Comments on: Scouting report on Japanese prospect Shohei Otani

By: storebrandcookies

storebrandcookies — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:25:48 +0000

I heard the Rangers and Nolan Ryan met with him and bought him Yu Darvish signed baseballs. Yu Darvish is every Japanese pitcher’s hero so I wouldn’t be surprised if he signs with the Rangers. At $3 million, that’s like change to the Rangers. It would be nice to see a Japanese pitcher in a American team that doesn’t have tons of mileage on them like Daisuke, Nomo, Kuroda, Darvish, etc.

By: jayquintana

jayquintana — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:56:33 +0000

By no means is he a sure thing, but what high school pitcher is?

By: 13arod

13arod — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:46:59 +0000

i heard that he did reach triple digits a couple of times

By: Ari Collins

Ari Collins — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:16:32 +0000

Per Jim Callis (also of BA, and this time a free article), the limit on international spending is not likely to curb spending on Otani:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/ask-ba/2012/2614229.html

By: geoknows

geoknows — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:02:36 +0000

From FanGraphs; also interesting but not quite as flattering:

“Patrick Newman from the site NPB Tracker said that scouts had him at 150 to 155 kmh (93.2 to 96.3 mph) at that game — still great velocity but not quite triple digits. And though we don’t have readily available statistics for Japanese high school, news of his bad control has followed excitement about his velocity and stuff. Newman excellently wrote up an Otani start in one of their legendary tournaments, and he points out that a) Otani’s fastball, slider and curve all showed excellent raw stuff and the young man struck out 11 in eight-plus innings and b) his control was unrefined, he walked 11, and looked terrible by the end of the game. Oh and Newman also had less flattering video, this time of the pitcher falling apart in the seventh inning. For one last asterisk, Otani threw 173 pitches in that game, which happens often in Japanese high school, but could make an American team balk if the asking price rises too high.”

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/japanese-right-hander-shohei-otani-to-sign/