Coming to America?

[Neddy]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN/status/682890791639986176[/tweet]

glad my guessing job hasn't failed me so far this off season

[Ranma]

From the same guy cited as breaking news of the signing. If I read the details correctly, it's $15 million per year max + the $20 million posting fee for a minimum outlay of $44 million to a maximum of $140 Million over 8 years.

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[Neddy]

From the same guy cited as breaking news of the signing. If I read the details correctly, it's $15 million per year max + the $20 million posting fee for a minimum outlay of $44 million to a maximum of $140 Million over 8 years.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/DfineNrmLC/status/683081568160735232[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/683083328853942273[/tweet]

****!!!!!!

our front office are gods!!!!!

[Ranma]

Daniel Brim, DodgersDigest.com (12/31/15)

Those looking at former Dodger Hiroki Kuroda for optimism may have to look further. Kuroda was a splitter-heavy pitcher, and that pitch famously played up in MLB and led to a successful US career. However, Maeda relies more heavily upon his slider to get batters out. Sliders need high spin to be effective (one thing Maeda has had in a limited pitch fx look, though that was with a non-MLB ball), and splitters rely on low spin. The NPB ball has a different seam height than the MLB ball, so Maeda is essentially hoping for the opposite effect as Kuroda. It’s not a directly comparable situation.

Overall, Maeda could be a good addition to the Dodgers, though at the moment we still know nothing about the contract. He adds starting pitcher depth to a team which needs it, and he doesn’t cost a draft pick. Unfortunately, he’s not a Zack Greinke replacement, so it’s still hard to not be a bit puzzled by what the Dodgers have done this offseason. He’s something like the fourth or fifth number 3-4 starter on the Dodgers, and his floor seems more stable than most. That isn’t bad, but it’s not ideal construction.

At the very least, it’s nice to see a Japanese player back on the Dodgers. It’s been too long.

Heyman: Dodgers Agree to Deal with Kenta Maeda


Kazuto Yamazaki, TheDynastyGuru.com (12/15/15)

The general consensus thus far is that he could be a solid, if unspectacular, inning-eating mid-to-back-of-the-rotation starter. Last month, Eno Sarris of FanGraphs looked for a Maeda comp and came up with Kenshin Kawakami, Aaron Nola, Jordan Zimmermann, and Rick Porcello. These names sound decent to me, except for Kawakami. Even if Maeda ended up as a Porcello, there’s still a value in deep leagues. I’d like to throw in another name in this mix: Anthony DeSclafani.

While potential back-end starter I think he could be something more than that. Have you heard of another Japanese righty with excellent command and unimpressive stuff?

Enter Hisashi Iwakuma. When the recent Dodgers signee came over to the big leagues, no one thought he’d be a front-line starter, let alone a top three Cy Young finisher. Even the Mariners, who appeared to be the highest team on him, didn’t think so, using him in a mop-up duty for the first three months.
...

And if your league has the peculiarity of pre-game routine as a category, he’s a must-get.

Watch on YouTube

Kenta Maeda Could Be Something More Than a Four

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[Neddy]

I have already discussed about the slider heavy Maeda's asortment of pitches to other Japanese pitchers who have succeeded in US with Splitter/forkball heavy repertoire before, but Daniel Brim from Dodgersdigest appears to conveniently avoid to mention the success of another slider heavy Japanese pitcher who currently pitches for the Rangers. I am not saying Maeda is equal to Darvish, Yu was a dominant pitcher there in the same mold of what Otani is becoming right now, but gotta remember that Ryu, although from KBO rather than NPB, is another pitcher with slider/changeup make up rather than having anything that breaks the way splitter or forkball would, and did pitch in a league where the ball and its seams are not as tightly wounded as US and yet still found a way to become very productive.

[Ranma]

Before I get into my thoughts, I want to inform that I just updated my post above regarding Kenta Maeda to include Daniel Brim's article citing concerns about his adjustment to MLB given Maeda's reliance on his slider and the different seam height on the MLB ball compared to the NPB one. It was an interesting take that I didn't realize was an issue. (Edit: Neddy addressed the issue with his take. Thanks, Neddy.)

It's funny. I woke up this morning thinking how much I disliked committing 8 years to Maeda when the Dodgers were in the driver's seat in negotiations. I've said I wanted to withhold judgment until the full details come out, but the realistic expectations just didn't make me happy with the prospect of such a commitment. And now with the report that the deal could be for an AAV of $3 million plus incentives, that was just an unexpected and very encouraging sign that the Dodgers not only pulled another outside-the-box maneuver but also leveraged their position to get such a team-friendly contract.

Just like I want to wait until the full details came out, I want to reserve my enthusiasm until these terms are confirmed by more reputable and legitimate sources. Even so, if this is true, it would be a stroke of genius by Friedman & Zaidi. Such terms wouldn't require a team option as this would turn the 8-year commitment from a burden to an attractive option of long-term flexibility, which we all know this organization loves to preach about.

We wouldn't be paying for past performance but rather paying out based on current and future performance in a merit-based structure. I believe the CBA doesn't allow for incentives based on ERA and wins but does allow for them based on innings pitched as well as winning awards and making All-Star and postseason appearances. Those escalating incentives would likely be easy to attain but it would be a more equitable arrangement for both team and player than most MLB contracts nowadays; young players are relatively underpaid during their pre-arbitration-eligible years and teams are generally overpaying from free-agent contracts for older players in the decline phase of their careers. In short, it would be a fair deal for both sides.

Like the Kazmir deal, there is a downside but it is also minimized to the first year of the contract. The only way the supposed Maeda deal would be a bust is if he were to suffer a career-ending injury during his 1st year where everyone outside of the Japanese club would lose out given the $20 million posting fee. However, one could argue that the posting fee is fair in this instance towards compensating the Hiroshima Toyo Carp for developing Maeda during his time there without regard to the mileage and wear-and-tear on his arm from his workload.

I guess it could be argued that a $20 million posting fee is a sizable loss to swallow even for the financially endowed Dodgers in the scenario of a bust within the 1st year, so the cost would have to be spread out more to like 3 years, especially given the easily attainable incentives, but I personally wasn't comfortable with committing to Maeda beyond 4 years so that still works out for me. In any case, it would be highly unlikely for Maeda to suffer a total breakdown so soon and, even if he were to bust at any point in those 8 years, he'd still be an attractive consideration for other ballclubs as a reclamation project with only a $3 million annual commitment in guarantees.

I suspect the 8 years would be a concession to Maeda who wants to settle in and establish roots into his new environment, so it would also provide him with further incentive to pitch well to remain in L.A. I'm also curious how close he is to Shohei Otani. If we treat him well, it could help our cause with signing Otani whenever he is posted. If Maeda were to turn out to be as productive as Kuroda or Iwakuma, we'd have ourselves quite an addition to the organization without necessarily counting on him to be so.

With regards to Neddy's suggestion of a 6-man rotation, I think it's an interesting idea but in the end, it'd be better to not lessen Kershaw's turns in the rotation and for the starting pitchers--particularly Maeda--to get used to a 5-man routine as soon as possible. I still have concerns about whether Kazmir, Anderson, Maeda, and Ryu can each hold up for the entirety of the regular season as well as going into the postseason given their respective struggles in the 2nd half and injury concerns, but we have plenty of depth waiting in the wings for players to step up if and when a starter falters.

Like Quake, I also have a desire to upgrade our #2 starter and middle infield defense, but I feel we're fine there as is if no other opportunities become available. Yeah, it's not sexy that Utley & **** are better than Kendrick in the field and Seager is better than Rollins, but it's progress, nonetheless. I can live with it for now in giving it a chance. Likewise, Kazmir is a decent #2 starter in the rotation for most teams but he's no Greinke. However, the Dodgers undoubtedly have the best #1 starting pitcher in baseball with our ace Kershaw while the options for #3, #4, and #5 spots in the rotation are arguably also the best in MLB with Ryu, Anderson, Maeda, and Wood available. Bolsinger and Frias would be most team's #4 or #5 guys and we still have McCarthy, De Leon, Montas, Cotton, and even Urias as possibilities for the 2nd half of the season. We're really quite blessed in that regard and there's nothing keeping us from dealing for a true co-ace other than the lack of availability of one on the marketplace. The bullpen is also in similarly decent shape.

With regard to Morosi's disappointment: of course, it's a disappointment to come away with "only" Kazmir and Maeda when it's framed that we could have had both Greinke and Price. I was hoping for both of them, myself, this off-season but I surely did not want to give either of them the deals they eventually signed for, respectively. I think it's foolishly myopic to go by the narrative that the Los Angeles Dodgers have to live up to the expectations of making a Hollywood blockbuster year in and year out. We're a baseball team, not a movie production company and, besides, throwing money foolishly away like the Steinbrenner Yankees is not the identity of the Dodgers' past. The Dodgers were built on pitching, speed, defense, and developing home-grown talent. The front office still needs to finish work to live up to such a legacy, but it's clear that the organization is devoted to addressing those priorities outside of maybe speed. However, the importance of base-running has also been cited by this regime to a lesser extent.

Like I've said before, there is nothing keeping us from making a big deal or two. We have the assets and the financial wherewithal. We're just being smart about it, for the most part, in choosing our opportunities. The team is competitive right now with some WAR projections already listing the Dodgers as the best team in baseball. And having the deepest, if not best, farm system in the league to go with that isn't good enough either? Come on. I get where Morosi is coming from, but his expectations and playing up the angle of the lack of headline acquisitions to the crowd is disingenuous, if not absurd. That's also not to mention that we still have plenty of time before the season even begins.

[Neddy]

great essay, ranma! took awhile to read through but good stuff, as usual man.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/los-angeles-dodgers-kenta-maeda-scott-kazmir-zack-greinke-flawed-roster-010116

Jon Morosi hates our offseason.
Apparently we were supposed to sign bot Greinke and Price.
very quick read….I assume to get him some clicks.


"a sense of identity"
lol…whatever that means.

Jon Morosi is seeking sensationalism and hyping whats not there. he probably needed to meet a dealine and had to come up with something. besides, it's fox.

if we did resign Greinke to that ridiculous contract, or pull off Cole Hamels deal by giving away Urias and Seager, Morosi would be writing an article about this regime being no different then its predecessor. he also wrote how this FO have not fixed anything from previous outfield jam, but where is Kemp now? Ether produced, and Carl couldnt be given away at this point. we won that trade involving Kemp, and we are probably looking for another winning trade with Ethier but at the same time, being careful about the virtues of trading Ethier's production out Crawford's on daily lineup as well. I thought Ethier was going to be involved bringing in another pitcher, but at this point that seems unlikely and unnecessary. I do wish to trade one o the expensive corner OFers out, but like Andrew have said in an interview before, we still have 4 months until the opening day.

[Ranma]

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[Neddy]

with Ranma posting the correction of 25 mil for 8 years rather than 24, the average of base salary still only comes out to just at 3.125 mil per year. that is still a great pay raise from his Japanese salary, and with incentives, he is at the brink of making three, four times of his old salary easily.

nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/Top40_salaries_NPB_2015

- once again, it looks like the broken down catcher who is forced back behind the plate by his bosses is still the highest paid player in NPB. I feel bad for Abe. he has done so much for his Yomiuri GIants as a player and as the captain for the last decade. he deserves to go out in the way Minnesota is doing for Joe Mauer. they should have kept him on 1B as originally planned by the last manager. it's a damn disgrace. the organization appears to wish to get the every drop of his talent behind the plate and force him to an early retirement to save salary in the future.

- if US teams doesn't pay Lee, the Nippon Series MVP is probably going back to the SoftBank. it seems he is waiting for the best offer rather than jumping on the first offer.

- Matsuzaka is still paid that high? wtf. he has been sucking over there. this is just like when Nexen Heroes paid a ransom for broken down ByungHyun Kim to sell tickets.

[Ranma]

with Ranma posting the correction of 25 mil for 8 years rather than 24, the average of base salary still only comes out to just at 3.125 mil per year. that is still a great pay raise from his Japanese salary, and with incentives, he is at the brink of making three, four times of his old salary easily.

nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/Top40_salaries_NPB_2015

Thanks for providing the link to the top 40 NPB salaries for 2015, Neddy. The background info is also greatly appreciated to get some context of what's going on over there. I found it interesting that Kenta Maeda, Seung-Hwan Oh, and Yulieski Gourriel were all among those tied for 15th place on the list at $2,5009,500. It's also nice to see Hiroki Kuroda still held in high regard being the 6th highest paid player along with Matsuzaka.

With regard to the Maeda's contract with the Dodgers, we still don't know what the exact details are but it is quite encouraging that multiple sources are reporting the guaranteed portion of the deal to be in the $24-25 million range. I'm hearing that official announcement of his signing may just be waiting for the physical results, which have to be fully completed by January 8th, but it seems like crossing the T's and dotting the i's in contract negotiations are still going on.

[Neddy]

with Ranma posting the correction of 25 mil for 8 years rather than 24, the average of base salary still only comes out to just at 3.125 mil per year. that is still a great pay raise from his Japanese salary, and with incentives, he is at the brink of making three, four times of his old salary easily.

nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/Top40_salaries_NPB_2015

Thanks for providing the link to the top 40 NPB salaries for 2015, Neddy. The background info is also greatly appreciated to get some context of what's going on over there. I found it interesting that Kenta Maeda, Seung-Hwan Oh, and Yulieski Gourriel were all among those tied for 15th place on the list at $2,5009,500. It's also nice to see Hiroki Kuroda still held in high regard being the 6th highest paid player along with Matsuzaka.

With regard to the Maeda's contract with the Dodgers, we still don't know what the exact details are but it is quite encouraging that multiple sources are reporting the guaranteed portion of the deal to be in the $24-25 million range. I'm hearing that official announcement of his signing may just be waiting for the physical results, which have to be fully completed by January 8th, but it seems like crossing the T's and dotting the i's in contract negotiations are still going on.

Kuroda is the man.

not in purely baseball sense alone, as Maeda out pitched his teammate this season easily. but he promised his fans back home he would come back and finish his career as a carp before his body can no longer pitch competitively when he decided to come to US, and he turned down more than 15 million from the yankees to come back and pitch for the carps at a fraction of that the Evil Empire offered. I think I posted about this before, but the story has it that Kurada was granted a FA status once before coming to America, and the Yomiuri GIants pushed hard with a ton of cash to sign Kuroda. but the fans of Hiroshima gathered together at the stadium to appeal to Kuroda to stay, and it touched his heart so much that he turned down significantly more money and the prestige that comes with playing for the mightly Tokyo Giants... and their Yankee-like status to stay and to continue to pitch in the smallest stadium in NPB, with one of the smallest fanbases in that league. one more thing, the Carps stadium being right next to where we bombed them during WW2 with that little thing called A-Bomb where you can see the crator from the 3rd base seats, the fans of Hiroshima are always cheering for, and its players playing for, more than just Ws and Ls there game in and game out.

[Ranma]

Kuroda is the man.

not in purely baseball sense alone, as Maeda out pitched his teammate this season easily. but he promised his fans back home he would come back and finish his career as a carp before his body can no longer pitch competitively when he decided to come to US, and he turned down more than 15 million from the yankees to come back and pitch for the carps at a fraction of that the Evil Empire offered. I think I posted about this before, but the story has it that Kurada was granted a FA status once before coming to America, and the Yomiuri GIants pushed hard with a ton of cash to sign Kuroda. but the fans of Hiroshima gathered together at the stadium to appeal to Kuroda to stay, and it touched his heart so much that he turned down significantly more money and the prestige that comes with playing for the mightly Tokyo Giants... and their Yankee-like status to stay and to continue to pitch in the smallest stadium in NPB, with one of the smallest fanbases in that league. one more thing, the Carps stadium being right next to where we bombed them during WW2 with that little thing called A-Bomb where you can see the crator from the 3rd base seats, the fans of Hiroshima are always cheering for, and its players playing for, more than just Ws and Ls there game in and game out.

Makes me even prouder that we had the good fortune to have Kuroda wear a Dodger uniform. Great anecdote, Neddy.

[Ranma]

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[Ranma]

I missed Meola's tweet yesterday stating his assumption that something came up with Maeda's medical examination. I'm curious if there is any truth to this as I was already concerned about his small frame. Having said that, Meola is the only one saying this and it is his own personal conjecture. The purported AAV of the deal obviously safeguards against injury but it would put a damper on the 8-year contract. In any case, an announcement will supposedly be made tomorrow, so hopefully we'll get more details then.

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[Neddy]

I missed Meola's tweet yesterday stating his assumption that something came up with Maeda's medical examination. I'm curious if there is any truth to this as I was already concerned about his small frame. Having said that, Meola is the only one saying this and it is his own personal conjecture. The purported AAV of the deal obviously safeguards against injury but it would put a damper on the 8-year contract. In any case, an announcement will supposedly be made tomorrow, so hopefully we'll get more details then.

not sure about what came out of his physical, but it was no secret in last two years Maeda have reported soreness in his throwing elbow. maybe his TJS is more imminent than we discussed. but well at the price he is at, and at the age he is at, I am sure he will recover in a year or two and still give us quality pitching on the back end of the rotation if surgery is where we are headed soon,

doubt it happens this year tho, at least not the first half of the season until both Ryu and McCarthy would be back.

[Neddy]

BTW, everysite is reporting Maeda's old stat sheet of 5-11 and 154 pouds of statue. that was a few years ago and since then he is listed now at 182 cm (which is just about 5-11) and 81 kg (definitely not 154 LBs ) as of last season's opening day with the Carps site's player profile. he is still small-ish compared to typical American major league pitchers or even yesteryear's asian pitchers who found success in USA, such as Chan Ho Park, Nomo, currently Darvish, are all much biggger than him but Sasaki, Uehara are not really any bigger either. maybe the key IF he gets injured, is to convert him to a relief pitcher. at 3 million a year that is easy money for a top flight setup man for Jensen.

[Neddy]

for what it's worth, one of the most reputable news outlets in Japan has now reported about Maeda's expressed excitement to join the dodgers and pursuit what he has called in the past to be his "dream since childhood" fulfilled.

ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/sports/AJ201601020018

this is something I read while ago and can't find it anymore to link it, but...
it also appears Maeda was just a first grader when NomoMania took off here in the States, explains the desire to don the dodger blue and sign on to what Naver reported as a "slave contract". I for one am glad to have a foreign kid who couldn't wait to become a dodger.

[Neddy]

damn, my new year's sobriety resolution is not going well so far, did great for a little then getting hammered right now. but here is something for you guys to chew on...

Daisuke Matsuzaka's BB/9 increased coming from Japan to America, from 3.2/9 to 4.4/9

Yu Darvish also increased his BB/9 from 2.4/9 to 3.6/9

Ryu went from KBO to MLB, 2.7/9 to 2.0/9. he is the only one to actually improve on walks coming here.

he even lessened HR/9 from 0.7/9 in Korea to 0.6/9 in USA. in comparison, Tanaka went from 0.5/9 to 1.2/9 here.


I dunno if Maeda is going to be able to improve his stats here in regard to BB/9 and HR/9, but this shows that not everyone coming over from Asia worsens their core stat numbers.

[Neddy]

couldn't find Maeda's Nomo comments from his youth as my Japanese is only good enough to order simple foods at my local sushi bar and ramen house (both in Salem, literally, just one each lol) and looking for archived articles require typing in Japanese words into their search engine... no bueno. but came cross this old tweet.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/npbtracker/status/673195467056934912[/tweet]

you may have posted this in the past already, knowing how active you are in twitter-verse...or did I say that correctly? lol obviously I don't have a twitter account and never used my office's facebook under my name. this forum is about the only SNS I ever use, if this even counts as one, that is.

[Ranma]

BTW, whatever happed with that kid Chuck? is he out of baseball now?

Tiffany's Baseball-Reference.com profile shows 2011 as the last year he was active and he was in an independent league then. I believe he's currently the lead pitching instructor for Frozen Ropes Training Centers at their location in Glendora, CA. It's a shame, he couldn't make it with the Dodgers. He's still only 30 years old.

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you may have posted this in the past already, knowing how active you are in twitter-verse...or did I say that correctly? lol obviously I don't have a twitter account and never used my office's facebook under my name. this forum is about the only SNS I ever use, if this even counts as one, that is.

Ha ha. No, I didn't come across that tweet, so thank you for passing that along. As active as I am in the Twitter-verse, I'm still no expert. I just use it as another resource just like surfing the Web to try to obtain some information and even then, I can't always find what I need or want.

I did, however, come across another Maeda highlight video from the comments section of a Dodgers fan site, which showcases his impressive control and command of the variety of pitches he has in his repertoire.

Watch on YouTube