Japan

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Q.  Baseball Prospectus, in this article, interprets Iwakuma as being an 89-mph guy, with 4 lame pitches, but a forkball that comes up to average ML quality.  True?

A.  WAY off the mark.

In the F/X Interpretation Apple Bowl, I'll take SSI over BP, thanks.  In part because SSI has a video footage coordinator on defense.  

But if it's ML scouting you want, here is Orel Hershiser judging Iwakuma's pitches.  Orel flatly states that Iwakuma "could play in the majors in a heartbeat" and is enthused about all of Iwakuma's tools:

Hisashi Iwakuma is a complete pitcher. He doesn't have Darvish's 96 mph fastball, he's more around 91-92, but he has five exceptional pitches. He's got the short breaking ball with the slider,* a tight, locating curveball, a nice, solid changeup, a lively fastball and a great forkball. He was one of the most impressive pitchers in the tournament ...  he could play in the majors in a heartbeat. 

*As opposed to Darvish's, which tends to be thrown loopy and for a called ball. - jjc.

I agree with Orel, and would even if Iwakuma were about to become an Oakland Athletic, except that I see Iwakuma as a 4-pitch guy, not a 5-pitch guy.  Will explain exactly why Orel is right, and BP is wrong, in a second.

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For those who want another 'net rat's take based strictly on the F/X alphanumerics (and no video), here is one from Athletics' Nation last year.

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Q.  In a nutshell, what is Iwakuma's repertoire?

A.  Average-solid 89-92 fastball, straight, but with life and with plus-plus command -- think Jered Weaver's approach, maybe not quite.  

Excellent (plus) shuuto with late, hard bite (think Steve Delabar's "High School Gyroball").  

80 mph slider thrown in the strike zone.  And a Sasaki-class forkball.

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Q.  C'mon.  He'd be a big star if he had four pitches like that.

A.  Which he is.  

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Q.  Upside for Iwakuma?

A.  It's hard for me to visualize Iwakuma making the All-Star team.  Suppose he fans 6.0 men per game, mostly on swinging forkballs and on called FB's and sliders.  That's great, but Tim Hudson doesn't get Cy Young votes.

Well, I take it back.  Iwakuma's two offspeed pitches -- 80 slider, 83 forkball -- are tailor-made to exploit MLB arrogance and over-aggressiveness.  Mussina fanned 7 men a game even after he lost his stuff.

The UP scenario resides in MLB batters getting overly frustrated with the soft stuff, and Iwakuma getting into their heads.  I could see a 17-8, 3.35 season that way.

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Q.  Downside for Iwakuma?

A.  Comes only in the possibility of his getting injured, or in the possibility of his not executing his pitches nearly as well as he has been.

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Q.  Okay, here's a non-star from Japan.  Can those guys play in the bigs?

A.  Well, Kawasaki does make the All-Star game and the WBC there.  But you know what we mean.  It's like you sent LeBron and Kobe and Dwayne Wade to play in a higher league, and they did kinda good, and now you want to send Kris Humphries and see what happens.

My instinct was, "you gotta be kidding me.  They'll knock the bat out of his hands.  Go fight in your weight class, kid."

I mean, Nishioka came over and posted an ISO of .029 -- that is, in about half of a season, he had 50 hits, of which 45 were singles and the other 5 doubles.  As Emperor Palpatine said, I don' want that in my sight. again.

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But then we siiigggghhhhhed and trudged over to the b-ref.com NPB player page, to look at all the little infielders.  Just to check whether their ISO's have been miserable.  As you know, your intuition on a position might be better than a computer's, but only after you've carefully uploaded the patterns.  How has it worked out before?

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Video, Nov 5

First batter, Grossman, 1-2 count, Hultzen comes in with the slider/change and Grossman's reaction is comical.  Can't tell whether his swing was late on pitch 4, or early for pitch 5.  Always funny to see a hitter (half-)swing wayyyyy late on an 81 mph pitch :- )

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Q.  Do Japanese pitchers disappoint?  Does SSI concede any "lessons learned" from DiceK and Typhoon Irabu?

A.  Well, at the outset Dr. D will cheerfully admit that he's not as dead-on certain about these transitions as he (and the Boston Red Sox) were before Matsuzaka arrived.

Still, for one thing, Darvish is bigger than DiceK, throws harder, and has performed much better.  Darvish's career ERA is 2.12, compared to DiceK's Japanese ERA about a full run higher. 

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Secondly, I'm convinced that Matsuzaka's arm was fatigued when he got here.  In Y3 here, he developed serious hip and arm problems.

Bobby Valentine said about Hideki Irabu, that Nolan Ryan had agreed with Valentine that neither had seen anything like Irabu in his prime.  I wonder to what extent we see an NPB pitchers' best over here...

Darvish is 25 and, apparently, throwing at his best.  DiceK, in his last few years in Japan, did seem to have some burnout showing.  But that's hindsight.  NPB fans could remark on it more intelligently.