Japan

Joe Torre Haiku

by

City Room – Metro – New York Times Blog

I have a hard time resisting the invitation to write bad poetry. Reading through the submissions for a Joe Torre haiku you can’t help (I don’t think) be struck by the nuance and twists the language makes available for a wide swath of ideas. I

I have to admit that my haiku in the comments is based more on my love of the pun than an expression of my feelings about Torre’s departure. For that, I’ll post exclusively here:

Morning’s easy stillness
A clubhouse full of calm
The runner is out at home.

The Official Matsuzaka Prediction Thread

by

BBTF’s Newsblog Discussion

Somebody will average these all out, dropping the guy who’s predicting 29 wins (and a 1-0 loss on the last day of the season). I remember that last year around this time we were having similar discussions about Johjima (except we weren’t sure if his last name had an “h” or not). I’ve been working on an updated set of predictions for all players (not just positively valued ones) for a game mlb.com is putting out, and discovered a little too late that I didn’t have a Dice-K projection (he was far from signed when the magazine went to bed). So, here it is:

200 IP, 3.74 ERA, 17 wins, 9 losses, 55 walks, 180 strikeouts, 23 homers, 1.21 WHIP.

That’s a tweener, probably worth about $25 in an AL only league. I think he could be much better, but injury risk and the real chance that he’s not going to dominate would cause me not to chase him. I have him in the magazine at $14, but now that he’s signed and the adrenaline is flowing I’d go to $18 probably. Depending on what we see in spring training.

Baseball Bullet-In

by

The Japan Times Online

Tim McLeod, who has taken it upon himself to keep me up to date with Japanese baseball, sent me a couple of stories from the Japan Times today. In the first one, a notebook of baseball news I couldn’t find a link to, the newest Tampa Bay reliever from Japan, Shinji Mori, says with the trade of Danys Baez that he wants to be the Devil Rays’ closer. Also, Ozzie Guillen says that Tadahito Iguchi will be batting sixth or seventh because “he knows his baseball,” and wants him to play to his strength. Finally, Kenji Johjima says he plans on catching all 162 games this year, and hopes to work with Seattle ace Jamie Moyer learning opposing hitters, perhaps over a few glasses of wine.

The link above leads to Wayne Graczyk column, which lists which foreign players are staying in Japan this year, and who the newcomers are. Included in the latter group are Kevin Beirne, DJ Carrasco, Jeff Liefer, Jason Grabowski, maybe Jose Macias, Luis Martinez, Gary Glover, Sean Douglass are the big names. He also explains why Johjima should be Jojima unless Ichiro is spelled Ichiroh.

Thanks Tim.