ヤンキース、井川の苦い経験あり

井川は入団当時から疑問視されていた。　ヤンキースはレッドソックスの松坂獲得に対抗して井川を獲得したとしか思えない。

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/sports/baseball/yankees-know-risks-of-splurging-on-japanese-aces.html?ref=baseball&_r=0

いずれネットでは見られなくなるので、本文をコピーしておく。

Yankees Know Risks of Splurging on Japanese Aces

By JAY SCHREIBER and DAVID WALDSTEIN

Published: December 25, 2013

Friday is the sixth anniversary of one of Brian Cashman’s more disastrous moments in his long run as general manager of the Yankees. On Dec. 27, 2006, Cashman signed off on a five-year, $20 million contract for the Japanese left-hander Kei Igawa, a pitcher who, in the seasons that followed, went on to win two games for the Yankees while spending most of his time out of sight and out of mind in the minor leagues.

But Cashman and the Yankees threw away a lot more than $20 million. Even before they could agree to a free-agent contract with Igawa, the Yankees had to win the blind bidding for his negotiating rights, which they did with a bid of $26,000,194, the last three digits representing the number of strikeouts Igawa had compiled in the 2006 season for the Hanshin Tigers.

It was a nice touch at the time but now stands as one more sarcastic footnote to the embarrassment that Igawa became in the Bronx. Now, seven years later, it is worth recalling that episode as the Yankees, and any number of other major league teams, get ready to jump into the free-agent sweepstakes for Masahiro Tanaka, the 25-year-old ace of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, who compiled a hard-to-believe 24-0 record in the 2013 season and then led his team to the Japan Series championship.

Under Japanese rules, Tanaka had not yet arrived at free agency, and Rakuten understandably did not want him to leave. And that reluctance only grew after recent revisions to the posting-fee system and the establishment of a $20 million ceiling on the sum a major league team must pay a Japanese club like Rakuten in order to negotiate with a player like Tanaka.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday in Japan, Rakuten did relent. The team president, Yozo Tachibana, said Tanaka’s outstanding contributions to the club had earned him the right to depart if he wished. And the Yankees, in dire need of starting pitchers, may be at the front of a line of major league teams trying to snare Tanaka with a multiyear deal that could approach $100 million.

As Cashman bargains with whoever emerges as the American agent for Tanaka, the question will be whether he will flash back to Igawa and wonder if it is at all possible that Tanaka, if he ends up in pinstripes, might also turn out to be a big, and expensive, disappointment.

Baseball is, after all, an inexact science, and the guesswork is only magnified when players are switching countries, using a different ball, trying to communicate in a foreign language.

When the Yankees moved in to sign Igawa, they saw a 27-year-old pitcher who had led Japan’s Central League in strikeouts three times and who might have slipped some from his standout 2003 season, when he was the league’s most valuable player, but still had a reassuring 14-9 record in 2006 with a 2.97 earned run average.

None of that translated to the United States.

But the Igawa misjudgment — and some baseball people in the United States were skeptical of him from the start — is not the only cautionary tale lurking in the background as the Tanaka bargaining takes shape. Daisuke Matsuzaka of Japan became a major leaguer just weeks ahead of Igawa but to far more fanfare, signing a six-year, $52 million contract with the Boston Red Sox after they won the rights to negotiate with him with a bid of $51,111,111.

In the end, Matsuzaka hardly lived up to his reputation. In his first season in Boston, when he was 27, he went 15-12 with a 4.40 E.R.A. and helped the Red Sox win a championship. In 2008, he was 18-2 with a 2.90 E.R.A. But from then on, there was too much ineffectiveness, too many arm problems (including Tommy John surgery) and too much frustration. In the last three seasons combined, for Boston and then the Mets, he started all of 25 games and had only seven victories. He is currently a free agent.

And then there is Yu Darvish, who starred for the Nippon Ham Fighters in Japan and then, at age 25, joined the Texas Rangers for 2012 after they won the rights to him with a $51.7 million posting fee, which was followed by a six-year, $60 million contract.

As a Ranger, Darvish has been solid, and at times dominating, with a combined two-season record of 29-18 with a 3.34 E.R.A. In 2013, he led baseball with 277 strikeouts.

So what about Tanaka? In 2011, Darvish had his best season in Japan — going 18-6 with a 1.44 E.R.A. — but was beaten out for the award that goes to the country’s best pitcher by none other than Tanaka, who went 19-5 with a 1.27 E.R.A. Then came Tanaka’s 24-0 run.

A major league scout who has often watched Tanaka pitch said Tanaka could throw a fastball between 90 and 97 miles per hour and had an above-average slider and an average curveball and changeup. His signature pitch is a split-finger fastball.

The scout, who did not want to be identified discussing a pitcher who is not on his own team, said that Tanaka, like Detroit’s Justin Verlander, could throw a little harder in a crucial spot late in a game or snap off a particularly devastating splitter.

For a team like the Yankees, all of that sounds great. More disconcerting is the fact that less than two months ago, Tanaka threw 160 pitches in a complete-game loss in Game 6 of the Japan Series and followed that up with 15 more pitches in a Game 7 save.

Still, that alarming volume of pitches should not keep the Yankees and other clubs from battling it out to sign him — and hoping that, just as in Japan, he is not only as good as Darvish, but better. But there are no guarantees.

それにしてもニューヨーク・タイムズの英語は分かり易い。中学校の英語の教科書を読んでいるようだ。