Junichi Tazawa is now available to Major League Baseball teams. Tazawa was passed over in Thursday’s draft of amateur players in Japan. They say that his fastball reaches 97mph on the radar gun. Gene “Stick” Michael went over to Japan to see Yu Darvish pitch back in September. The Yankees aren’t expected to post Darvish, but they want to be in a good spot if they change their minds.
At the time, they said that the Yankee organization wasn’t interested in Tazawa, but now since he is undrafted..maybe they will have a different take on him. The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, scouted Tazawa while he led Nippon Oil to the corporate league championship this season. Dice-K was consdiered the best of the best while he was in Japan. Igawa wasn’t. Could these guys be the next Matsuzaka/Okajima?
The Yankees blew away a huge load of money on both Hideki Irabu and Kei Igawa. Will they be willing to take another chance on these guys?
I would take another look at Darvish. He even had better numbers than Dice-K. Check out his numbers. These are his last two seasons in Japan:
| Year | W | L | GS | CG | SHO | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | K | ERA |
|---|
| 2007 | 15 | 5 | 26 | 12 | 3 | 207.2 | 123 | 48 | 42 | 9 | 49 | 210 | 1.82 | |
| 2008 | 16 | 4 | 25 | 10 | 2 | 200.2 | 136 | 44 | 42 | 11 | 53 | 208 | 1.88 |
“I’m very relieved,” Tazawa said. “I was very nervous right up until the end of the draft.”
Kevin Rozell
M. B. Rozell
Ray Rothfeldt
Eduardo Perez
