Igawa is a fine pitcher with a shot at being a very good #2 or #3 pitcher in the Majors. Anyone losing out on Matsuzaka should try to pick him up at a fraction of the cost.

Bats Left, Throws Left
Height 6' 1", Weight 212 lb.
Born July 13, 1979 in Oarai, Ibaraki Japan
Southpaw pitcher Kei Igawa was the number two draft choice of the Hanshin Tigers in 1998. After a couple years in the minors with cups of coffee for Hanshin, Igawa entered the rotation in 2001. Toiling for the last-place Tigers, Igawa went 9-13 but his 2.67 ERA ranked second in the Central League. Only Chunichi's Shigeki Noguchi had a lower ERA.

In 2002, Hanshin improved to fourth and Igawa's record was 14-9. He finished third in ERA (2.49), trailing Masumi Kuwata and Kenshin Kawakami. He also led the Central League with 206 strikeouts.

With the Tigers winning the Central pennant in 2003, Igawa's run support continued to improve. He went 20-5, leading the Central in wins; he also led in ERA (2.80, the only pitcher under 3) and was third with 179 strikeouts. He was named to the Best Nine, won the MVP in the CL and also won the Sawamura Award. After three straight seasons in the top 3 in ERA, Igawa was clearly one of the top hurlers in Nippon Pro Baseball.

His career began to hit the tracks in 2004. He went 14-11 with a 3.73 ERA, though he was still second in wins (behind Kawakami) and led with 228 Ks, 54 more than Kawakami. 2005 was even worse for the former Tigers ace - he was 13-9 with a 3.86 ERA, fifth among his team's starters in ERA, and was briefly exiled to the minors

From what I've read his fastball is only in the high 80's and he tends to lack consistancy. He mostly relies on his breaking stuff. There is some video of him from youtube and I wasn't too impressed.

Do we really need another soft tossing lefty? Back of the rotation starter at best.

From what I've read his fastball is only in the high 80's and he tends to lack consistancy. He mostly relies on his breaking stuff. There is some video of him from youtube and I wasn't too impressed.

Do we really need another soft tossing lefty? Back of the rotation starter at best.

One of the best left-handed starters in Japan, Igawa wasn't expected to come over this winter as a free agent, but his current employer, the Hanshin Tigers, apparently made an about-face and posted him. Igawa is primarily a two-pitch pitcher, with a below-average fastball in the 84-88 mph range with a little run, and a plus 74-79 mph curveball with a late two-plane break. He has a slight stabbing motion at the start of his delivery, but stays on top of the ball well, giving the curve its good depth and creating some downhill plane to his otherwise flat fastball. He also has average command and plus control.

The downside to Igawa is that his fastball may be a little short for MLB hitters, in which case, he'll end up a reliever, and probably a good one with that plus curve as a lefty-killing weapon. (He does throw an occasional changeup, but prefers to use his curve to get righties out as well.) The upside would be if his quick delivery makes the ball hard enough for hitters to pick up that his fastball plays up to average, in which case he could certainly pitch in the back end of an NL rotation. He's also an ideal candidate to learn a splitter, although that's a common pitch in Asia and it would be a surprise if he hadn't already tried one.

I think we need another Japanese player, one way or another.
No way should they let Matsuzaka be isolated with his translator.
He needs a teammate who speaks Japanese.
Which major leaguers know Japanese?
Japanese natives and ex-NPB Americans.
Kaz Matsui (yuck), this guy Igawa (yuck)...
Anyone who isn't going to be overpaid and suck?

Unless your name is Greg Maddux you don't survive as a MLB starting pitcher with an 88mph fastball.

Which major leaguers know Japanese?
Japanese natives and ex-NPB Americans.
Kaz Matsui (yuck), this guy Igawa (yuck)...
Anyone who isn't going to be overpaid and suck?

For someone who spends a lot of time telling other posters they don't know what they're talking about, that was a classic.

But Schilling is a guy who wasn't used to topping out in the high 80's.
In theory, a soft-tosser knows how to use that speed more effectively.
I still don't like soft-tossers, unless they have nasty stuff.

For someone who spends a lot of time telling other posters they don't know what they're talking about, that was a classic.

Name 5 pitchers in the last 6 years with ERAs under 4.50 with over 175IP, not named Barry Zito that can't hit 90. I can't believe there are that many.

Name 5 pitchers in the last 6 years with ERAs under 4.50 with over 175IP, not named Barry Zito that can't hit 90. I can't believe there are that many.

This isn't 1980s baseball anymore.

Remember Schilling's rehab starts in 2005 when he was topping out at 89? It was ugly man.

Austere, you say some pretty smart things, but this wasn't one of them.

Wake says hello

And whoever wanted to try and edit this post, please stop. I don't appreciate coming back to one of my posts and seeing a point I raised being changed to a derogatory comment about my mother any more than you would.

Bronson Arroyo
Tom Glavine
Derek Lowe
Chris Young
Clay Hensley
Jake Westbrook
Kenny Rogers

... and that's just from last year, without me double checking all the velocities for guys in the top 50 or so ERAs for the bigs. Not to mention, I haven't gone back 6 years.

Throwing hard allows you to get away with more mistakes-- and if your stuff is good, hurts the reaction time of batters. That's it though. Throwing hard is not a requirement for being a good pitcher.

I saw one scouting report that said his fastball tops out at the 84-88 range, and his command is not enough to make up for it.

The Hanshin Tigers have accepted the top bid -- believed to be about $25 million -- for left-handed pitcher Kei Igawa, SI.com has learned.

Major League Baseball is expected to announce Tuesday night which team won the bidding.

I hope this high bid for Igawa does not hurt Lucchino's efforts to get Seibu to kick back some of the $51M posting fee to Matsuzaka to help make the deal.

Lucchino: Boras is being an ass and won't budge lower than $15M, and we can't go higher than $11M. You need to give up some of that huge sum of $ we gave you to bridge the gap so we can get this done.

Seibu: Are you kidding? If Hanshin got $25M for Igawa, you got a bargain!

PREDICTIONS:

1: This presages a whole crapload of other Japanese talent wanting to come to the US and owners being willing to post them, leading to the beginning ogf a bona fide Japanese invasion of talent into MLB nearly as severe as the ongoing Latin invasion.

2: This presages the death, or severe modification, of the posting system within the next 5 years. The extremely lucrative posting fees will result in a huge talent drain from NPB into MLB, and NPB will want to stop the bleeding by renegotiating the posting system to try to retain the comparatively high level of baseball Japan is enjoying right now.

Yanks won the bidding according to the YES Network. An overpay for someone many have pegged to be a #4 starter at best.

Yankees??? OMG, that's awesome. LOL owned.

Tellem's his agent. I'm thinking he's going to go for the one big payday, and he'll use the high posting fee as leverage for a 4 or 5 year deal with an AAV somewhere from $6-9 million.

Does anyone know the initial speculation as to what Igawa's posting fee would be? I remember hearing something like $8-12 million might do it, but I could be completely wrong.

The Moronothon at NYY fans seems to think the Yankees did this to "drive up the price for Matsuzaka" They are also claiming his fastball is a low 90's fastball. All that I've read has him topping out at 87-88.

The report I heard today on sports radio, was that the Yankees bid was twice what the Padres bid. Not sure what the other teams bid however.

Maybe it's just a ploy to get Boras to drive up Matsuzaka's price. Maybe the Yankees don't want to sign a contract with Igawa

Good signing-all Cash's work

Bad signing--all George's fault.

Nope

"I just don't know," Wright told Newsday. "I'd have to see him when he's in midseason form. You send a guy up there after a month layoff and you can't get a handle on a guy. But as far as a lefty goes, he has a sneaky fastball. I thought he threw, for a lefty, an average to above-average fastball, an above-average changeup, and his slider was a little flat. But with a month off, who knows? Could be any number of reasons."

With Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt on the market they go after Igawa??

Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang, Igawa, and possibly Pavano the Yankees are stacked up to have one really bad rotation next season.