Baystars new foreign players

The Japan Times has an article on the acquisitions:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getsp.pl5?sb20020130a1.htm

Unfortunately, I don't follow the Baystars, so I don't have any insight on the new players.

I do follow the BayStars, but don't know anything about their new recruits.

Nikkan Sports reported last Tueday (1/29) that returning pitcher Shane Bowers, new right-handed pitcher Jason Turman, new outfielder Boi Rodriquez, and new infielder Mike Gulan arrived in Japan. They labeled Turman (the "Big Worm") to be Yokohama's right handed Randy Johnson, standing 208 cm tall and carrying a 151 kph fastball. Not much was written about the other players, other than it was hoped that Bowers would do better this season.

Turman is the second pitcher to come to Japan measuring 208 cm tall. The first was Eric Hillman who was very effective with the Chiba Lotte Marines. Below is a table of pitchers at least 2 meters tall and how they did their first year in Japan:

Player	Team	Height	Year	Games	W	L	S	ERA
Hillman Bross Acre Minchey Baatosasu(?) Animal David Rivera	CLM YS YS HC YS HT YG HT	208 205 203 203 201 200 200 200	1995 1995 1998 1998 1991 1986 1997 1998	28 32 12 35 18 42 7 44	12 14 0 15 3 5 0 2	9 5 2 11 5 3 0 3	0 0 0 0 0 19 4 27	2.87 2.33 2.34 2.75 5.61 2.63 6.00 2.38

As you can see, six of the eight were very effective. What the article failed to say was who was right and left handed. I looked up the ones since 1995 in my database (excluding David, who joined late) with the following results:

+---------+--------+
| RegName | Throws |
+---------+--------+
| Acre    | R      |
| Bross   | R      |
| Hillman | L      |
| Minchey | R      |
| Rivera  | R      |
+---------+--------+

Four out of five are right handed. While I don't know about the two who had poor records, it looks like Turman could be very promising this year. The only down side I see right now is that Yokohama seems to have a jinx against foreign pitchers. Those who do well get injured too soon. Those who don't get injured soon, don't do too well.

By the way, how long do you think it'll be before someone at The Japan Times notices that the sidebar still says "Baseball 2001" for recent 2002 articles?

The name in question is former Cincinnati Red and Oakland Athletic Tim Birtsas who played college basketball at Michigan State I believe. Terry Bross also played college basketball-he played at St. John's. David is of course journeyman and one-time strike-breaking scab Dave Pavlas.

About the new players for the BayStars-I can tell you how they'll do before knowing anything about them. They'll be crap. How do I know that? I know that because Yokohama has the worst scouts in the history of baseball along with Hanshin. The only time they did well was with Carlos Ponce and Bobby Rose. Even when they signed a productive player such as Larry Sheets or Jim Paciorek, they would release them right away for some reason. Glenn Braggs was good when he was healthy, which wasn't too often, but I can't think of any good players that the BayStars have acquired lately.
They're into the Mike Tyson thing-A.W.S. (Another White Stiff). I think Yokohama purposely tries to look for white guys who can't play. Bill Selby, Lou Merloni, Dave Doster, Jon Zuber, every pitcher they sign, etc. Why are they all white stiffs? The only other time in the last 5 years they signed someone who wasn't white as Jose Malave and he sucked too.

Actually I've reconsidered what I said earlier about Yokohama signing only white players. This season they have 2 Latin players, so maybe progress is being made, even though it's highly unlikely they'll go out an field an all-black foreign lineup anytime soon.

Their racist policy makes me sick. If you go back over the last 10 years, do you know how many black players they've signed? If I'm not mistaken, I believe it's 2(Braggs and Mahomes). That's 2 out of something like 40-plus players. If that's not racist, then I don't know what is!

It sounds like you're one of those who believe that unless one is actively against racism, one is for it. I just saw such a documentary on the Discovery Channel this evening, so I can understand the validity of that point of view.

I do find it hard to believe that there has been an active policy against African descendants, however. It seemed to me that while Braggs was with the 'Stars, he was far more popular with the club and management than Rose. It was his health (knees and back, I believe) that were his ultimate demise, not his race.

I think you misunderstood my point. There's no reason why I would be for racism when I've been subjected to racism a countless number of times while I lived in the U.S.

The BayStars remind me of the '80s version of the Minnesota Twins. Back then, they usually only had 2 black players-in the early '80s it was a pitcher named Jackson and another player while in the late '80s it was Kirby Puckett and Al Newman. Some people (most notably Reggie Jackson) spoke out about the Twins' racist policy and it was learned that the owner of the Twins supposedly told a gathering at one time that the reason why he bought a team in Minnesota was because it was had less black people than Washington D.C.

The way I see it, the BayStars don't actively try to go out and sign the best foreign players that will help their team win. It seems that they're more interested in signing players who won't disrupt team harmony and will go along with the company policy. Whether they admit it or not, someone in their front office has determined that the players who will go along with the company policy are white players. Whether this thinking was brought on by a troublemaking black player will never be known, but as far as I can tell they won't go out and actively pursue black players anymore.

I like diversity and I like to see diverse teams do well, so the BayStars' foreign player policy is disappointing to see.

I really don't believe what I'm reading here? this sounds like a very close minded opinion. I would guess that they don't really pay attention to their race quota? Are you maybe expecting that they should go after Griffey jr., or maybe Dwight Gooden now that he's available? Really the bottom line is there aren't many black fringe players who A/ talented enough to play here and B/ there aren't too many quality players of any race that MLB teams are willing to part with! This is an invalid point to any extent. I doubt that there position is based on color or ethnic background in any case. If that was the case do you really think the would have tried using Anthony Sanders as a stopgap last season. I would say that it is just poor scouting! What black or minority players would you like to see? As a player I see no color barriers in Japanese pro baseball. And I can honestly not think of too many Minority players (Luis raven, an offense only type player. Maybe Bronswell Patrick a rhp last seen in Mexico. Latin players tend to be free swinging type hitters, which aren't of much value due to lack of walks and many strikeouts for any team trying to win a pennant. The bottom line is you don't want players who can't PLAY as your ace in the hole. Players of any value are a big comodity in pro baseball.
As for Pat Mahomes he's Big league pitcher, but a very average to below average one at that. Is that because of his ethnic background? I think not it's because he's used his god given abilities to their extent. All of these players here are cast-offs for one reason or another it has nothing to do with what color they are or what language they speak.