Star Japanese Pitcher Ready for America

In an off-season with few quality free agents a Japanese pitcher who burst into the consciousness of American baseball fans during this winter's World Baseball Classic could benefit more than anyone else. With only Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Lee available as legitamate stars, Daisuke Matsuzaka could be one of the highest paid free agents. With many teams looking for starting pitchers and few to be found, the 26 year old from Tokyo, Japan has become a prized commodity. Matsuzaka will have many teams willing to pay a lot of money for his services, because of his talent and the lack of quality free agents.

Matsuzaka has pitched for the Seibu Lions in Japan's Pacific League since 1999 and has won 108 games over those 8 seasons. As a 19 year old rookie in 1999, he won 16 games with a 2.60 ERA to win the Rookie of the Year award. Last season, in what will be his final year with the Lions, he went 17-5 with a career low 2.13 ERA. Matsuzaka is in the prime of his career and although he has had a heavy workload in his career, including a 240 inning season in 2001, he is ready to make the move to American baseball. Matsuzaka is the most prized Japanese player since Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui moved to America.

He is so popular in Japan that people born in the 1980-1981 period are said to be born in the "Matsuzaka Era." One mysterious part about Matsuzaka is his strange pitch, called the "gyroball" which supposedly moves through the air and seems to come to a dead stop at times.

The pitch can be seen here:



This season there is a major lack of free agents, especially free agent pitchers. The Cardinals' Jeff Weaver and Jeff Suppan moved into the vision of many teams with their success in the playoffs and Zito is the most accomplished of the free agents. Zito, however, has struggled in the past few seasons, but is still young and should still be signed for a lot of money. Zito was solid for the A's this season, finishing with a 16-10 record and a 3.83 ERA, but after a 1.67 ERA in the ALDS, he had a 12.27 ERA in the ALCS. Jason Schmidt is also a free agent, and while at times he has been one of the game's best pitchers he, like Zito, has struggled in recent times. Schmidt went 11-9 last season. Matsuzaka is being pursued by many teams, including the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Baltimore Orioles, all of whom are desperatly looking for pitching help.