Musing On Clay Buchholz and Junichi Tazawa
Joey Matschulat
Welcome to Clay Buchholz Watch: Day 94. - phillenium1979/Flickr.comAlright, so let me see if I've got all of this straight:
...if the Boston Red Sox pony up the $50 million-plus necessary to sign an A.J. Burnett or a Derek Lowe and reinforce their starting rotation (which is already comprised of Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett and Tim Wakefield)...
...and if the Red Sox choose to part ways with captain Jason Varitek, whom they have reportedly offered a one-year contract that "[doesn't] approach the annual average ($13.1 million) commanded by Jorge Posada" (Varitek's base salary in 2008 was $9 million, so it seems quite within the realm of possibility that Boston is offering him no raise, or is perhaps even requesting that he take a pay cut in order to stay in Beantown)...
...and if the Red Sox make the determination that they absolutely must part ways with some of their young pitching depth to shore up their volatile catching situation, a potentially risky proposition in light of the injuries that slammed their pitching staff in 2008...
...and if the Rangers agree to part ways with a young, talented but still-raw trade sweetener (most probably one of the many Latin American arms that pepper the lower levels of this organization)...
...then Texas just might find a way to pry Clay Buchholz from the grasp of Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein without having to relinquish Taylor Teagarden, presumably employing Jarrod Saltalamacchia as the centerpiece of such an offer. Maybe.
Sounds like a plan to me.
By the way, Hideaki Okubo, manager of Junichi Tazawa's semi-pro industrial squad (Nippon Oil), informed the Associated Press that the 22-year-old Japanese right-hander received a "lucrative" offer from the Rangers on Monday and is expected to make a final decision on his future by the end of the week.
The Rangers' bid, while evidently "the most attractive in terms of contract amount and duration" of any of the offers Tazawa has fielded to date (and the apparent product of a two-hour meeting between Tazawa and the Rangers' director of Pacific Rim operations, Jim Colborn, who classifies his fastball as merely "average" but his breaking pitches as "above-average"), is thought to be behind Boston's leading offer of $6 million, and it's expected -- albeit not definite -- that he'll forgo the extra cash to join the Red Sox. The Braves and Mariners have also formally submitted offers.
For what it's worth, Rangers general manager Jon Daniels refuses to confirm or deny the Rangers' purported contract offer.
Baseball America's Matt Eddy reports that the Rangers have re-signed right-hander Elizardo "Lizard" Ramirez to a minor league deal.
Stay tuned.
Reader Comments (7)
Thanks for the update, Joey. By the way, I REALLY like the new digs - the load times are much faster here, and I often got ridiculous popups on mvn.
I read about this Japanese pitcher today and wonder what you guys think. I know that some guys have come over and done very well (DiceK, Kuroda, and that reliever for Sea who was really good for 2 years - I guess you'd have to count Nomo, too), but I also can't help recall that fateful day last spring when Wash called on Fukumori to come out of the pen in a tight game for the first time, and he looked like a frightened child trying to box with Mike Tyson. He had no control, and when he kept walking guys, he was forced to throw stuff over the plate, and he just got murdered. It was clear from day one that he was way overmatched, and that he hadn't faced anything like the size and quality of hitters he was seeing.
So I have to temper my enthusiasm here and think that even if Texas did the impossible and steals him away from the Red Sox, would he even be someone who could help us this season?
Not this season, I don't think. But I'd love to see him offer tutoring on his curveball to our other prospects, since the Rangers were saying (around the time of the Conner-firing?) they'd like to emphasize that (the harder-to-master-curve) over the (quick-fix) more injury-inducing slider. (Sorry I don't have the old link).
In general, if each prospect has one specialty to share with the others, that could hasten their repetoire-development.
Montessori baseball!
This Tazawa kid is younger than Fuku (22 years old as opposed to 31 - I think? - for Fukumori), and I haven't really read anything about Tazawa struggling through inconsistent performances like I did with Fukumori. But you really never know what you're getting untill they actually make it over here and pitch in a big league game.
That's my simple 2 cents.
If you go to the DMN Rangers blog, you can watch an 8:30 clip of Tazawa pitching, with some pretty sweet Japanese color commentary. The hitters he's facing don't look so imposing - I would think the equivalent would be a smaller US college program. He looks like he has much better breaking stuff than Fukumori, and he mixes up his pitches well. He also seems to have pretty good control, moving the ball in and out pretty effectively. The fastest pitch I saw was 148 km/hr (I didn't watch the whole thing), but most fastballs were around 142. I just checked my handy-dandy KM to MI converter (thanks Google), and that looks like upper 80's/maybe 91. Could be an intriguing guy, and maybe it works out either way for Texas (whether we or Boston signs him), since if he went to the Red Sox, it might make it possible to get Bowden or Bucholtz for one of our catchers.
Isn't that the same video you brought us, Joey?
It is amazing to compare the size of hitters' arms alone, between that Japanese league and the MLB.
Indeed, Michael...here's the post with that video embedded: http://www.bbtia.com/home/2008/11/10/chasing-junichi-tazawa.html
Japan's semi-pro industrial league has compared from college-level competition on the low end to A-ball (or very borderline AA-ball) at the high end. The odds of him giving any team that much in 2008 are fairly limited -- he's a polished, refined pitching prospect, but he's going to take his initial lumps regardless.
Oops, sorry Joey. For some reason I must have missed that video back in Rocktober.