Mostly inspired by  the success of Hideki Okajima this past offseason produced several interesting signings of Japanese short relievers in Masa Kobayashi, Yasuhiko Yabuta and Kazuo Fukumori. Making predictions on any of the three was a basically a crapshoot, and I heard or read cases for and against all three.

I’ve mentioned before a conversation I had with someone scouting him in Japan that told me he wouldn’t hand Kobayashi the ball in an MLB closing situation for anything. Indeed, over the last few years, Kobayashi developed a reputation of being something of a gas can in Japan.

But going into last week the Indians were reportedly flirting with the idea of inserting him as the closer while waiting for Joe Borowski to heal. Following a blown save by Rafael Betancourt, Kobayashi got his first save opp. last Wednesday versus Oakland. He converted, getting two outs in the ninth. Eric Wedge used him again on Friday. The results were spectacular…if you’re a Reds fan.

Prior to that game Kobayashi had sported a 1.86 ERA through 19.1 innings. Nice. He had an outstanding groundball percentage of 55.6. Looks good, doesn’t it?

But I had some inkling that the Tribe weren’t using Kobayashi in anything resembling a close game. Indeed a quick look at his gmLI (prior to his being used as a closer), game leverage index, which evaluates the weight of the situation a particular pitcher is entering games, revealed Kobayashi was being treated with kid gloves with a score of 0.96. (Via Fangraphs)

To put that into perspective Brad Lidge has a gmLI of 1.83. Trevor Hoffman leads the majors with a 2.57. Decent Nationals setup guy Luis Ayala has a 1.53 and relatively unproven Cleveland teammate Jensen Lewis has a 1.19. I should mention here this is based on guys with a minimum of 10 innings pitched. Ah, one more — Yabuta’s gmLI is 0.14, which after Josh Fogg is the lowest in the majors.

It makes sense for managers to ease Japanese pitchers into the mix. Okajima is currently fourth in the league in gmLI at 2.11, but he wasn’t just thrown into the fire. His 2007 total was 1.44. Considering he wasn’t being used as the main setup man to Jonathon Papelbon from the get-go, I would assume that number climbed steadily as the 2007 season went on — and consequently started off low.

Yabuta started off terribly. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last four appearances, which is pretty good considering he had a stretch during which he allowed at least a run in six of seven. Fukumori has an MLB ERA over 20.00 and is currently sporting a 3.31 ERA through 16.1 innings in Triple-A.

It’s still too early to label any of the three as a success or failure, although, through 21.2 innings on May 20 of 2007, Okajima was sporting an ERA of 0.42 with two saves. One thing for certain, I wouldn’t be handing Masa Kobayashi the ball in the 9th any time soon.