John Heyman of SI.com is reporting that Mike Piazza has been sending feelers to several teams in the NPB’s Pacific League in hopes of landing a DH gig.
If Piazza heads to Japan he?would?be the most successful MLB player to do so. Piazza, 39, had an injury filled 2007 campaign, but a fairly productive 2006 with the San Diego Padres hitting 20HRs and knocking in 68 runs.
Piazza is already somewhat known in Japan as Hideo Nomo’s first catcher in America.
3 responses so far ↓
1 John Brooks // Nov 27, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Piazza definetly be the most interesting player to make the jump over to NPB, though any team that does sign him will have to ask the question, how healthy will he be? It’s highly unlikely Piazza is going to get a big payday by a MLB team this offseason, after struggling again with injuries last year.
As for possible candidates, Softbank, makes the best sense. Masayoshi Son has shown in the past with the Tony Batista signing, he is willing to spend top dollar on signing top foreign talent, and Piazza is a lot better and a way bigger name than Tony Batista ever was. He definetly be a big name, he if healthy could add a power threat to Softbank to go alongside Nobuhiko Matsunaka(who has been on the decline due to injuries this past few years), Hiroki Kokubo, and Hitoshi Tamura.
Like Matsunaka however, Piazza is a major injury risk, like I mentioned above any team that signs him will have to think long and hard about whether his health will hold up? Though, if he stays healthy and is able play in 120 or so games, he could put up huge numbers.
2 A.S. // Nov 27, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Yeah, I’d say 120 would be about the max Piazza could go at this point, but last year was a real bust for the A’s.
I hope he goes for it, he’d be kind of larger than life for a while.
3 DF // Nov 28, 2007 at 12:19 am
Boy, if you get 100 games out of Mike P. at this point you’d have to say you got a reeeal bonus. He can still hit, but he’s more fragile than a house of cards. Or matchsticks.
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