Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshv02
Statistics are an indicia of a greater skill - but they aren't perfect indicators of that skill. Being very good anywhere is no gaurantee of success. It is an indiciation of the likelihood of future success. Over the long haul, success in the Japanese league is roughly similar to success in the International League AAA (not the PCL) and the stats, for a group of people, will be predictable to a certain range of variance.
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That's the point that I was trying to make. You throw millions at guys who have proven themselves and hope that they continue, not AAA prospects. Normally, you bring a guy up from International League AAA and give him a ML minimum contract. Thinking in free agency terms for established Japanese stars is a crapshoot, as you put it, but a very expensive one for those players that don't pan out (Fat Toad Irabu, Kaz Matsui, Hideo Nomo, a bunch of others that I cannot recall, and now Kei Igawa).