New Foreign Players — Which Ones Did I Get Right?
Last November, I made a few predictions about guys we might see move to NPB for 2010. I actually got a couple right:
- Buddy Carlyle (Nippon Ham)
- Lee Beom-Ho (SoftBank)
- Kim Tae-Gyun (Lotte)
- Matt Murton (Hanshin)
- Chris Bootcheck (Yokohama)
*excluding the players on my list that were already in Japan in 2009
So that’s 5/28 (without the 2009 NPB guys), and the two Koreans were pretty easy predictions. I thought I got Bobby Keppel right too, but when I looked back at my list it was Bobby Korecky that I had guessed.
There were other guys that I took long looks at, but decided to leave out for various reasons. These were the last three in my notes:
- Andy Marte — thought he would get an MLB shot with the rebuilding Indians
- Carlo Alvarado — the number of 3A innings he threw over the last two years caught my eye; in retrospect I didn’t have enough starters on my list
- Jeff Fiorentino — call this one gut feel. I favored slugging left fielder-types in my list, and thought Murton’s MLB experience distinguished him from Fio
Alvarado and Fiorentino signed with the Carp over the winter, while I assume Marte will get another look with Cleveland. Ironically, I would have loved to see the Carp get Marte instead of Justin Huber, but I don’t know if he was ever available.