Yankees Watch Darvish
Sports Hochi ran a piece the other day saying that the Yankees had three scouts watching Yu Darvish make his shortest start of the season, a seven-inning performance in Nippon Ham’s 10-1 win over Orix. Darvish didn’t have his best stuff, topping out at about 91mph, but still held the Buffaloes to one run on four hits.
Obligatory repeating of myself: Darvish is five years away from free agency and has repeatedly denied any interest in moving to MLB. I find it interesting that that doesn’t stop the scouts from watching him though. The Yankees sent Gene Michael to Japan last year to check him out, so they’re obviously interested in acquiring him down the road. Maybe this persistance will pay off.
09/05/2009 at 1:49 pm Permalink
Or maybe the Royals?? They got tons of $ and Trey Hillman.
09/05/2009 at 7:36 pm Permalink
Nothing stops the scouts. I saw a ton of them at Iwakuma’s start in Chiba yesterday and he’s also several years from free agency too. They just want to have as much info as possible in case a player DOES decide to make the move.
And the readers of your blog basically won’t care how many times you repeat yourself, most of them think NPB is a minor league for the MLB to feed off of (she says, noting the trackback which pretty much obviously didn’t bother reading the second paragraph, or wouldn’t care even if they did).
09/05/2009 at 10:29 pm Permalink
In fairness, I put in the second paragraph after I saw the trackback. I’ve prompted speculation with this site, but I gotta keep it real too. One thing I realized after publishing that was that last year, that note would have been among several bullet points about baseball in Japan, but I just haven’t had the time so far this season.
I don’t think all my readers see NPB as a feeder for MLB — the most popular page on this site recently has been this one, where you can see Dan Johnson holding Norihiro Akahoshi on first and the Fighters pounding the Buffaloes.
10/05/2009 at 1:41 am Permalink
Just for the record, I live in Sapporo, love the fighters, love Darvish and hope he never leaves. Having said that, he’s one of the top 2 or 3 pitchers in Japan, and if he wants to play against the best players in the world he’ll have to go over to the U.S.. I think it’s great he says he wants to stay here, but when an athlete is as good as Darvish, boredom might set in (his last start). If he stays motivated, great! If it’s too easy…??
And Patrick, fostering speculation about Darvish, Iwakuma and others is just what Japanese pro ball needs. I want the world to notice them a little more. Keep it real, but keep it up!
10/05/2009 at 1:13 pm Permalink
I’ve always tried to bring new fans to Japanese baseball by publishing news like this and mixing it with stuff that’s more purely NPB-oriented. I don’t know if I’ve actually attracted any new fans to Japanese baseball with this site, but my readership has definitely increased in the last year.