Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007

[DirtyKash]

In what range of players (or even, what round) should Daisuke Matsuzaka be taken in 2007 fantasy drafts?

Also, what do you think his W-L, ERA, K numbers will be?

[McKain]

Too lazy to make some projections, but he'll be taken way too early in 99% of drafts anyway.

I'd say he'll end up something like a 15-6 with a 3.70 ERA and somewhere in the low 100s in Ks.

[DirtyKash]

So he's going to be this spring's Felix Hernandez. Taken too early, too much hype, too many disappointments?

[Dry1313]

I'm guessing someone's top pitcher.
He should be a #2 or #3 SP for some team in every draft though.

And as far as his line; 14-10, 4.10 ERA with about 120 Ks.

[McKain]

Pretty much, DK. I mean he'll do better than Felix did, but he'll disappoint all those douches taking him in R3.

[Porter]

He will be taken in rounds 4-6, He will not bring Felix's hype only because hes not 20 years old.

15-9, 4.18 ERA, 150 Ks, 60 BBs. Might go 7 IP a start.

He will be pedestrian.

[Fishercat]

You guys are pessimistic. There are reasons why of course, but often times, the best year for an import pitcher (at least Far East) is his first.

I'll say 17-9, 3.40 ERA, 185 IP with 110 Ks

[McKain]

My prediction was pretty optimistic for a guy coming from JAPAN to the AMERICAN LEAGUE. That's equal to the jump from Single A to the majors in most cases.

[Fishercat]

When was the last time a player from Single A to the majors produced like a Nomo, Ichiro, or Matsui in their rookie years?

[General]

I'll give him 17-6, 4.23 ERA and one trip to the DL in August.

[McKain]

Brent Clyleven or whatever the **** his name is. Maybe he made an AA to MLB jump though and it was a brief stay.

Countering Nomo, Ichiro, and Hideki are people like Kaz Matsui, Masato Yoshii, Hideki Irabu, Kazuhisa Ishii, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Tadahito Iguchi, Tsuyoshi Shinjo who made the jump and were mediocre or worse in their first year after being various ranges of incredible in Japan.

I'm not condeming Matsuzaka immediately but it's flat out silly to assume it's not a difficult jump and to lessen the difference just because a handful of guys were spectacular at it while an equal (and probably greater) amount were bad.

[General]

What about Sasaki? He was a manbeast.

[Fishercat]

And are you really telling me that a single-A stud could even be mediocre if he was called directly up? Never mind Nomo, Matsui, and Ichiro. But even the guys you listed were generally decent in their first year. To compare Japan to Single A is crazy.

Let's do an ERA comparison for pitchers from their last year in Japan to first year in America

Yoshii : +.94
Otsuka: -.34
Saito: -1.75
Hasegawa: +.96* (For him, I took his last full year, as he started in Japan, and the year before he came to America, he was hurt and sucked)
Ishii: +.88
Takatsu: -.73
Irabu: +1.66** (For him, I used his last INTL season and his first full MLB season. He sucked horribly in his partial season, but he had minor league time too)
Nomo: -1.09

Basically, if you look alone at SP, they usually had an increase of about a run in ERA in their first season, and they generally got worse from there. If you apply that run to Mats, it's a 3.1 ERA. I think Fat Toad and Nomo are aberrations. But either way, all the predictions so far seem to be pessimistic based on past results both on Japan stats and in terms of the talent DM has.

[DirtyKash]

Where do you get the Japan ERA numbers from? There's also Tomo Ohka and Mac Suzuki in there.

[McKain]

Obviously saying single-A to MLB is a similar jump wad off-base, but it's still a huge jump for any pitcher to make, going from a league where power hitting is very rare to a league where in any given year, 15 guys might have 45+ HRs and another 40 might have 30+, and where breaking balls aren't foreign pitches (I'd wager that over half of Japanese pitchers throw a fastball and maybe one other pitch reliably - look at Saito, for instance, who throws a fastball and a curveball and almost nothing else.) Obviously Matsuzaka's different from this comparison, but from the aspect of pitcher vs. hitter, it still holds true, since the Japanese batters see far few sliders or curves or what have you.

Also, DK, Suzuki never played professionally in Japan so he's irrelevant to the matter. Ohka pitched there but was pretty not-good and he only had I think two full seasons in Japan if that.