I'm not real familiar with the customs of the Regency Era courtship process. I guess this is the point at which the Mariners pay Iwakuma a visit? Or the point at which the Mariners ask for Iwakuma's company at a ball? Or the point at which the Mariners exchange brief pleasantries with Iwakuma before embarking on a foxhunt with the father? I knew I should have paid closer attention during Lost In Austen. This is another reference to Lost In Austen.
#mariners are very close to a deal with iwakuma. very good pitching there. need a hitter tho.
Unbeknownst to Heyman, the Mariners have several dozen hitters at the Major and minor league levels. It's just that not enough of them are very good. But you can't always get what you want. Everything I know, I learned from The Rolling Stones. My entire apartment is black. The landlord isn't very happy but I'm pretty sure she's just irritated she didn't think of it first because it looks pretty badass. "Landlord" is a hell of a title.
Landlord: Hello, I am the landlord.
Tenant: I AM YOUR VESSEL
Anyway, this is another indication that things are moving right along. This is a time of year that we're told not to put too much stock in rumors - I'm pretty sure I've said that myself a few zillion times - but this isn't one of those rumors where someone has something to gain from spreading mistruth. I absolutely do believe that the Mariners are close to signing Hisashi Iwakuma. There's no Scott Boras or Dan Lozano trying to drive up the market. Iwakuma's low-profile, he just wants to sign, the Mariners are interested, and Seattle's as convenient a city as any for a Japanese player with a family. It all makes perfect sense.
So you can begin mentally penciling Iwakuma into the Mariners' rotation. Or you can begin preparing yourself to mentally pencil Iwakuma into the Mariners' rotation. It's not official yet. I don't know if it should go Felix/Pineda/Iwakuma/Vargas or Felix/Pineda/Vargas/Iwakuma, but I do know that rotation order doesn't really matter, so that's a discussion you can save for the very slowest of days. A day so slow the sun's like "aw fuck it" and hits the snooze for an hour and a half. We will not need a celestial body to be on patrol on that day.
The big question, obviously, is whether Iwakuma will be any good. Kei Igawa was very good in Japan, and not very good here. Hiroki Kuroda was very good in Japan, and has been very good here. I don't believe that Japanese imports are unpredictable, but I do believe that they're very hard to predict, and that no one's yet figured it out. So Iwakuma, if he signs, will be a question mark. But thankfully all questions will be answered in the incontrovertible proving ground of spring training.
6 recs | 61 comments
And 30 year old pitchers from all backgrounds are 30 year old pitchers
So who knows right?
-Carson- - January 4, 2012
Except if you don't believe their government documents.
yuniform - January 4, 2012 via Android app
Cuban 30-year-old pitchers are not always 30-year-old pitchers.
JY - January 4, 2012
They could very well be 33-year-old fussbudgets with funny accents
lemonverbena - January 4, 2012
If they are indeed "very close to a deal" ...
After being formally introduced, the Mariners will have paid afternoon calls, first leaving their card, and then later being invited in to exchange pleasantries (but not staying beyond the approved 20 minute visit), moving on to an invitation to tea or a formal dinner. They have moved on to inviting Iwakuma for a drive around the park, perhaps going for a saunter through the park — properly chaperoned by Iwakuma’s agent, naturally. After gaining permission from Iwakuma’s agent, they may have begun a polite correspondence. If (as the signs would indicate) they find they are of like minds and the Mariners show that they have property and funds enough, they will have called upon Iwakuma’s agent to ask permission to address Iwakuma himself.
msb - January 4, 2012
All the while, Iwakuma has been in a secret torrid romance with a lowly, simple yet rugged farmhand
Because the impending marriage to the Mariners is about business and family, not the calling of the heart.
Chris_FB - January 4, 2012
Slut.
msb - January 4, 2012
Why buy the cow when we can get the milk for free?
d0nkey - January 4, 2012
"lowly, simple yet rugged farmhand"
Does that mean someone at Single-A?
extavernmouse - January 4, 2012
No, it's the A's
cdlewey - January 4, 2012
Are we boning yet?
Poochie - January 4, 2012
No.
[sound of a folded fan smacking knuckles]
msb - January 4, 2012
Hooray we're making a move
OlSalty - January 4, 2012
It is a truth universally acknowledged
… that a baseball team in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a mid-rotation starter.
BrownL - January 4, 2012
Jeff, please stay away from drugs and pools.
The last thing we need is for you to be replaced by a writer with the talent of Mick Taylor.
ThomasG - January 4, 2012
Wait, no, Mick Taylor was talented, just boring. But still: stay away from pools.
ThomasG - January 4, 2012
Pools are great exercise.
SeattExPat - January 4, 2012
I'm not really a Stones fan
I only know the Brian Jones story through a certain omnipotent Psychic TV song.
Seems like Jone’s replacement should have been named Mick Richards.
That is all.
vertigoman - January 4, 2012 via mobile
Some says Brian Jones was murdered.
“Death By Misadventure” works for me.
ignacio - January 4, 2012
Did you mean vassal?
If not that conversation got even creepier.
JAH - January 4, 2012
I originally thought the same thing, but no.
I guess that shows how much more my reading has been about feudalism than scripture.
Matthew - January 4, 2012
That was my reaction as well.
VivaAyala - January 4, 2012
He must've meant vassal. Vassals were feudal tenants who owed fealty to the landlord -- much like today.
Brother Fox - January 4, 2012
There is also a definition and usage of vessel that works and is what was intended.
So, no. Not “must’ve”
Matthew - January 4, 2012
Okay. My bad.
It was presumptuous of me to assume that he wasn’t referring to a container, a person into whom some quality is infused, a bodily canal in which a fluid is contained or circulated, or a watercraft bigger than a rowboat, since I don’t know him like you do. Please accept my apologies.
Brother Fox - January 4, 2012
I know him enough to ask him. It wasn't difficult.
It was the actually one fewer word, but I grant that the question mark key can be a little more difficult to reach than the period key. So by all means, you’re forgiven for making completely unnecessary assumptions. Go forth and continue! The internet, nay humanity itself, needs more of them!
Matthew - January 4, 2012
Not to be troublesome
…but I confess that I could use some help in grasping this:
“It was the actually one fewer word, but I grant that the question mark key can be a little more difficult to reach than the period key.”
Brother Fox - January 4, 2012
Just pay the rent, so as to avoid distrain.
PackBob - January 4, 2012
"need a hitter tho."
[insert LL header image here]
sanford_and_son - January 4, 2012
Have there been any rumors as to contract length/value?
I am reading the A’s bid around $18M and offered ~3y/$12M. I think I’d be fine with like 3y/$20M total on the contract
seattlebruin - January 4, 2012
Doubt it would be that much
He’s coming off a shoulder injury and is on the cusp of entering his 4th decade on earth.
vertigoman - January 4, 2012 via mobile
Nice phraseology there.
I should’ve thought of that when I was 18 and looking to buy liquor. “I’m on the cusp of entering my third decade on this earth, sir!”
“Get out of here, kid.”
Brother Fox - January 4, 2012
Last year, if reports were accurate,
the A’s bid $19.1M for the returnable posting fee and offered 4 years at $15.5M. Iwakuma’s then-agent, Don Nomura, also said:
"After our first proposal, we were thinking we had a compromise through negotiation, but the Athletics seemed to think ‘if you can’t take this price, you don’t have to come here’. That wasn’t a condition we could accept."
Brother Fox - January 4, 2012
Over under 3/$18M?
That’s $6M a year. That’s like a 1 WAR player.
valencia - January 4, 2012
under
Eric Wedge's Mustache - January 4, 2012
Over. Well over.
Sidi - January 4, 2012
Over
Maybe not in years, but in dollars.
Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan - January 5, 2012
I like how today's Iwakuma post has the picture left-justified for a change.
SeattExPat - January 4, 2012
Got no reason / what the heck?
C I L L. My landlord.
lemonverbena - January 4, 2012
Thank you for reminding me
Huzzah for unauthorized YouTube bootlegs
J0SER - January 4, 2012
So we're on first base with a pitcher?
Only the Mariners.
Graham MacAree - January 4, 2012
On the Mariners the pitchers have a better chance of reaching first base than the hitters!
seattlebruin - January 4, 2012
I read that and instantly thought it sounded funny in Yakov Smirnoff's voice.
KC Mariner - January 4, 2012
Don't you have wayyyyyy more interesting things to be doing than commenting on LL right now?
seattlebruin - January 4, 2012
Apparently not.
msb - January 4, 2012
I don't think you properly understand how interesting it is that we have invented the internet
Matthew - January 4, 2012
It practically has interesting right in the name!
Matthew - January 4, 2012
Define "we"
seattlebruin - January 4, 2012
Humanity
Matthew - January 4, 2012
Though I cannot rule out that the internet was the product of dolphinity
to placate and sedentarize humans for their eventual conquest.
Matthew - January 4, 2012
They would like to thank you for the fish
seattlebruin - January 4, 2012
Oh no, they got Willy
beastwarking - January 5, 2012
Some U.S. pitchers have been good and then either good, bad, or indifferent upon moving.
Does the whole Japan ? arise from the past assumptions that Japanese players were a notch below MLB or is there some meat to any current assumption that Japanese players are more of a question mark than any other player moving from team to team or league to league?
PackBob - January 4, 2012
There's just more volatility around the projected level of performance expected.
An MLB free agent has faced MLB talent, whereas a Japanese free agent has not. Not enough Japanese players come over to have a real accurate major league equivalency for Japanese players’ statistics.
Since the stadiums, players, strike zones, and balls are different, there’s questions about how all of those will transition, and not enough data to see which kinds of Japanese players are more likely to have success and which are less likely.
It’s an interesting question, and I think Japanese imports will always have more question marks unless there is a more open trading/posting process in place that would allow players to come over in their prime and give us more data points.
lailaihei - January 4, 2012
Yep, it's a different game.
The evaluations I’ve seen used to say it was somewhere between MLB and AAA in talent level (certainly enough players have dropped out of MLB and gone over there to do ok to show that). And, and you say, there are very significant differences in play.
So in many ways it’s like calling up a guy from the minors…except you usually have to give him a big contract and $10/20 million just to negotiate. Scary.
Sidi - January 4, 2012
Read my analysis on NPB pitchers
http://www.amazinavenue.com/2011/11/10/2553223/npb-in-the-mlb-a-historical-analysis-of-pitchers
Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan - January 5, 2012
Notch below MLB?
As you mentioned, the NPB is not short of MLBers that didn’t do anything. It cuts both ways.
infimum - January 4, 2012
Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.
truemsfan - January 4, 2012
Premature response. Woops.
Different Japanese player.
truemsfan - January 4, 2012
Fuck.
truemsfan - January 4, 2012
Me too, no worries.
BigR - January 4, 2012
You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of Lookout Landing to post a comment.