Or so says Fox’s Ken Rosenthal, who is using Akinori Iwamura’s playoff success as a reason to leap on top of the dogpile on Kosuke Fukudome in the article Unlike other imports, Iwamura is a keeper
The diverging fortunes of Iwamura and Fukudome only reinforce an emerging truth: Major-league teams will need to be more careful in their scouting of Japanese players.
The Cubs, meanwhile, owe $38 million over the next three years to Fukudome, who batted .217 after the All-Star break and is 0-for-8 in the Division Series.
If his signing proves a mistake, Fukudome will join Igawa, Hideki Irabu and Kaz Ishii among the more notable Japanese flops.
Why the “if” Ken? You’ve already drawn the lines. Say it like you mean it, if you mean it. You just said teams need to be more careful in their scouting of Japanese players, right? You’ve already separated Iwamura from the other cargo, right?
I want to wind the clock back a year. Remember the last time the press dogpiled on a Japanese import that arrived in a shipping container? Sure you do, because I wrote about it right here.
From Dice-K: Just bad in any language:
As he tried to duck questions from reporters, he slumped over, head in hands, in front of his locker, and told them to meet him in the hallway. Then, he leaned back in his chair, staring at the shirts and shoes and hats and liniment right in front of him, giving himself a neck massage.
After that, it was off to the buffet line — the menu said honey glazed chicken, but Matsuzaka probably only ate 4-2/3 of it — and he eventually came back with a piece of fish and some vegetables.
Oh, yeah. That mediocre, dysfunctional Japanese import, slinking his way into America on a big dollar contract, and and having the gall to gorge himself on our food after a bad game. What a sneaky, swarthy Japanese import that Dice-K was. Remember his second half collapse last year?
Daisuke Matsuzaka — August 15 through September 28, 2007:
W L GS CG IP H ER BB SO HR ERA
2 4 8 0 46.2 48 37 24 42 8 7.14
Wow, I bet the Red Sox sure changed up their scouting in Japan after that one. I mean those are numbers reminiscent of Kei Igawa, Hideki Irabu and Kaz Ishii….and, well, accoding to Rosenthal — Kaz Matsui and Kenji Johjima.
Oft-injured second baseman Kaz Matsui also makes the list — he has signed contracts with the Mets and Astros worth a combined $36.6 million, yet has averaged only 94 games in five major-league seasons.
And don’t forget Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima, who is held in such low regard by his teammates, the three-year, $24 million extension that the team’s Japanese ownership awarded him last April nearly caused a clubhouse revolt.
Hmm. Well, it’s too bad so many of the Japanese imports are such rank failures. Can I get a return on that? Well, except Iwamura, whose value Rosenthal has had a beat on from the beginning.
I’m not going to come out and say the press are being racist in their dogpiling on Fukudome…he’s not the first player to sign a big contract, not preform up to expectations, and be criticized for it (here, here, here, here, here and here to name a few). But, boy, the similarities between Fukudome, second-half 2008, and Matsuzaka 2007 are striking, as is the reaction of the mainstream press.
Iwamura, by contrast is a bargain.
The Rays paid $4.55 million for his rights after the 2006 season, then signed him to a three-year, $7.7 million contract.
Yeah, I’m sure Rosenthal never batted an eye when Iwamura hit seven home runs following seasons with 32 and 44 in Japan.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Jackson // Oct 5, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Hi. My name is Ken Rosenthal. I also happened to overlook the fact that the winning pitcher in game 3 against the Cubs is Hiroki Kuroda, who pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings in his first playoff start and looked confident and polished.
Nice try, dick.
2 Westbaystars // Oct 5, 2008 at 11:30 pm
This “journalist” (poor excuse for) sounds like the anonymous troll on this thread at the beginning of September. Maybe he was trying out his theories to see what kind of reaction/resistance he’d provoke? Or that yahoo you linked to at the beginning of the season, Jeff Passan, who even my wife thought didn’t like baseball in general.
Journalism is no longer about reporting the news. It’s about bending the facts in such a way that it makes the brain dead segment of society feel superior over some other segment of the population, and at the same time disturbs people capable of rational thought to the point that they click on the link and deposit some cash to their advertisement account. Steven Colbert gave this kind of journalism (and politics) a name, truthiness.
It’s tough to do battle with the trolls without feeding them, I know.
3 Darren // Oct 6, 2008 at 9:41 am
It’s too bad that Fukudome has become the fall guy for the Cubs playoff loss…it’s been building for a month or two.
I don’t want to say it has something to do with race, but maybe a little. Mostly it’s the amount of money he makes.
4 DJ // Oct 6, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Mostly about the money? How so? Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano both make about twice as much as Fukudome. And Fukudome’s batting average was BETTER than Soriano’s and not a hell of a lot worse than Ramirez’s in this postseason.
And in September, during Fukudome’s worst hitting month of the regular season, the Cubs played .500 ball, winning 12 and losing 12. That ain’t the stuff of championships, but the team could still win games when Fukudome wasn’t hitting.
The Cubs meltdown was a team effort. Blaming Fukudome is shameless and stupid. I don’t know if it’s racist. But it’s very, very dumb.
5 Shinsano // Oct 6, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I agree DJ. Fukudome also had a good year by every fielding metric around. Can’t say the same about Ramierez and Soriano.
I’d like to see Fukudome starting in center next season. I think his bat will come around.
6 John Brooks // Oct 7, 2008 at 2:56 am
While I disagree with Rosenthal’s judgement of Fukudome and using it to attack future signings of Japanese players, I do think help Fukudome to get some time in Iowa to help him just work some kinks out. It worked wonders for Kaz Matsui back in 2006.
It’s way to early to give up on Fukudome, its one year. Let’s let him get some work in a low pressure environment such as Iowa, see if that helps him turn around his career and bring him back to the bigs. I suggested that much on the topic Michael brought up above when an anonymous troll used Igawa’s failures to assume that Pro Yakyu can not develop top tier players.
Finally, its useless to try and fight the mainstream sports media in this country and people like Rosenthal and Heyman. These people will think there right and enough people based on their experience will believe them too. As long as me and you know that its wrong to label a league as inferior because of a few players is wrong, who cares what Rosenthal says.
GM’s in baseball understand otherwise that Japan is a internal part of improving there teams I’m not worried by idiotic reporters who bash players. The majority of Japanese players in MLB in 08 have been successful(Iwamura, Kuroda, Matsuzaka, Okajima, H.Matsui, K.Matsui, Saitoh, Ichiro, and even Yabu put in a remarkble year).
Closing, the Chicago media, fans, and the MSM sports media for them its easy to pin the failure of their season on Fukudome. It’s wrong and twisted, but that’s how this usually works. It happened in New York with Kaz Matsui and looks like its repeating itself again with Fukudome. The Cubs collapse was a team effort from top to bottom, not solely on Fukudome.
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