Continuing my series: three opening day starters were announced previously: the Rangers will go with Yu Darvish, the Pirates with Francisco Liriano, and the Giants with Madison Bumgarner.
Darvish is the least surprising of the group. The import from NPB built upon his solid 2012 rookie season, stepping forward as one of the elite pitchers in baseball in 2014. He led the majors in strikeouts and K/9, which bodes well for continued success. While Texas has several other capable starters, the rest all come with significant injury concerns. Darvish's performance this year will go a long way in determining what the Rangers do in 2014. He's a strong Cy Young candidate and arguably the player whose team can least afford a bad season from.
Liriano had a bounceback campaign last year with the Pirates, capped by a pair of strong postseason outings. He is the best pitcher on the Pirates right now, but that comes with a caveat - the 161 innings he threw last season were the second most of his career. He's still only 30, which seems impossible, considering how much he's been up and down during his career. With the Reds and Cardinals still looking strong, the Pirates likely will depend on another strong performance by Liriano to get back to the playoffs. If all goes well in Gerrit Cole's development, he should take over the opening day role for a long time.
Of the five announced opening day starters, Bumgarner is the biggest surprise. Not a surprise because of his on-field contributions - he was the best pitcher on the Giants last year, by a fair amount - but because of his listing of more famous rotation-mates. Tim Lincecum, who pitched better in 2013 than he did in 2012, for whatever that's worth, is a two-time Cy Young Award winner. And it's not like he's some old dude - he won those awards in 2008 and 2009. Matt Cain has been the rock of the staff for years and was a model of consistency before suffering his first poor season in 2013. He is the longest-tenured Giant. Finally, Tim Hudson was brought aboard as a free agent. While he's 38, he was solid last year before a gruesome ankle injury ended his season, and has a career profile of a borderline Hall of Famer. His ERA+ of 97 in 2013 was the second worst of his career.
Showing posts with label Yu Darvish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yu Darvish. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Friday, May 04, 2012
What do we know?
Welcome back! I apologize for the negligence in posting regularly - I just finished up my first year of graduate school, so posting here was lower on the priority list. It's disappointing though, because we had a pretty exciting first month of the baseball season. Bryce Harper and Mike Trout have been called up, probably for good. Jered Weaver has thrown a no-hitter, and Phil Humber a perfect game. The Rays and Rangers have emerged (unsurprisingly, especially in the Rangers' case) as teams that appear elite. Matt Kemp may now be the best player in baseball - a subject that deserves attention in more detail further down the road.
Today, I just want to go into some of the stuff we now know. It's easy to make overly rash judgments based on a month of games, but in truth, the first month usually IS a good indicator of things to come. Sure, people read too much into flukes and slumps, but there are some things that it's ok to read into. So, a month in to the 2012 season, here is some stuff I think I know.
Note: SOMETHING on this list will turn out laughably wrong, and will be saved on the internet forever. I have no idea what that is. If I did, I wouldn't write it. Just keep that in mind.
1. If Stephen Strasburg is healthy, he is really, really good.
Strasburg has now thrown 124.0 innings as a major leaguer. He has a 2.18 ERA, 150 strikeouts, and 25 walks. He has now gone 64.1 innings since allowing his last home run. It's too early in the season for WAR to be truly meaningful, but his is 2.5 according to Baseball-Reference, best in all of baseball. If you've gotten the chance to watch him pitch, it's easy to see why - his fastball, overhand curve and changeup give him three pitches that are better than just about any other pitcher's best. He's a pitching freak, and for baseball's sake, I hope he stays healthy. If you believe in the whole "Inverted-W" mechanics being a major flaw, then you have reason to be worried. All the more reason to enjoy him now.
2. Mark Prior just signed a minor league contract with the Red Sox.
This, of course, is why we need to enjoy Strasburg now. Mark Prior, sadly, is now THE cautionary tale of phenom pitchers who broke down. The thing is, nobody can say for certain why Prior broke down - was it his mechanics, was it his overuse, was it just because some pitchers break? He will apparently pitch out of the bullpen in his attempt to work his way back up to the Sox.
3. Yu Darvish looks really quite good.
One of the reasons the Rangers have emerged over the past three years as one of the best organizations in baseball is their pitching. With that in mind, this was the best possible place for Darvish to land. Through his first five starts, Darvish is 4-0 with a 2.18 ERA, with 33 strikeouts and 17 walks in 33.0 innings pitched. That walk total a little high for you? In his last two starts, against the Blue Jays and Yankees, he has pitched 15.1 innings, striking out 19 while walking 4, allowing just 1 run. Those two teams are third and fourth in the American League in walks, by the way, so it's not like he's pitching to a bunch of free swingers. He's settling in. Don't panic if there are adjustments to be made down the line, but Darvish looks, early on, like an ace.
4. The best place to find starting pitching may be your own bullpen. The Texas Rangers can be thanked for this.
It makes sense, doesn't it? Almost every successful major league pitcher comes up through the minors as a starter. There's an occasional college closer, sure, but usually players are put into relief because of a need. If this were 2007, Neftali Feliz, Daniel Bard, Chris Sale and Lance Lynn would likely all be in the bullpen (the first three, without question). Lynn and Sale have been fantastic in the rotation, while Feliz and Bard have had more mixed reviews. The upside here clearly outmatches the downside, though. Suppose Feliz continues to walk a few too many people. The Rangers can send him back to the pen - they'll have a valuable reliever, and can take comfort in knowing they are getting the maximum value out of him. Compare that to the Red Sox usage of Jonathan Papelbon, who likely would have turned into an excellent starter (and made himself twice as much money as a free agent), and relieved several of the depth issues the Sox had in their rotation between 2008 and 2011. So, while the infuriating closer usage patterns that developed in the late 1980's have not yet passed on, teams have finally re-identified the relative value of starting pitchers vs. relief pitchers.
This, which I will post in greater depth at a later date, is what Moneyball was supposed to be about. The point wasn't that college players and OBP were good - it was that they were undervalued. After the A's won in the early 00's, the market adjusted. Teams drafted smarter (a trend clearly visible if you look at the performance of first rounders in recent years compared to 15 years prior), and valued guys who didn't make outs. The Rangers are the team that exploited the next inefficiency, which was reliever usage. With C.J. Wilson, Alexi Ogando and now Neftali Feliz, they have found what had been an inefficiency, to free up the money to sign players like Darvish and Adrian Beltre. Keep an eye on relief phenom Robbie Ross, who could be in the Rangers 2013 rotation.
5. Free Alexi Ogando
An addendum to the previous paragraphs. After an solid year in the rotation last year, the Rangers have moved Ogando back to the bullpen. Not necessarily because they think he can't start, but because they think they have five better starters. They may be right about that. The Rangers sixth starter would be a top three starter on most teams, and the #1 on a couple. To his credit, instead of sulking in the pen, he has been marvelous. 12.2 innings pitched, 5 hits, 1 run allowed, no walks, 12 strikeouts. It would be possible to see him moved in a deal for a slugging first baseman if one were to become available, but there's no obvious counterpart out there.
6. Matt Wieters is breaking out
After enormous expectations on him as a rookie in 2009, his three year line of .265/.328/.415 with solid defense at catcher (8.3 WAR over the three years, according to B-Ref) was considered a disappointment. The expectations had become something of a curse, making it hard to enjoy the fact that Wieters had become one of the ten best catchers in the game. While 22 games isn't enough to say he's made the leap, it's impossible not to be impressed with a .303/.391/.618 line
7. No Pujols, No Carpenter, No Problem
I was among the many who thought the Cardinals would struggle this year, especially after hearing that Carpenter was having disc problems. Instead, they have baseball's best run differential, and the best record in the National League. Can they keep it up? Well, Lance Lynn and David Freese might be emerging stars, but I'm fairly confident that Kyle Lohse, Jake Westbrook and Jon Jay are playing way over thier heads. I'm also not confident in Carlos Beltran's ability to stay healthy. On the other hand, Lance Berkman has appeared in only 7 games, and Adam Wainwright has struggled after coming back from Tommy John surgery. If Wainwright puts it together (and his strikeout and walk numbers indicate that he will), and one of the Berkman/Beltran duo can stay healthy at a time (debatable), the Cardinals should, at worst, be competing with the Reds and potentially the Brewers.
8. Alex Rodriguez is no longer an elite player
Say it over and over. Repeat it every time you hear an announcer talk about how feared he is. Think about it especially hard when, for the next few spring trainings, we hear stories about how the guy is in "the best shape of his life." I hate to keep beating up on the guy (HA - don't believe that for a second, I enjoy it with every fiber of my being... ahem), but his OPS has crawled steadily downward for six years now. The fact that every home run he hits gets replayed on SportsCenter makes it seem like he has more than the 4 he does right now. Among 95 AL qualifiers, he is 48th in slugging, one point behind Alcides Escobar. I'm very skeptical at this point that he'll break Bonds' record of 762. Even if he stays healthy, a big if, I don't see him cracking 700 until mid 2014 at the earliest. Fortunately for the rest of baseball, he IS quite likely to get to 660, costing the Yankees a whole ton of money over the next six years.
Today, I just want to go into some of the stuff we now know. It's easy to make overly rash judgments based on a month of games, but in truth, the first month usually IS a good indicator of things to come. Sure, people read too much into flukes and slumps, but there are some things that it's ok to read into. So, a month in to the 2012 season, here is some stuff I think I know.
Note: SOMETHING on this list will turn out laughably wrong, and will be saved on the internet forever. I have no idea what that is. If I did, I wouldn't write it. Just keep that in mind.
1. If Stephen Strasburg is healthy, he is really, really good.
Strasburg has now thrown 124.0 innings as a major leaguer. He has a 2.18 ERA, 150 strikeouts, and 25 walks. He has now gone 64.1 innings since allowing his last home run. It's too early in the season for WAR to be truly meaningful, but his is 2.5 according to Baseball-Reference, best in all of baseball. If you've gotten the chance to watch him pitch, it's easy to see why - his fastball, overhand curve and changeup give him three pitches that are better than just about any other pitcher's best. He's a pitching freak, and for baseball's sake, I hope he stays healthy. If you believe in the whole "Inverted-W" mechanics being a major flaw, then you have reason to be worried. All the more reason to enjoy him now.
2. Mark Prior just signed a minor league contract with the Red Sox.
This, of course, is why we need to enjoy Strasburg now. Mark Prior, sadly, is now THE cautionary tale of phenom pitchers who broke down. The thing is, nobody can say for certain why Prior broke down - was it his mechanics, was it his overuse, was it just because some pitchers break? He will apparently pitch out of the bullpen in his attempt to work his way back up to the Sox.
3. Yu Darvish looks really quite good.
One of the reasons the Rangers have emerged over the past three years as one of the best organizations in baseball is their pitching. With that in mind, this was the best possible place for Darvish to land. Through his first five starts, Darvish is 4-0 with a 2.18 ERA, with 33 strikeouts and 17 walks in 33.0 innings pitched. That walk total a little high for you? In his last two starts, against the Blue Jays and Yankees, he has pitched 15.1 innings, striking out 19 while walking 4, allowing just 1 run. Those two teams are third and fourth in the American League in walks, by the way, so it's not like he's pitching to a bunch of free swingers. He's settling in. Don't panic if there are adjustments to be made down the line, but Darvish looks, early on, like an ace.
4. The best place to find starting pitching may be your own bullpen. The Texas Rangers can be thanked for this.
It makes sense, doesn't it? Almost every successful major league pitcher comes up through the minors as a starter. There's an occasional college closer, sure, but usually players are put into relief because of a need. If this were 2007, Neftali Feliz, Daniel Bard, Chris Sale and Lance Lynn would likely all be in the bullpen (the first three, without question). Lynn and Sale have been fantastic in the rotation, while Feliz and Bard have had more mixed reviews. The upside here clearly outmatches the downside, though. Suppose Feliz continues to walk a few too many people. The Rangers can send him back to the pen - they'll have a valuable reliever, and can take comfort in knowing they are getting the maximum value out of him. Compare that to the Red Sox usage of Jonathan Papelbon, who likely would have turned into an excellent starter (and made himself twice as much money as a free agent), and relieved several of the depth issues the Sox had in their rotation between 2008 and 2011. So, while the infuriating closer usage patterns that developed in the late 1980's have not yet passed on, teams have finally re-identified the relative value of starting pitchers vs. relief pitchers.
This, which I will post in greater depth at a later date, is what Moneyball was supposed to be about. The point wasn't that college players and OBP were good - it was that they were undervalued. After the A's won in the early 00's, the market adjusted. Teams drafted smarter (a trend clearly visible if you look at the performance of first rounders in recent years compared to 15 years prior), and valued guys who didn't make outs. The Rangers are the team that exploited the next inefficiency, which was reliever usage. With C.J. Wilson, Alexi Ogando and now Neftali Feliz, they have found what had been an inefficiency, to free up the money to sign players like Darvish and Adrian Beltre. Keep an eye on relief phenom Robbie Ross, who could be in the Rangers 2013 rotation.
5. Free Alexi Ogando
An addendum to the previous paragraphs. After an solid year in the rotation last year, the Rangers have moved Ogando back to the bullpen. Not necessarily because they think he can't start, but because they think they have five better starters. They may be right about that. The Rangers sixth starter would be a top three starter on most teams, and the #1 on a couple. To his credit, instead of sulking in the pen, he has been marvelous. 12.2 innings pitched, 5 hits, 1 run allowed, no walks, 12 strikeouts. It would be possible to see him moved in a deal for a slugging first baseman if one were to become available, but there's no obvious counterpart out there.
6. Matt Wieters is breaking out
After enormous expectations on him as a rookie in 2009, his three year line of .265/.328/.415 with solid defense at catcher (8.3 WAR over the three years, according to B-Ref) was considered a disappointment. The expectations had become something of a curse, making it hard to enjoy the fact that Wieters had become one of the ten best catchers in the game. While 22 games isn't enough to say he's made the leap, it's impossible not to be impressed with a .303/.391/.618 line
7. No Pujols, No Carpenter, No Problem
I was among the many who thought the Cardinals would struggle this year, especially after hearing that Carpenter was having disc problems. Instead, they have baseball's best run differential, and the best record in the National League. Can they keep it up? Well, Lance Lynn and David Freese might be emerging stars, but I'm fairly confident that Kyle Lohse, Jake Westbrook and Jon Jay are playing way over thier heads. I'm also not confident in Carlos Beltran's ability to stay healthy. On the other hand, Lance Berkman has appeared in only 7 games, and Adam Wainwright has struggled after coming back from Tommy John surgery. If Wainwright puts it together (and his strikeout and walk numbers indicate that he will), and one of the Berkman/Beltran duo can stay healthy at a time (debatable), the Cardinals should, at worst, be competing with the Reds and potentially the Brewers.
8. Alex Rodriguez is no longer an elite player
Say it over and over. Repeat it every time you hear an announcer talk about how feared he is. Think about it especially hard when, for the next few spring trainings, we hear stories about how the guy is in "the best shape of his life." I hate to keep beating up on the guy (HA - don't believe that for a second, I enjoy it with every fiber of my being... ahem), but his OPS has crawled steadily downward for six years now. The fact that every home run he hits gets replayed on SportsCenter makes it seem like he has more than the 4 he does right now. Among 95 AL qualifiers, he is 48th in slugging, one point behind Alcides Escobar. I'm very skeptical at this point that he'll break Bonds' record of 762. Even if he stays healthy, a big if, I don't see him cracking 700 until mid 2014 at the earliest. Fortunately for the rest of baseball, he IS quite likely to get to 660, costing the Yankees a whole ton of money over the next six years.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Yu Darvish will probably be excellent
Why do I think that? Pretty simple really - he's always been excellent. Players who are excellent in one league generally are excellent in the next. We expect the best players in the Australian League or the International League or the Dominican Winter League to become the best players in the Major Leagues. The skills that make you good at baseball are the same, pretty much no matter where you play. Sure, there are some skills that aren't rooted out in the minor leagues. Pitchers who mix their pitches well but have mediocre stuff usually don't excel in the majors. Batters who have a specific weakness that minor league pitchers aren't good enough to exploit might be found out. In general though, the best players at a level tend to carry that through to the next level.
Yu Darvish has been, by far, the best pitcher in Japanese baseball. He has five consecutive seasons with an ERA under 2.00, and he seems to be improving. In 2011, as a 24 year old, he set a career best in every potentially important category - no matter what categories it is you find important: innings pitched (232), ERA (1.44), wins (18) , strikeouts (276), K/9 (10.7), BB/9 (1.4), HR/9 (0.2), WHIP (.828)... you don't need me to tell you that these are exceptional numbers.
It's not just numbers - Darvish has the sort of stuff that, even if he'd had no history of success, would make scouts take notice. Jonah Keri posted this piece on Grantland.com which I can't really add much to. I'm not sure he'll actually throw six pitches - unless all six are excellent, Mike Maddux will probably have him focus on his four best, and perhaps using a fifth on rare occasions. He's also built like the prototypical starting pitcher, at 6'5", 220. If a guy had put those numbers against college-level talent, with the stuff and build Darvish has, they'd probably be the #1 pick in any draft and expected to rocket through the minor leagues.
With that in mind, why does everyone seem so worried?
I know, I know. Daisuke Matsuzaka. Five years ago, he came in with similarly unbridled expectations. He'd been the Greatest Japanese Pitcher Ever. A national treasure. The scouts and stats both loved him - Baseball America named him the #1 prospect in baseball going into the 2007 season. (Go back and look at this list - only five years later, and the list would be... quite different. Anyhow, moving on). It didn't quite work out. His first two seasons were probably better than you remember,* but classifying Matsuzaka's stateside performance as a disappointment is probably fair.
*He was 33-15, ERA+ of 126 in 372.1 innings, striking out 355 and walking 174. Really.
We see tons of comparisons between Matsuzaka and Darvish, some well done, and some less so. Occasionally, I will see these comparisons labeled "racist." I don't think that's fair - Darvish and Matsuzaka were coming from pretty similar circumstances, and begin their U.S. careers at about the same age (Matsuzaka was about 8 months older in April '07 than Darvish will be on opening day). And both came in with similar hype. Certainly some of the people comparing the two are racist, or at least a bit jingoist. Most people, though, are just baseball fans who are trying to get a handle on what Darvish's statistics actually mean. "He was the best pitcher in Japan? So what - we heard all these things five years ago." That's understandable.
So if we're going to compare them, we need to dig a little bit deeper than "the best pitcher in the Japanese League." Both of them being the "best" at their time doesn't make them equivalent, in the same way Pedro Martinez's Cy Young-winning 1999 season wasn't equivalent to Felix Hernandez's 2010. In his last five seasons in Japan, Darvish has a 1.74 ERA and a 4.9 K/BB ratio, while Matsuzaka had a 2.63 ERA and a 4.2 K/BB. Darvish has the superior stuff and build. And, perhaps most importantly, Darvish has the less-checkered injury history - after throwing 240 innings as a 20 year old in 2001, Matsuzaka got hurt and got to only 73 the next year. He didn't reach 200 innings again until the 2005 season. Darvish, by comparison, has thrown 200 innings in four of the past five years, and the one he missed he got to 182. He's thrown more innings, but he's been much more consistent with the innings thrown. All pitchers are injury risks, but a 25 year old without a history of health problems is a better bet than a 25 with a history.
All of which is to say, Darvish should be rated more highly than Matsuzaka was going into 2007.
Beyond thinking he will succeed, though, I need to disclose something to you, the reader. I am rooting, openly, for Yu Darvish to succeed.
Why? Well, for one thing, because I can.
More importantly, I'm rooting for Yu Darvish to succeed, because I want to get over the "can Japanese pitchers succeed in the majors" question. Of course they can. Hideo Nomo, Kaz Sasaki, Hideki Kuroda, Takashi Saito, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, and yes, to an extent, even Daisuke Matsuzaka had success in the majors. None of them had awesome success, though. Of that group, Nomo had by far the most decorated career, winning the 1995 NL Rookie of the Year Award, pitching two no-hitters, and twice leading his league in strikeouts (1995 and 2001). He won 123 games. That's a nice career and all, but no Japanese pitcher was so good that he has taken away the curiosity effect.
*Note: I know that Darvish is half Iranian. That's not especially relevant - he is, and will almost definitely continue to be, discussed as a "Japanese pitcher."
What do I mean by "curiosity effect?" Basically, the fact that he's Japanese will be treated as a story itself. When Ichiro Suzuki leads off a game against Darvish for the first time (likely during that April 9-12 series in Texas), inevitably it will be treated as a big deal. In 2012, 17 years after Nomomania, that's a little silly. We don't see that when Carlos Ruiz bats against Mariano Rivera (they're Panamanian!) or Jacoby Ellsbury against Jeremy Guthrie (they're Oregonian!), and I'd like to see a Darvish-Ichiro at bat to be treated as a baseball matchup, rather than a national one.
To create that normalcy, Yu Darvish needs to live up to his lofty expectations. If he doesn't, people will ask why, and the easy answer will be that he wasn't properly prepared to play in the major leagues. Not because he's Japanese, but because they just develop players "differently" in Japan.
However, if he DOES live up to those expectations, and becomes an ace quality pitcher? That's one less question GMs will need to ask themselves, one less question every Japanese pitcher will be faced with, and one more pool of talent that every team will make sure they have access to. That way, when the next phenom comes down the road, instead of "can he pitch in America?" the question will simply be "can he pitch?"
Yu Darvish has been, by far, the best pitcher in Japanese baseball. He has five consecutive seasons with an ERA under 2.00, and he seems to be improving. In 2011, as a 24 year old, he set a career best in every potentially important category - no matter what categories it is you find important: innings pitched (232), ERA (1.44), wins (18) , strikeouts (276), K/9 (10.7), BB/9 (1.4), HR/9 (0.2), WHIP (.828)... you don't need me to tell you that these are exceptional numbers.
It's not just numbers - Darvish has the sort of stuff that, even if he'd had no history of success, would make scouts take notice. Jonah Keri posted this piece on Grantland.com which I can't really add much to. I'm not sure he'll actually throw six pitches - unless all six are excellent, Mike Maddux will probably have him focus on his four best, and perhaps using a fifth on rare occasions. He's also built like the prototypical starting pitcher, at 6'5", 220. If a guy had put those numbers against college-level talent, with the stuff and build Darvish has, they'd probably be the #1 pick in any draft and expected to rocket through the minor leagues.
With that in mind, why does everyone seem so worried?
I know, I know. Daisuke Matsuzaka. Five years ago, he came in with similarly unbridled expectations. He'd been the Greatest Japanese Pitcher Ever. A national treasure. The scouts and stats both loved him - Baseball America named him the #1 prospect in baseball going into the 2007 season. (Go back and look at this list - only five years later, and the list would be... quite different. Anyhow, moving on). It didn't quite work out. His first two seasons were probably better than you remember,* but classifying Matsuzaka's stateside performance as a disappointment is probably fair.
*He was 33-15, ERA+ of 126 in 372.1 innings, striking out 355 and walking 174. Really.
We see tons of comparisons between Matsuzaka and Darvish, some well done, and some less so. Occasionally, I will see these comparisons labeled "racist." I don't think that's fair - Darvish and Matsuzaka were coming from pretty similar circumstances, and begin their U.S. careers at about the same age (Matsuzaka was about 8 months older in April '07 than Darvish will be on opening day). And both came in with similar hype. Certainly some of the people comparing the two are racist, or at least a bit jingoist. Most people, though, are just baseball fans who are trying to get a handle on what Darvish's statistics actually mean. "He was the best pitcher in Japan? So what - we heard all these things five years ago." That's understandable.
So if we're going to compare them, we need to dig a little bit deeper than "the best pitcher in the Japanese League." Both of them being the "best" at their time doesn't make them equivalent, in the same way Pedro Martinez's Cy Young-winning 1999 season wasn't equivalent to Felix Hernandez's 2010. In his last five seasons in Japan, Darvish has a 1.74 ERA and a 4.9 K/BB ratio, while Matsuzaka had a 2.63 ERA and a 4.2 K/BB. Darvish has the superior stuff and build. And, perhaps most importantly, Darvish has the less-checkered injury history - after throwing 240 innings as a 20 year old in 2001, Matsuzaka got hurt and got to only 73 the next year. He didn't reach 200 innings again until the 2005 season. Darvish, by comparison, has thrown 200 innings in four of the past five years, and the one he missed he got to 182. He's thrown more innings, but he's been much more consistent with the innings thrown. All pitchers are injury risks, but a 25 year old without a history of health problems is a better bet than a 25 with a history.
All of which is to say, Darvish should be rated more highly than Matsuzaka was going into 2007.
Beyond thinking he will succeed, though, I need to disclose something to you, the reader. I am rooting, openly, for Yu Darvish to succeed.
Why? Well, for one thing, because I can.
More importantly, I'm rooting for Yu Darvish to succeed, because I want to get over the "can Japanese pitchers succeed in the majors" question. Of course they can. Hideo Nomo, Kaz Sasaki, Hideki Kuroda, Takashi Saito, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, and yes, to an extent, even Daisuke Matsuzaka had success in the majors. None of them had awesome success, though. Of that group, Nomo had by far the most decorated career, winning the 1995 NL Rookie of the Year Award, pitching two no-hitters, and twice leading his league in strikeouts (1995 and 2001). He won 123 games. That's a nice career and all, but no Japanese pitcher was so good that he has taken away the curiosity effect.
*Note: I know that Darvish is half Iranian. That's not especially relevant - he is, and will almost definitely continue to be, discussed as a "Japanese pitcher."
What do I mean by "curiosity effect?" Basically, the fact that he's Japanese will be treated as a story itself. When Ichiro Suzuki leads off a game against Darvish for the first time (likely during that April 9-12 series in Texas), inevitably it will be treated as a big deal. In 2012, 17 years after Nomomania, that's a little silly. We don't see that when Carlos Ruiz bats against Mariano Rivera (they're Panamanian!) or Jacoby Ellsbury against Jeremy Guthrie (they're Oregonian!), and I'd like to see a Darvish-Ichiro at bat to be treated as a baseball matchup, rather than a national one.
To create that normalcy, Yu Darvish needs to live up to his lofty expectations. If he doesn't, people will ask why, and the easy answer will be that he wasn't properly prepared to play in the major leagues. Not because he's Japanese, but because they just develop players "differently" in Japan.
However, if he DOES live up to those expectations, and becomes an ace quality pitcher? That's one less question GMs will need to ask themselves, one less question every Japanese pitcher will be faced with, and one more pool of talent that every team will make sure they have access to. That way, when the next phenom comes down the road, instead of "can he pitch in America?" the question will simply be "can he pitch?"
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