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And the Rangers will be paying him $2.5mil per year for the next 3 years. Ouch.
Ya, that Lee kid is alright.
Taro takes the site deep !
=== Champeen, Dept. ===
Taro, who won the aggregate SSI roto championship in 2008, warned this winter that Colby Lewis was his Pick of the Season:
Colby Lewis is potentially the biggest bargain this offseason. Its interesting how little attention this guy is getting even though hes been one of the most dominant NPB pitchers over the past 2 years despite pitching in that bandbox in Hiroshima.
A cutter and tightened command have led to his breakout seasons...
I wonder where the other 29 teams were on this? Lewis put up comparable and even slightly better numbers than what Matsuzaka had in his final 2 NPB seasons.
A near 10 K/BB is no joke, he led the league in K/9 in BOTH '08 and '09, he raised his GB/FB ratio to 1.48, and he did it all in Hiroshima. Thats the same launchpad where Kuroda pitched (the Coors of NPB).
$8mil over 3 years? I still can't believe it.
At first glance I thought that was for ONE season, not two and an option year.. Thats such a rediculous bargain, its silly. Lewis could be merely league-average and the Rangers would only be paying him a little over $1mil per W.
Are we back to assumming that the NPB is AAA level? Whats the deal? Why weren't more teams in on him?
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Now, THAT is taking the blog-o-sphere deep. :- ) Taro, that's an epic call, my man. Seriously.
My own POTD had Lewis landing on the beach as about the #35-40 starter in the league sight unseen, hoping to get a lot more value than "league average starter." But I was nowhere near as bullish as Taro, obviously, and if there were an AL draft right now, Lewis would go as the #20 overall starter at the lowest.
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=== Scouting Report ===
Having seen Lewis once in the last several years - that being April 30th - I confess I still don't see him as a longterm star in the American League. But this man is sitting on 38 strikeouts against 13 walks in 32 innings, and you do not fake 10K per ballgame, not even for a month.
Visually he doesn't look like any 10K pitcher I ever saw, but he does have the 10K.
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We did get an unfortunately loonnnnnng look at him on Friday, and the guy he reminded me of was John Lackey.
Lackey also works off an 83-mph hard curve / slider, and wants to get you out with that pitch most of all.
The FB for both pitchers is in the 90-92 range, with excellent command, and both pitchers mix four quality pitches in. They even have similar body types and motions.
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Obviously Lewis went over to the offspeed-happy NPB, sharpened his offspeed game to a needle's point, and came back with wayyyyyyy to much for the AL to deal with.
I still reserve the right to question Lewis' long-term ability to star -- see Jeremy Guthrie's splash in 2007 -- but right now Lewis' game is legit and the Rangers have scored themselves a free TOR.
Hope Taro has him in every roto league. :- )
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So, Taro, where are you on that Cliff Lee kid?
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Standing O,
Dr D