Can't Japanese baseball players do anything but pitch?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This has bothered me for some time now. Seems to me that the only Japanese players brought into MLB are pitchers. But since baseball is so popular in Japan, they obviously have position players there, too. But who was the last Japanese left fielder to play in America?

Three things occur to me to resolve this quandary:

  1. There is the much-debated thinning of the pitching pool due to expansion. Therefore, pitchers from Greenland would be welcome, if they have a sinking fastball and a halfway decent changeup.

  2. Japanese position players aren’t generally as good defensively as the home-grown species, or the Latino players (some of whom, let’s face it, are outrageously better than anyone else in the galaxy).

  3. They aren’t as good offensively, on the whole. Certainly not as good as Nomo or Piazza or Bonds or IRod before he busted up his hand.

Any thoughts or theories on this, baseball mavens of the SDMB?

2

I think it’s because of the lack of pitching. Teams are more willing to take a chance on a pitcher because of the need for quality pitching. There isn’t as much of a lack of talent at other positions.

3

Who cares? As long as Kazuhiro Sasaki keeps helping the Mariners win, he can sit in the dugout and drink root beer the rest of the time, and I’ll still be happy!

Scotti

4

cecil did a column on this a while back. search in the archives for Ron Darling. I don’t feel like posting a link here.