Redman, Joe Nelson, Japanese League Players
It didn't take long for the Braves to address the Mike Hampton injury as they just signed Mark Redman to replace him. Ironically, I had just reduced Redman's forecasts during the past week as he had gone unsigned so long that I was beginning to think his chances of cracking a rotation were not good. The Redman signing means I can put Lance Cormier's forecast back down from the amount I raised it just a day ago (Cormier was expected to possibly take over for Hampton). As for Redman, I'll be forecasting about 24 or 25 starts, around 10 wins and an ERA in the mid 4's so if you're desperate for someone to eat some innings over the first couple of months of the season, you could do a lot worse than Redman.
The past few years, it seems that just about any reliever in the KC bullpen has always been a remotely possible future backup closer so if you did gamble on Joe Nelson, you can now safely look elsewhere as Nelson will undergo surgery on his labrum that will keep him out of action for a few months.
I count at least three readers in the past week who wanted to know if I could recommend any Japanese players for 2008. I suppose everyone's trying to get the jump on the next Matsuzaka or something, possibly because their league allows them to draft and then instantly reserve such players.
The last time I was able to strongly recommend a Japanese player long before he came to North America was Hideki Matsui, a recommendation that you can look back to about a third of the way down in The Best of Ask David: Volume 1 that talked about Matsui on February 13, 2002, over a year before he would arrive with the Yankees. Given that I've been wrong about enough Japanese players since, I'm quick to classify that Matsui recommendation as only a bit of skill and a lot of luck. The same model that pushed me to say what I did about Matsui has proven to fail on a number of Japanese players since. The only difference is that the other players for which the model failed, I waited until after the player announced that they were coming to play in the majors before I offered a forecast.
In that respect, I have had others who statistically projected to be great players after we knew they were coming over and some of those have panned out but just as many have fizzled - Kaz Matsui and Kaz Ishii are two that come to mind instantly as players who should have performed better based on statistical evidence. So, I hate to give this answer but I don't want to pretend that I'm more up on Japanese baseball than I am and so, no, there's not really anyone over there whom I know enough about to recommend a year in advance.
Remember too that you should always be thinking of percentage plays. If you even knew that a Japanese player was going to end up playing in MLB, he still only has an unknown "X" chance of being successful. Mix that percentage chance with the actual uncertainty associated with whether he ends up in North America and you'll see that it can be quite dangerous to become wrapped up with getting the next great import on your team a year before everyone else. Sure, failing to do so would likely have cost you Dice-K this year but for every Dice-K you missed, you'd also have saved draft picks a year early on the many Japanese players who have had unexciting careers so far in the majors.
There's too much guesswork for me in this and until they become signed by a big league team, I'd rather gamble on a top prospect than a possible instant star from Japan. Of course, once they're already set in a role (like Matsuzaka is with Boston), that changes everything and suddenly they become interesting. Remember, there are times when being too proactive pushes the long run percentages down to marginal gain territory.
The past few years, it seems that just about any reliever in the KC bullpen has always been a remotely possible future backup closer so if you did gamble on Joe Nelson, you can now safely look elsewhere as Nelson will undergo surgery on his labrum that will keep him out of action for a few months.
I count at least three readers in the past week who wanted to know if I could recommend any Japanese players for 2008. I suppose everyone's trying to get the jump on the next Matsuzaka or something, possibly because their league allows them to draft and then instantly reserve such players.
The last time I was able to strongly recommend a Japanese player long before he came to North America was Hideki Matsui, a recommendation that you can look back to about a third of the way down in The Best of Ask David: Volume 1 that talked about Matsui on February 13, 2002, over a year before he would arrive with the Yankees. Given that I've been wrong about enough Japanese players since, I'm quick to classify that Matsui recommendation as only a bit of skill and a lot of luck. The same model that pushed me to say what I did about Matsui has proven to fail on a number of Japanese players since. The only difference is that the other players for which the model failed, I waited until after the player announced that they were coming to play in the majors before I offered a forecast.
In that respect, I have had others who statistically projected to be great players after we knew they were coming over and some of those have panned out but just as many have fizzled - Kaz Matsui and Kaz Ishii are two that come to mind instantly as players who should have performed better based on statistical evidence. So, I hate to give this answer but I don't want to pretend that I'm more up on Japanese baseball than I am and so, no, there's not really anyone over there whom I know enough about to recommend a year in advance.
Remember too that you should always be thinking of percentage plays. If you even knew that a Japanese player was going to end up playing in MLB, he still only has an unknown "X" chance of being successful. Mix that percentage chance with the actual uncertainty associated with whether he ends up in North America and you'll see that it can be quite dangerous to become wrapped up with getting the next great import on your team a year before everyone else. Sure, failing to do so would likely have cost you Dice-K this year but for every Dice-K you missed, you'd also have saved draft picks a year early on the many Japanese players who have had unexciting careers so far in the majors.
There's too much guesswork for me in this and until they become signed by a big league team, I'd rather gamble on a top prospect than a possible instant star from Japan. Of course, once they're already set in a role (like Matsuzaka is with Boston), that changes everything and suddenly they become interesting. Remember, there are times when being too proactive pushes the long run percentages down to marginal gain territory.
posted by David Luciani at
3:04 PM
