What’s a Pitching-Seeking GM To Do?

Japanese
hurler Junichi
Tazawa is about to announce he has signed with the Boston Red Sox.

Although it’s not the first thing that comes
to mind, the Tazawa signing really shows just how large Daisuke Matsuzaka’s
presence is in Japan. Tazawa chose the
Red Sox over the Texas Rangers who reportedly offered over one million dollars
more than Boston.

Jon
Daniels must be feeling pretty bad.
He’s been criticized ever since Tom
Hicks hired him four years ago, for not acquiring enough pitching. And when Daniels has spent money it has for
the most part a bad investment.

Kevin
Millwood was a bust, although if he can pitch well into July of next year,
the Texas may be able to trade him for some prospects. Vicente Padilla
hasn’t been that bad, but it still was a bad signing considering what the
Rangers thought Padilla would accomplish with them. Daniels has also traded away young pitchers
like Armando
Galarraga, John
Danks and Chris
Young (who was packaged with Adrian Gonzalez). He also of course traded away Edinson
Volquez but that’s another story. The
“Edinson Volquez or Josh Hamilton” argument will go on for a long time.

I
think Jon Daniels deserves to be criticized because he has made a lot of
obvious bad trades and signings but if you look closely, you’ll figure out
Daniels had a sort of “revelation” in the 2006-2007 offseason. It seems all of Daniels moves before 2007 season
were bad, but suddenly he figured something out and has gone on to make
splendid deals like trading away Mark Teixeira and Eric Gagne (to the Red Sox).

Now
Daniels has “GM momentum” swinging his way, but he still can’t catch a break
with pitching. It’s not uncommon for
players to accept a slightly lower salary to play for the team they prefer. But in most cases it is a veteran player
looking to sign the last contract of their career before retiring. That is why Tazawa is an outlier. He’s only
22 years old, and yet he is already basing his contract options on
preference. I wonder how much extra money
Texas would have needed to offer to get Tazawa.
In the end, the teams have to remember he is just a 22 year old pitcher
who has only spent one year in professional baseball.

You
have to admit he is unique. He asked the
teams of the NPB (Japan’s MLB equivalent) not to draft him so he could play for
Nippon Oil of an independent league in Japan (the same league female
side-arming knuckleballer Eri Yoshida plays for).
Now Tazawa is like any other amateur player from Mexico, Venezuela, or
the Dominican Republic or any other country that is not eligible for the
draft. I am not sure about the
independent league Tazawa played in, but the reports are that he is at least
ready for Double-A. I know Theo Epstein
would not pay Tazawa so much ($6 mil) if he wasn’t as ready for the majors
than, lets’ say Michael Bowden.

For
a 22 year-old to take a lesser contract to play for his preferred team is
gutsy, but then again, this is why he chose to skip the Nippon Baseball
draft. He wanted to experience the MLB
without having a NBL
team involved in the deal. And there
is no better way to experience Major League Baseball than playing on one of
America’s most successful baseball franchises and having the opportunity to
play with his hero Dice-K and fellow countryman Hideki Okajima. He’ll be able to experience being a part of
Red Sox Nation and soak in all of it’s glory:

I
still feel sorry Jon Daniels. Even if Kaz Fukumori
had turned into the next Takashi Saito
or Kazuhiro
Sasaki, Texas just didn’t have the extra goods to get Tazawa. However, there is a silver lining. Adding Tazawa to the pitching mix makes it
more likely Theo Epstein will be willing to deal prospects like Michael Bowden
or Nick Hagadone
(who is much further down the road) to the Rangers for Gerald Laird
or Jarrod
Saltalamacchia. Personally, if I was
the Red Sox I wouldn’t make a deal for a Rangers catcher because they can just
sign Toby Hall
and David Ross. Boston fans may want a big name they already
know, but a combination of George
Kottaras, Dusty
Brown, Toby Hall, and David Ross is a solid, less expensive option. If Kottatas or Brown can do what they did at
AAA this year, then the Red Sox have two starting-worthy catchers. If they both struggle then the Red Sox can
turn to a combo of a platoon of David Ross, who had .793 OPS against righties,
and Toby Hall who had a .920 OPS against lefties. There really is no need to spend a bunch of
money on a catcher when the Red Sox need to use most, if not all of their money
on Mark Teixeira because they are by far the best
and most likely fit for him. Plus,
judging from this,
the Red Sox won’t have much extra money to spend this off-season.

Jon
Daniels can console in the fact that he has put together a farm system that has
a bunch of big pitching prospects like Neftali Feliz,
Blave Beavan,
Kasey Kiker,
Michael Main,
and Derek
Holland. The system also holds some lesser-name prospects like Tommy Hunter,
Kennil Gomez,
Michael
Ballard, Beau
Jones, and Doug
Mathis who could develop into successful big league starters.