Kaz Matsui's new team: Colorado Springs (AAA)

by Alex B on Jun 9, 2006 3:02 PM PDT

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Ouch. Whatever went wrong with this guy? I remember seeing some clips of him in the MLB tour to Japan and he looked like a quality player on both offense and defence. Then the moment he lands in NY he can't to either for toffee. ALthough he did homer in his first AB of the season 3 years running, which is something I suppose...

Lack of ability at the highest level or NY doing strange things to people once again?

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Well playing in New York might have been a small

part of it, but I don't think it was. The other Matsui has done just fine there.

IIRC one of the things that was brought up when we were discussing weather or not Johjima was gonna hit in America was Japenese players K/BB ratio in Japan. Ichiro,Hideki Matsui,and Kenji Johjima so far have had decent to great careers in America and all had good to great ratios in Japan. Kaz Matsui on the other hand did not.

Japenese K/BB ratios:
Ichiro:333/384
H.Matsui:934/844
K.Johjima:474/307
K.Matsui:751/376

So that may be part of the reason why he has struggled so much in America.

Fire Mike Hargrove. GO TWINS!!

by Goose on Jun 9, 2006 3:22 PM PDT reply actions

Yeah

Also, Kaz was supposed to be more about his glove than his stick. He hit okay in Japan, but nothing mind blowing. So it couldn't have been expected that he'd hit well... but obviously no one told the Mets or their fans.

by Gomez on Jun 9, 2006 4:04 PM PDT up reply actions

Errr...

Nothing mind blowing? He had a career .309 average in Japan with an .847 OPS overall -- and if you just count his last four years, he averaged around 30 HR a year with around a .900-1.000 OPS.

He was a huge player there -- popular for his glove AND his bat. Also, notably, in like seven years straight he NEVER MISSED A GAME. Then he comes here and gets injured up and down again, and so on.

I don't really understand it. But it IS true that he struck out a lot more as his home run numbers went up.

Anyway, the only regret I have is that Colorado Springs has already been here twice and won't be back this year...

Marinerds - a different daily dose of baseblog.

by Deanna on Jun 10, 2006 12:19 AM PDT reply actions

It is strange, isn't it?

The thing with Kaz is that his entire skill-set "broke". He couldn't hit for average, previously decent OBP skills went, he couldn't hit for power at all, steals went down, he couldn't field and he couldn't even stay healthy.

Can all that really be blamed on a NPB K/BB rate that was on the high side?

It just seems to me that this was more of a case of something "going wrong" rather than him simply being exposed by a higher level of competition. And a real shame too.

by Alex B on Jun 10, 2006 4:08 AM PDT up reply actions