field against the Philadelphia Phillies as he would have done for any other game for the exception of one little detail. Before I go into the little detail, here is the lineup:

Rennie Stennett (2B)
Gene Clines (CF)
Roberto Clemente (RF)
Willie Stargell (LF)
Manny Sanguillen (C)
Dave Cash (3B)
Al Oliver (1B)
Jackie Hernandez (SS)
Dock Ellis (P)

What was different about this lineup from any other lineup that Murtagh  (or any other manager in Major League baseball up to that point) had ever written up was that this lineup was the first starting lineup that was made up of players of color. Considering  that they color line was broken only 24 years prior by Jackie Robinson in 1947, it was an amazing and historic event.

Was there a reason past just winning the game for Murtagh's decision? It's hard to say. Murtagh had been quoted as such when asked about the lineup for the article "Pirates Starters All Black" which was printed in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin:

"When it comes to making out the lineup, I'm color blind and my athletes know it. They don't know it because I told them, but they know it because they are familiar with the way I operate."

The Pirates roster was a cosmopolitan blend of 14 whites, six African-Americans and seven Latinos. According to Bruce Markensen's article Thirty Years Ago...The First All-Black Lineup:

In 1971 the Pirates represented baseball’s most heavily integrated team, with black and Latino players accounting for nearly fifty percent of the club’s roster.  The Pirates also featured one of baseball’s most harmonious teams, with friendships and gatherings often crossing racial lines

The reason for the team being called the "All-Black team" rather than let's say the "All-Black/Latino Team" (as I chose to do so) is that at the time there wasn't much in the way of distinguishing African American and Latino players past the color of their skin which always seemed to upset Roberto Clemente. Clemente always stressed that he was Puerto Rican and should be regarded as a Latino because of it rather than the color of skin. So what happened in the game?

In front of just 11,278 fans, the Pirates defeated the Phillies by a score of 10-7. History and continued progress was made that day.

FH

For Further Reading:
There are two excellent articles that cover the subject of the Pittsburgh pirates starting lineups of September 1, 1971

- Click Here to access Bruce Markensen's article Thirty Years Ago...The First All-Black Lineup from baseballguru.com

- Click Here to access Charlie Vascellaro's article Bucs broke ground with first all-minority lineup dated September 1, 2011 from MLB.com 

Roberto Alomar HOF 2011

On Sunday July 24, 2011 Puerto Rican second baseman Roberto Alomar joined pitcher Bert Blyleven and longtime Baseball executive Pat Gillick as the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Alomar was elected in his second year of eligibility with 90 percent of vote. According to the Baseball Writers of America's website:

Alomar, who was in his second year on the ballot, received 523 votes, the third highest total in history, for a 90-percent plurality. He was the 26th player to reach the 90-percent level in BBWAA elections.

In a 17-year career (with with the San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks), Alomar was a career .300 hitter with 2724 hits (504 2B/80 3B/210 HR) 1508 runs and 1134 RBI. Alomar stole 474 bases (in 588 attempts) struck out 1140 times and walked 1032 times. Alomar's OPS was .814 (.371 OBP/.443 SLG). Alomar was a 12-time All-Star (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001) won a record 10 Gold Gloves at second base 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001) and won 4 Silver Slugger awards (1992, 1996, 1999, 2000). Alomar was in the top ten of the MVP vote five times (1991, 1992, 1993, 1999, 2001), was an important part of the 1992 and 1993 World Series Champion Toronto Blue Jays winning the Most Valuable Player of the 1992 American League Championship Series and MVP of the 1998 All-Star Game at Coors Field in Denver.

With his induction, Alomar becomes the 3rd Puerto Rican in the Hall of Fame joining Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda.  

Felicitaciones Roberto en su consagración en el Salón de la Fama.

FH

For Further Reading:
- Click Here to access Roberto Alomar's career statistics from Basbeall-Reference.com

C.C. Sabathia, Ron Guidry, Cy Young and 18 Strikeouts

My son and I attended last night’s Yankees-Mariners game and were treated to a gem of a game. C.C. Sabathia continued on his march to another dominating season. In between a few rain delays, Sabathia utterly dominated the Mariners. Sabathia took a perfect game into the 7th inning fanning 14 Mariners while allowing only 1-hit and 3-walks leading the Yankees to a 4-1 victory. This loss was the 17th straight defeat for the Mariners tying the 1926 Boston Red Sox, 1962 Mets, and 1977 Atlanta Braves with 17 losses in a row. This leaves the Mariners four losses short of the American League record of 21 straight losses currently held by the 1988 Baltimore Orioles and six losses shy of the Major League record 23 straight losses held by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies. But I digress, back to Sabathia and the Yankees.

With his victory last night, Sabathia is 15-5 with a 2.56 ERA with 3 complete games and 1 shutout in 23 games started. Sabathia has struck out 156 while walking only 45 and allowing 143 hits for a WHIP of 1.15. It’s a shame that Sabathia will probably be overlooked for Cy Young consideration once again. Many of the voters have the misconception that since Sabathia pitches for the Yankees he’s expected to win. As if winning games day in and day out playing on the Yankees is a given. Sure, Sabathia (and every other Yankees starter) is given one of the best lineups in baseball batting behind him but he still has to go out and do the job which in the last three seasons with the Yankees he’s done so at the tune of a 55-20 record. Not to say that the other Cy Young candidates such as Justin Verlander and Jared Weaver aren’t deserving of consideration, but it just seems that Sabathia doesn’t get the accolades he deserves when it comes to Cy Young voting while he plays on the Yankees. We’ll see how it plays out at the end of the season.

In total, three Yankees pitchers (Sabathia, Robertson and Rivera) struck out a total of 18 Mariners tying the franchise record for strikeouts in a 9-inning game. This performance tied the achievement of another Yankees ace. The franchise record was set in 1978 against the California Angels. On June 17, 1978 Ron Guidry struck out 18 California Angels leaving him one strikeout behind the then Major League record of 19 strikeouts which was then held by five players (Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Hugh Daily and Charlie Sweeney). The current record is 20 strikeouts in a 9-inning game and his held by Kerry Wood and Roger Clemens (who achieved the feat twice). During a tumultuous 1978 season for the New York Yankees, Guidry was the constant bright spot for the team. Guidry led the league with a 25-3 record with a 1.78 ERA in 273.2 innings pitched with 16 complete games and 9 shutouts in 35 games. He struck out 248 while walking 72 and allowing 187 hits for a WHIP of 0.946. Guidry was a dominating constant in a season where the Yankees overcame the distractions of internal squabbling and managerial turmoil.

The Yankees had three different managers that season (Billy Martin, Dick Howser and Bob Lemon) and were 14.5 games behind the first place Boston Red Sox in July. By the end of the season, the Yankees were able to tie the Boston Red Sox for first place forcing a one game playoff in Boston which was capped by Bucky Dent’s 3-run homerun for a 5-4 victory and the AL East title. The Yankees would defeat their league nemesis the Kansas City Royals in four games in the AL Championship Series and would defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games in the 75th World Series. For his part, Guidry would win the AL Cy Young Award unanimously with all 28 first place votes.

Fast forwarding to today from 1978, can C.C. Sabathia continue his dominating season and possibly join Ron Guidry as Yankees pitchers to win the Cy Young? We’ll have to wait until after October to find that out. Until then, I’ll just have to keep watching the big guy game in and game out. On a separate little side note, is there anyone out there that still thinks that the Yankees overpaid for Sabathia?

FH

For Further Reading:
- Click Here for C.C. Sabathia's career statistics from Baseball-Reference.com
- Click Here for Ron Guidry's career statistics from Baseball-Reference.com
- Click Here to access the List of Major League Baseball pitchers with 18 strikeouts or more in one game from Wikipedia.com
- Click Here to access the five longest losing streaks in MLB during the last 50 years from the article Daily list: Long baseball losing streaks dated July 25, 2011 from the Detroit Free Press website

Looking at Venezuelan Enyelbert Soto of the Chunichi Dragons

I try to profile Latino players that are currently playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) to bring awareness to players who may not have reached their potential while playing in MLB. Last season I profiled Venezuelan outfielder Alex “Rami-chan” Ramirez of the Yomiuri Giants. This season I’ve decided to profile another Venezuelan, pitcher Enyelbert Soto of the Chunichi Dragons.

Soto was originally signed by the Houston Astros as an undrafted free agent in 1999 and seemed to retire voluntarily in 2002 (Why? I can’t seem to find out. When I do I’ll update the post). Soto made his return with the Astros organization in January of 2003 and started pitching for the Greenville Astros of the Rookie Appalachian League in 2004. In 24 games, Soto went 1-1 with a 1.03 ERA with 13 saves in 35.0 innings pitched. Soto struck out 47 while walking only 2 while giving up 30 hits and 10 runs for a WHIP of 0.91. His performance at Greenville led to his promotion to Class A- Tri-City Valley Cats of the New York-Penn League.

In parts of two seasons at Tri-City (2004-2005), Soto went 0-1 with a 3.75 ERA in 10 games with 12.0 innings pitched. He struck out 15 while walking 4 while giving up 11 hits and 6 runs for a WHIP of 1.250. Soto spent the remainder of the 2005 season with the Lexington Legends of the Class A South Atlantic League. In 16 games, Soto went 2-1 with a 4.44 ERA with 2 saves in 26.1 innings pitched. He struck out 16 and walked 2 while giving up 36 hits and 14 runs for a WHIP of 1.443. The next stop for Soto was with the Salem Avalanche of the Class Advanced A Carolina League.

In parts of two seasons with Salem (2006-2007), Soto posted a 5-5 record with a 2.14 ERA with 2 saves in 92.2 innings pitched. He struck out 67 while walking 32 while giving up 92 hits and 32 runs for a WHIP of 1.338. Soto would finish the remainder of the 2007 season with the Corpus Christi Hooks of the Class AA Texas League. In 6 games at Corpus Christi Soto compiled a 1-0 record with a 10.00 ERA in 9 innings pitched. Unlike his other stops in the minors, Soto seemed to have a difficulty with the batters in AA. Soto struck out 9 while walking 13 and giving up 16 hits and 12 runs for a WHIP of 3.222. That’s where Soto’s minor league experience ends and he seems to just disappear from organized baseball.

Then I notice that Patrick Newman of NPBTracker.com posted the following in his article Chunichi Notes: Chen, Soto dated January 24, 2011:

the Dragons will look at another lefty this spring. 28 year-old Venezuelan Enyelbert Soto will participate in Chunichi’s camp on a trial basis. Soto has minor league experience in the Astros organization and played in Italy last season.

Soto made the team and as of today he has been exceptionally productive for the Dragons. In 12 games, he is 1-0 with a 1.04 ERA 17.1 innings pitched. His strikeout to walk ratio seems to have normalized with his striking out 11 with only 2 walks and giving up 16 hits and only 4 runs for a WHIP of 1.052. His last appearance on July 19th was his first start in Japan in which he pitched 5 innings of 1-run ball allowing 4 hits and striking out 2 while not walking a batter.

So what does this mean for Soto? Has the change of scenery worked to his benefit? Are the hitters that he is facing in the NPB of lesser quality than those he had trouble with in AA? I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t a specific reason for his initial success in his first season in Japan. All I can tell is that he is doing his job coming out of the bullpen and now starting for the second place Chunichi Dragons. I will take a look at his progress during the second half of the NPB season. Sayonara and Adios.

FH

For Further Reading:
- Click Here for Enyelbert Soto's career minor league statistics from Baseball-Reference.com
- Click Here for Enyelbert Soto's career minor league statistics from TheBaseballCube.com
- Click Here for Enyelbert Soto's page from the NPB.org website
- Click Here for the article Soto solid as Dragons rout Giants from the Japan Times Online dated July 19, 2011

Alfonso Soriano and How the Mighty Have Fallen

In March of 2010 I wrote a post on my Latinoball blog site called ¿Que Le Paso a Alfonso Soriano?. In this post, I reference an article that I had read from the Washington Post, which basically said that the Chicago Cubs did not get what they paid for in Soriano. Here the Cubs are left with four years on his contract at the sum of $18 million per year until 2014. With Soriano currently batting .249 with 14HR and 41 RBI with 76 strikeouts and only 16 walks it seems that the Cubs are willing to eat a significant part of Soriano’s contract in order to move him.

Mike Axisa of MLBTradeRumors.com states in his article Cubs Willing To Eat High Percentage Of Soriano's Deal that based on sources the Cubs would be:

"willing to absorb a high percentage" of the money left on his deal if the right trade offer came along. There is more than $60M left on his eight-year, $136MM contract.

Soriano also has a full no-trade clause that unbeknown to him was included in his contract. In an interview with Chicago Sun-Times reporter Gordon Wittenmyer Soriano had the following to say about waiving his no-trade clause:

"If it was a contender, yes," Soriano said of waiving the no-trade. "Of course, I want to win. I want to win here. But if not here, then somewhere else. . . .First of all, I don’t want to leave here. I want to stay here because we’ve got to win it. But if they want to trade me, I think the team they would want to trade me to would be a contender that I could help."

If the last few seasons are an indication, the Chicago Cubs will not be winning anything anytime soon. Discarding players like Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano and rebuilding the team around players such as Starlin Castro might be the way to go.

It seems that at the age of 35, (yes Yankees fans, it has been 10 seasons since Soriano almost won the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks with a homerun against Curt Schilling in the 6th inning of Game 7) that Soriano’s best days might be behind him. A future in the AL as a potential DH and occasional outfield replacement might be his best bet.

FH

For Further Reading:
- Click Here for Alfonso Soriano's career statistics from Baseball-Reference.com