I don’t know what the Mariners are doing for their part. I don’t think they’d have an issue with providing him with his own translator though, seeing as how they gave Suda one when he signed.

The Rangers may be emerging as the front runners. They sent Derek Holland to talk to him about the minor league system and what it’s like to come through it. Who knows if they have the money to spend, what with all their issues.

Kikuchi is supposed to make an announcement as to whether he’ll opt for the NPB or the MLB on Sunday

How much would we be paying this kid to develop in our farm system for three to four years? Wouldn’t the fact that a lot of teams are interested in him allow Kikuchi to drive up his own price?

the inverted W

Is a M! Invert the W, flip it upside down, or whatever, and it’s darned M!

While I’d love to see Kikuchi here in the states, it’s a touchy subject taking HS players and bringing them to the states. It’s one thing taking an established player like a Kuroda or a Matsuzaka, it’s another to take an up-and-comer such as Kikuchi or Tazawa.

Of course that being said, there was a super-rookie (1st year) in the summer tournament that got people excited, Itou Takuro, that’ll be interesting to watch the next 2 years.

It’s clear that some players handle the transition more easily than others when it comes to making the jump across. We’ve seen our share of that. Chao Wang, who is now an outfielder on the Chinese National Team, started out as a pitcher with us, but couldn’t handle the cultural transition. Chia-an Huang also had some trouble, but there was a lot of off-field stuff that was working against him from the get-go. It seems though that teams are putting in a great deal of effort these days to making sure such prospects have a support network as they’re moving up, so that when things fall short for them its usually baseball-related.

That being said, while I favored Imamura Takeru out of Seihou HS, I could definitely see that Kikuchi was a very good pitcher who had the makeup of someone who could succeed in the states both in talent and mindset.

BTW, as for the eephus, he doesn’t throw that at all. I think it was a gimmicky thing. I first saw that on a clip in YouTube and probably had the same reaction as the batter.

As a note, after the first day of meetings, it appeared that Kikuchi’s manager Sasaki had some reservations about Kikuchi’s development outside of baseball should he go to the states. Don’t blame him about that. It’ll certainly be a tough road coming through the minors.

When Dave would cover the prospects after the draft, he would include a high and low equivalent in terms of stuff and projection. Can you project Kikuchi like that for us?

Yeah, that’s not exactly my forte, since I spend so much time staring at prospects.

A lot of people were making the claim that Kikuchi was Clayton Kershaw v2.0. I think that’s exaggerated, because he’s not as tall, or strong, and doesn’t light up the gun with the same consistency. Kasey Kiker might be closer, presumably with better health.

I’ll see what I can do for a comp with a “real pitcher”.