Players To Watch - Japan WBC

Players to watch would be their three top starters Daisuke Matsusaka, Yu Darvish and Hisashi Iwakuma. Everyone knows about Daisuke and most people are familiar with Yu Darvish. For those who aren’t Trey Hillman, now the manager of the Kansas City Royals calls him one of the top five pitchers in baseball. If he is ever posted, it is expected he would fetch more than the $50 million the Red Sox posted for Daisuke. So that is a pretty good top two, but Hisashi Iwakuma outdueled Yu Darvish for the Sawamura award last year, which is similar to the Cy Young. So if you want a U.S. equivalent, I would say facing these three would be similar to facing a rotation of Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum and Greg Maddux when he was a top pitcher. Iwakuma reminds me a lot of Maddux with the precision he uses with his pitches. Nothing is hard, but the balls come off the bats soft.

The one downside is the pitching staff is loaded with pitchers that were starters for their team during most of the season. Only the closer Kyuji Fujikawa (38 saves) and Tetsuya Yamaguichi are really familiar with coming into a game in the middle. The other pitchers are used to appearing in the game in the very first frame.

The outfield should cover a lot of ground with Ichiro Suzuki, Kosuke Fukodome and Norichika Aoki. All three are also pretty good with the stick. For those not familiar with Aoki he hit .347 last year and has a career average of .338. He is considered the next big offensive player to try his hand in the United States, but he’s still got a way to go before he is eligible for free agency.

The big stick will come from Shuichi Murata, who led the Central League in homeruns with 46. Either he or Michihiro Ogasawara will play first base while the other will DH. I can’t see Kenji Johjima starting over Shinnosuke Abe.

source: WOB