Ryota Igarashi Worst Moves of the 2010 Pre-Season, Slider-Fastball, and Korean Ex-Mets...

Ryota Igarashi:

Born 5/28/1979 (30 years old) - RHP, NYM - A stocky right-handed specialist who spent most of his career with NPB's Yakult Swallows before moving to America, Ryota Igarashi is the proud owner of a lifetime 3.26 ERA and 1.07 in Japan, almost all of it in relief. Though most frequently a setup man or middle reliever, he also closed 37 games for the Swallows in 2004. In 2010, he'll provide depth in the bullpen for the Mets, who signed him to a two year deal during the offseason. -
link

Worst Moves of the 2010 Off Season:

•Dodgers sign Jamey Carroll to a two-year, $3.85MM contract.


•Mets sign Alex Cora to a one-year, $2MM contract.

•Adam LaRoche declines a two-year, $17MM offer from the Giants.

•Astros sign Brandon Lyon to a three-year, $15MM contract.

•Giants re-sign Bengie Molina to a one-year, $4.5MM contract. - link

Slider-Fastball:

I have talked about before how I think that pitch sequencing analysis is one of the big places that pitchf/x data can be useful. I know that I linked them in my last post, but I want to again highlight just some of the great work done so far on the topic: Joe Sheehan looked at the frequencies of pitch types following each other for a handful of pitchers; Josh Kalk had a couple of articles one looking at the topic generally and another looking at the high fastball then curve combination; Max Marchi looked at the best one-two pitch combinations; and Jonathan Hale looked at the effect of fastball speed on subsequent changeups. - link

As I noted in my last post on the topic, about Mariano Rivera, for me the best way to start this study of pitch sequencing is to find simple, easy-to-analyze examples. Last time I choose Rivera since he has effectively three pitches, an inside cutter, an outside cutter and a fastball. This makes the analysis of pitch sequencing relatively straightforward. Today I am going to take a similar approach but broaden the scope of pitchers

Korean Ex-Mets::

Jae Seo has kind of struggled here since coming back. His team, the Kia Tigers, won the championship last year, but his ERA was over 6 and he got a sizable pay cut. I was told all contracts in Korea are arbitration style, could you imagine that in the United States? Dae-Sung Koo is still pitching at age 41 and put up a 3.72 ERA in 55 innings for the Hanwha Eagles. Of course, everyone remembers his famous at bat and base running adventure against the Yankees in 2005. I have enclosed the video below.

Here is another thought I had: Just like the Yankees opened up an advantage in Japan when they signed Hideki Matsui, could the same happen with Chan Ho Park? I realize these are players at completely different levels when signed, but playing in New York can make just about anyone larger than life. If Park continues to pitch well out of the bullpen, and more importantly, wins a title with the Yankees you never know.