Junichi Tazawa, who pitched a scoreless inning today in his first spring training appearance, almost certainly is destined for Triple-A Pawtucket when the Red Sox head north. Tazawa got his first taste of the major leagues last season, compiling a 7.46 ERA in six appearances and, most memorably, surrendering a walk-off home run to Alex Rodriguez in the 14th inning of an epic game in early August.
Everything that happened last season was about gaining experience -- and every pitch thrown in the major leagues was a bonus.
"I don't know if I would have sat here and said, 'We'll see him pitching in the big leagues,'" Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "Helping our ballclub, that was a lot to ask last year."
Here's the only problem: Tazawa isn't 20 years old. He's not 21, either. He turned 23 midway through last season, and that's the age at which many young pitchers start to blossom. There were 25 players who threw at least as many major-league innings as he did at the age of 22 or younger. Eight of those pitchers, including emerging stars Brett Anderson, Tommy Hanson, Derek Holland and Rick Porcello, threw more than 100 major-league innings.
Other names on the list include Neftali Feliz, Brian Matusz, Jon Niese and Chris Tillman, all pitchers expected to make a significant impact on their respective teams this season at the age of 22 or 23. Heck, Tazawa is three months older than Michael Bowden, the longtime prospect on whom it seems many are ready to give up.
Tazawa will turn 24 in mid-June, and that means the clock is starting to tick a little bit. Prospects who haven't made an impact in the major leagues by the time they're 25 tend not to be considered prospects anymore. Josh Beckett was 23 when he struck out 150 hitters for the first time. Jon Lester was 23 when he won a World Series clincher. John Lackey was, too.
Tazawa, of course, doesn't have the same type of ceiling as Beckett, Lackey or Lester. But even if you look at him as a back-of-the-rotation swingman in the mold of Justin Masterson, well, Masterson was pitching key innings in the postseason at 23 and taking the place of Tim Wakefield in the starting rotation at 24.
The righty remains an intriguing possibility for the Red Sox either as a starter or a reliever. He'll open the season at Triple-A Pawtucket and will have a chance to keep piling up innings and to keep working on his pitches. He'll certainly be in the mix should the Red Sox run into any depth issues with their pitching staff -- but it'll take either a significant injury or a significant step forward in his development for him to make a significant impact at the major-league level.
Like Bowden, if he's going to deliver on his big promise, his window isn't going to stay open forever.
Showing posts with label tazawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tazawa. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Red Sox pitching staff keeps getting thinner
When the Red Sox placed Junichi Tazawa on the 60-day disabled list, ending his rookie season, they made an interesting decision: They summoned shortstop Chris Woodward back from his home in Tampa, Fla., to provide depth in the infield.
The reason Woodward fits is clear. With Nick Green suffering from an as yet undiagnosed weakness in his leg, the Red Sox were down to just one backup middle infielder -- Jed Lowrie, whose lingering wrist injury has wiped out most of his season. Should Alex Gonzalez or Dustin Pedroia suffer any type of minor injury that would keep them out for a few days, the presence of Woodward allows the Red Sox to fill that spot without needing to push Lowrie too hard.
But swapping out Tazawa for Woodward does something else for the Red Sox: It leaves an already thin pitching staff even thinner.
With the Sept. 1 expansion of rosters comes an opportunity for teams to bring on board more pitchers, an opportunity to spread out the workload a little bit on a staff worked hard during the season's first five months.
Teams normally go with an 11- or 12-man pitching staff. Most have added four or five pitchers to the staff for the final month of the season. Half of them have 16 or more on their roster right now.
Baltimore's Dave Trembley turned calls to the bullpen into his own sophisticated form of Chinese water torture -- something he could do without issue because he has 18 pitchers to call upon. Both the Rockies and the Yankees are have 19.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, have 14. Having played all season with 12 pitchers, they used the Sept. 1 roster expansion to add just two more: Michael Bowden and the recently activated Daisuke Matsuzaka. Other than Bowden, the Red Sox are pitching with the same bullpen they've used all year.
It makes for some difficult in situations like Tuesday night, a night in which the Red Sox have Paul Byrd on the mound and no long reliever in the bullpen -- an almost unthinkable situation for a team to be in come September.
What's interesting is that two pitchers are available but are sitting at home. The Red Sox only have activated 34 of their available 40 players this month -- catcher Mark Wagner; infielders Aaron Bates, Chris Carter, and Jose Inglesias; and pitchers Felix Doubront and Hunter Jones haven't gotten the call. (Carter is effectively ineligible because he'll be traded to the Mets to complete the Billy Wagner deal.)
If the Red Sox want to go all-out to try to catch the Yankees for the division title, they won't pitch Bowden much and instead will stick with the relievers that have done the job so far.
If they want to ease off the accelerator and avoid overtaxing those same relievers, though, it might take more a pitching staff that goes more than 14 deep. It might take Doubront or Jones -- pitchers who, to this point, have not been summoned.
Doubront is something of a longshot. He's just 21 years old and threw 121 innings this season for Double-A Portland -- more innings than Clay Buchholz threw when he was 21 years old. He's never pitched above Double-A, either. He's likely been shut down for the season the way most Red Sox pitching prospects are after they hit a certain plateau.
The decision by the Red Sox not to call up Jones, though, is a curious one. Jones made eight appearances earlier this season when Daisuke Matsuzaka first went on the disabled list in April, and he's remained on the 40-man roster even while spending the rest of the season at Triple-A Pawtucket. His numbers weren't spectacular -- he had a 4.25 ERA in 53 innings pitched with the PawSox -- but the Tazawa-less Red Sox aren't in a position to be picky. If he can ease the burden on Hideki Okajima (59 innings pitched) or Ramon Ramirez (64 innings pitched), he'll have done his job.
If he's kept himself in any kind of pitching shape over the last couple of weeks -- he last pitched on Sept. 6 -- don't be surprised if he gets the call in the next few days.
The reason Woodward fits is clear. With Nick Green suffering from an as yet undiagnosed weakness in his leg, the Red Sox were down to just one backup middle infielder -- Jed Lowrie, whose lingering wrist injury has wiped out most of his season. Should Alex Gonzalez or Dustin Pedroia suffer any type of minor injury that would keep them out for a few days, the presence of Woodward allows the Red Sox to fill that spot without needing to push Lowrie too hard.
But swapping out Tazawa for Woodward does something else for the Red Sox: It leaves an already thin pitching staff even thinner.
With the Sept. 1 expansion of rosters comes an opportunity for teams to bring on board more pitchers, an opportunity to spread out the workload a little bit on a staff worked hard during the season's first five months.
Teams normally go with an 11- or 12-man pitching staff. Most have added four or five pitchers to the staff for the final month of the season. Half of them have 16 or more on their roster right now.
Baltimore's Dave Trembley turned calls to the bullpen into his own sophisticated form of Chinese water torture -- something he could do without issue because he has 18 pitchers to call upon. Both the Rockies and the Yankees are have 19.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, have 14. Having played all season with 12 pitchers, they used the Sept. 1 roster expansion to add just two more: Michael Bowden and the recently activated Daisuke Matsuzaka. Other than Bowden, the Red Sox are pitching with the same bullpen they've used all year.
It makes for some difficult in situations like Tuesday night, a night in which the Red Sox have Paul Byrd on the mound and no long reliever in the bullpen -- an almost unthinkable situation for a team to be in come September.
What's interesting is that two pitchers are available but are sitting at home. The Red Sox only have activated 34 of their available 40 players this month -- catcher Mark Wagner; infielders Aaron Bates, Chris Carter, and Jose Inglesias; and pitchers Felix Doubront and Hunter Jones haven't gotten the call. (Carter is effectively ineligible because he'll be traded to the Mets to complete the Billy Wagner deal.)
If the Red Sox want to go all-out to try to catch the Yankees for the division title, they won't pitch Bowden much and instead will stick with the relievers that have done the job so far.
If they want to ease off the accelerator and avoid overtaxing those same relievers, though, it might take more a pitching staff that goes more than 14 deep. It might take Doubront or Jones -- pitchers who, to this point, have not been summoned.
Doubront is something of a longshot. He's just 21 years old and threw 121 innings this season for Double-A Portland -- more innings than Clay Buchholz threw when he was 21 years old. He's never pitched above Double-A, either. He's likely been shut down for the season the way most Red Sox pitching prospects are after they hit a certain plateau.
The decision by the Red Sox not to call up Jones, though, is a curious one. Jones made eight appearances earlier this season when Daisuke Matsuzaka first went on the disabled list in April, and he's remained on the 40-man roster even while spending the rest of the season at Triple-A Pawtucket. His numbers weren't spectacular -- he had a 4.25 ERA in 53 innings pitched with the PawSox -- but the Tazawa-less Red Sox aren't in a position to be picky. If he can ease the burden on Hideki Okajima (59 innings pitched) or Ramon Ramirez (64 innings pitched), he'll have done his job.
If he's kept himself in any kind of pitching shape over the last couple of weeks -- he last pitched on Sept. 6 -- don't be surprised if he gets the call in the next few days.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Highlights of hazing
Because the Red Sox are departing on their final road trip, that means the team's group of rookies are enduring the indignity of dressing up in costumes for the trip to Baltimore. It's immature and it's juvenile, sure, but it's still relatively tame.
This year's theme? "The Wizard of Oz." The cast:
Dorothy: Junichi Tazawa, in a blue and white dress with knee socks. Daisuke Matsuzaka helped him zip up the dress in the back, a true example of a teammate helping a teammate look totally ridiculous.
Scarecrow: Dusty Brown, who put his costume on first and thus was probably the best sport about it. The outfit came with a tiny green hat, but there was no way he was going to get it to stay on.
Tin man: Michael Bowden, whose costume was more ridiculous -- and more revealing in the, shall we say, low-cut department -- than any of the others. He even had a little silver hat with a heart imprinted on it.
Lion: Daniel Bard, who even wore a little headband with ears.
Glinda, the Good Witch: Josh Reddick, who wore a fluffy blue dress and who was given a wand that had three -- that's right, three! -- light-up settings. Hours of entertainment for the plane right.
This year's theme? "The Wizard of Oz." The cast:
Dorothy: Junichi Tazawa, in a blue and white dress with knee socks. Daisuke Matsuzaka helped him zip up the dress in the back, a true example of a teammate helping a teammate look totally ridiculous.
Scarecrow: Dusty Brown, who put his costume on first and thus was probably the best sport about it. The outfit came with a tiny green hat, but there was no way he was going to get it to stay on.
Tin man: Michael Bowden, whose costume was more ridiculous -- and more revealing in the, shall we say, low-cut department -- than any of the others. He even had a little silver hat with a heart imprinted on it.
Lion: Daniel Bard, who even wore a little headband with ears.
Glinda, the Good Witch: Josh Reddick, who wore a fluffy blue dress and who was given a wand that had three -- that's right, three! -- light-up settings. Hours of entertainment for the plane right.
Friday, August 28, 2009
A Junichi Tazawa diagnosis
Here's a relatively simple exercise. Check out the left-right splits Junichi Tazawa has put together so far in the major leagues:
Lefthanded batters: .286/.344/.357 (.308 BABIP)
Righthanded batters: .488/.543/.927 (.516 BABIP)
Too small of a sample size? Check out his year in the minor leagues (on-base and slugging numbers are approximated):
Lefthanded batters: .221/.283/.317 (.287 BABIP)
Righthanded batters: .226/.256/.329 (.264 BABIP)
No, Tazawa isn't going to see righties hit almost .500 against him the rest of the way. But the fact that he has something of a reverse split -- he gets hit harder by righties than by lefties -- doesn't appear to be a fluke.
His numbers in the minor leagues were even, if not slightly better, against lefties than against righties -- and he even got a little less BABIP luck against lefties than he did against righties.
It then makes complete sense that Tazawa would repeatedly wiggle out of danger against the Yankees, a lineup full of lefties and switch-hitters, and get rocked by the White Sox, a lineup with quite a bit more balance to it.
If that's not the key difference, good luck finding it: His pitch charts from the two games look almost identical. Against the Yankees, he got hit when he left the ball in the middle of the plate...
... and against the White Sox, he got hit when he left the ball in the middle of the plate.
(The blue dots, as you probably can figure out, are balls in play.)
The best pitchers generally work all four edges of the strike zone but keep the ball out of the middle. Tazawa actually appears to have been squeezed a little bit at the knees on Thursday -- check out the green dots inside the strike zone -- but gave away another entire edge all by himself. He threw about six pitches all night that could be classified as on the inside corner to lefties and on the outside corner to righties. When he tried to throw to that side of the plate, he left the ball in the hitting zone.
His location stayed pretty consistent throughout: Middle-in to righties and middle-away to lefties. Here's how his third inning broke down:
A.J. Pierzynski (L): Single to left on a changeup down and away
Paul Konerko (R): Single to left on a fastball away
Jim Thome (L): Sacrifice fly to right on a fastball away
Carlos Quentin (R): Home run to left on a curveball in the middle
Mark Kotsay (L): Hard-hit groundout on a curveball in the middle
Alexei Ramirez (R): Double to left on a fastball in
Jayson Nix (R): Single to left on a fastball in the middle
Both Tazawa and catcher Victor Martinez blamed the pitcher's lack of control early in the count for putting him in tough spots where he had to throw the ball over the plate.
But in that third inning, an inning in which the White Sox scored four runs, Tazawa got ahead of six of the eight hitters he faced. He went to a 3-1 count to Ramirez, but the White Sox otherwise were swinging early in the count because they were getting pitches to hit.
The White Sox happened to be looking for certain pitches -- and Tazawa couldn't make the adjustment when they started to hit those pitches.
Lefthanded batters: .286/.344/.357 (.308 BABIP)
Righthanded batters: .488/.543/.927 (.516 BABIP)
Too small of a sample size? Check out his year in the minor leagues (on-base and slugging numbers are approximated):
Lefthanded batters: .221/.283/.317 (.287 BABIP)
Righthanded batters: .226/.256/.329 (.264 BABIP)
No, Tazawa isn't going to see righties hit almost .500 against him the rest of the way. But the fact that he has something of a reverse split -- he gets hit harder by righties than by lefties -- doesn't appear to be a fluke.
His numbers in the minor leagues were even, if not slightly better, against lefties than against righties -- and he even got a little less BABIP luck against lefties than he did against righties.
It then makes complete sense that Tazawa would repeatedly wiggle out of danger against the Yankees, a lineup full of lefties and switch-hitters, and get rocked by the White Sox, a lineup with quite a bit more balance to it.
If that's not the key difference, good luck finding it: His pitch charts from the two games look almost identical. Against the Yankees, he got hit when he left the ball in the middle of the plate...
... and against the White Sox, he got hit when he left the ball in the middle of the plate.
(The blue dots, as you probably can figure out, are balls in play.)
The best pitchers generally work all four edges of the strike zone but keep the ball out of the middle. Tazawa actually appears to have been squeezed a little bit at the knees on Thursday -- check out the green dots inside the strike zone -- but gave away another entire edge all by himself. He threw about six pitches all night that could be classified as on the inside corner to lefties and on the outside corner to righties. When he tried to throw to that side of the plate, he left the ball in the hitting zone.
His location stayed pretty consistent throughout: Middle-in to righties and middle-away to lefties. Here's how his third inning broke down:
A.J. Pierzynski (L): Single to left on a changeup down and away
Paul Konerko (R): Single to left on a fastball away
Jim Thome (L): Sacrifice fly to right on a fastball away
Carlos Quentin (R): Home run to left on a curveball in the middle
Mark Kotsay (L): Hard-hit groundout on a curveball in the middle
Alexei Ramirez (R): Double to left on a fastball in
Jayson Nix (R): Single to left on a fastball in the middle
Both Tazawa and catcher Victor Martinez blamed the pitcher's lack of control early in the count for putting him in tough spots where he had to throw the ball over the plate.
But in that third inning, an inning in which the White Sox scored four runs, Tazawa got ahead of six of the eight hitters he faced. He went to a 3-1 count to Ramirez, but the White Sox otherwise were swinging early in the count because they were getting pitches to hit.
The White Sox happened to be looking for certain pitches -- and Tazawa couldn't make the adjustment when they started to hit those pitches.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Pitching rotation: From Point A to Point B
Tim Wakefield will start Wednesday for the Red Sox in place of Brad Penny, the veteran who might have seen his Red Sox career come to an inglorious end in similar fashion to John Smoltz two weeks ago.
Smoltz was rocked by the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and Penny was rocked by the Yankees at Fenway Park to the tune of eight runs in four innings. Red Sox manager Terry Francona didn't come with the "At least he was throwing strikes" optimism he's brought to previous post-Penny press conferences, and he told reporters this afternoon that Penny had lost his spot in the Red Sox rotation.
"I told him he's got to kind of hang tight a little bit and get through today, and then we'll go from there," Francona said.
Odds are long that Penny will make another start for the Red Sox this season. It would be easy enough to "skip" Penny in the rotation this week, optioning Enrique Gonzalez to Triple-A Pawtucket to make room for Wakefield and filling out the bullpen with extra arms when rosters expand five days later.
The return of Wakefield and the marginalization of Penny means just more upheaval in a Red Sox pitching staff many believed to be the deepest in baseball coming out of spring training. Francona and Theo Epstein developed contingency plan after contingency plan -- and they've had to put almost all of them to use.
It's amazing, really, how the Red Sox depth chart, to borrow a phrase from football, has evolved from its Opening Day incarnation to the way it looks right now:
Late March
1. Josh Beckett
2. Jon Lester
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka
4. Tim Wakefield
5. Brad Penny
6. Justin Masterson (in the bullpen)
7. John Smoltz (rehabbing)
8. Clay Buchholz (in the minors)
9. Michael Bowden (in the minors)
10. Junichi Tazawa (in the minors)
Late August
1. Beckett (3.38 ERA)
2. Lester (3.58 ERA)
Not much has changed at the top of the rotation. Beckett and Lester each have double-digit wins and a couple of complete games to go along with a strikeout-to-walk ratio right around 3.5. Only nine pitchers in the American League have a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 3.0, and two of them are atop the Red Sox rotation.
(Roy Halladay, by the way, has 151 strikeouts and 23 walks -- a ratio of 6.57. Amazing.)
3. Buchholz (3.99 ERA)
One thing Buchholz does better than anyone on the Red Sox pitching staff is induce the ground ball. As a team, the Red Sox have a ground ball/fly ball ratio of 0.73; that is, they allow four fly balls for every three ground balls they induce. Both Beckett and Lester do better than most -- they have GB/FB ratios of 0.90 and 0.96, respectively -- but they both still allow more fly balls than ground balls.
Not Buchholz. The 25-year-old righty has a 1.30 GB/FB ratio in his seven starts this seasno, and he's getting outs via the ground ball at a rate of better than 2-to-1. (Double plays, of course, inflate that rate. Still, though, even ground-ball specialist Justin Masterson only had a rate of ground outs to air outs of 1.59.)
If the season ended today, Buchholz almost certainly would start Game 3 of the Red Sox's first-round playoff series.
4. Wakefield (4.31 ERA)
The All-Star knuckleballer surrendered just two hits and one run in 5 2/3 solid innings for Triple-A Pawtucket on Friday and reassured the Red Sox that he could field his position well enough to pitch in the major-league rotation. He had an ERA of 4.31 in 17 starts before he landed on the disabled list with a back injury and, later, with pain related to a sciatic problem in his calf.
"He can cover his position and he's a really good pitcher," Francona told reporters on Saturday, "so I think we're OK."
He gets the edge over the team's No. 5 starter because he, if healthy, almost certainly would pitch Game 4 of any first-round playoff series. His knuckleball might always be a wild card, but he's far more difficult to bring out of the bullpen because of it.
5. Tazawa (3.57 ERA)
The 23-year-old rookie erased the memory of Penny's disastrous start by tossing six shutout innings and, perhaps even more impressively, outpitching A.J. Burnett, the Yankees' No. 2 starter. Tazawa now has a 3.57 ERA in his four appearances in the major leagues and appears to be getting more and more comfortable with his role.
Barring injury, it appears he'll be the fifth starter in the Red Sox rotation the rest of the way.
One thing he did particularly well was attack the strike zone -- especially against the Yankees' lefties. Tazawa pitched mostly away from the lefties in the Detroit lineup in his first start two weeks ago, conceding the Green Monster in order not to give up solid contact on the inside half of the plate. That's a mark of a rookie pitcher, a pitcher who doesn't quite believe that his stuff is good enough on its own.
Against the Yankees, though, he pitched inside to lefties with both his fastball and his curveball, and he got results. Check out the two graphs. First is his strike-zone chart -- as viewed from behind the plate -- against Detroit on Aug. 11...
Smoltz was rocked by the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and Penny was rocked by the Yankees at Fenway Park to the tune of eight runs in four innings. Red Sox manager Terry Francona didn't come with the "At least he was throwing strikes" optimism he's brought to previous post-Penny press conferences, and he told reporters this afternoon that Penny had lost his spot in the Red Sox rotation.
"I told him he's got to kind of hang tight a little bit and get through today, and then we'll go from there," Francona said.
Odds are long that Penny will make another start for the Red Sox this season. It would be easy enough to "skip" Penny in the rotation this week, optioning Enrique Gonzalez to Triple-A Pawtucket to make room for Wakefield and filling out the bullpen with extra arms when rosters expand five days later.
The return of Wakefield and the marginalization of Penny means just more upheaval in a Red Sox pitching staff many believed to be the deepest in baseball coming out of spring training. Francona and Theo Epstein developed contingency plan after contingency plan -- and they've had to put almost all of them to use.
It's amazing, really, how the Red Sox depth chart, to borrow a phrase from football, has evolved from its Opening Day incarnation to the way it looks right now:
Late March
1. Josh Beckett
2. Jon Lester
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka
4. Tim Wakefield
5. Brad Penny
6. Justin Masterson (in the bullpen)
7. John Smoltz (rehabbing)
8. Clay Buchholz (in the minors)
9. Michael Bowden (in the minors)
10. Junichi Tazawa (in the minors)
Late August
1. Beckett (3.38 ERA)
2. Lester (3.58 ERA)
Not much has changed at the top of the rotation. Beckett and Lester each have double-digit wins and a couple of complete games to go along with a strikeout-to-walk ratio right around 3.5. Only nine pitchers in the American League have a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 3.0, and two of them are atop the Red Sox rotation.
(Roy Halladay, by the way, has 151 strikeouts and 23 walks -- a ratio of 6.57. Amazing.)
3. Buchholz (3.99 ERA)
One thing Buchholz does better than anyone on the Red Sox pitching staff is induce the ground ball. As a team, the Red Sox have a ground ball/fly ball ratio of 0.73; that is, they allow four fly balls for every three ground balls they induce. Both Beckett and Lester do better than most -- they have GB/FB ratios of 0.90 and 0.96, respectively -- but they both still allow more fly balls than ground balls.
Not Buchholz. The 25-year-old righty has a 1.30 GB/FB ratio in his seven starts this seasno, and he's getting outs via the ground ball at a rate of better than 2-to-1. (Double plays, of course, inflate that rate. Still, though, even ground-ball specialist Justin Masterson only had a rate of ground outs to air outs of 1.59.)
If the season ended today, Buchholz almost certainly would start Game 3 of the Red Sox's first-round playoff series.
4. Wakefield (4.31 ERA)
The All-Star knuckleballer surrendered just two hits and one run in 5 2/3 solid innings for Triple-A Pawtucket on Friday and reassured the Red Sox that he could field his position well enough to pitch in the major-league rotation. He had an ERA of 4.31 in 17 starts before he landed on the disabled list with a back injury and, later, with pain related to a sciatic problem in his calf.
"He can cover his position and he's a really good pitcher," Francona told reporters on Saturday, "so I think we're OK."
He gets the edge over the team's No. 5 starter because he, if healthy, almost certainly would pitch Game 4 of any first-round playoff series. His knuckleball might always be a wild card, but he's far more difficult to bring out of the bullpen because of it.
5. Tazawa (3.57 ERA)
The 23-year-old rookie erased the memory of Penny's disastrous start by tossing six shutout innings and, perhaps even more impressively, outpitching A.J. Burnett, the Yankees' No. 2 starter. Tazawa now has a 3.57 ERA in his four appearances in the major leagues and appears to be getting more and more comfortable with his role.
Barring injury, it appears he'll be the fifth starter in the Red Sox rotation the rest of the way.
One thing he did particularly well was attack the strike zone -- especially against the Yankees' lefties. Tazawa pitched mostly away from the lefties in the Detroit lineup in his first start two weeks ago, conceding the Green Monster in order not to give up solid contact on the inside half of the plate. That's a mark of a rookie pitcher, a pitcher who doesn't quite believe that his stuff is good enough on its own.
Against the Yankees, though, he pitched inside to lefties with both his fastball and his curveball, and he got results. Check out the two graphs. First is his strike-zone chart -- as viewed from behind the plate -- against Detroit on Aug. 11...
... followed by his strike-zone chart against the Yankees on Saturday:
He also disguised his curveball far better in terms of release point, not giving away his pitch simply with the location of his hand when he let go of the ball. (The idea is for each pitch to come out of the hand in the same spot, so if the purple data points are distinguishable from the other data points, that's a problem.)
The first chart, again, is that start against Detroit...
... and the second is Saturday against New York.
Tazawa has all the goods to be a terrific major-league pitcher. He's not exactly the ground-ball specialist Buchholz is -- he recorded 11 fly-ball outs on Saturday and just four ground-ball outs -- but he's making a case right now to be part of the Red Sox rotation from the get-go next season.
6. Matsuzaka (rehabbing)
The pitcher who finished third in Cy Young voting is expected to make a rehab start in the Gulf Coast League on Monday and begin to climb the minor-league ladder from there. He might be a maddening pitcher at times, but he did throw seven shutout innings in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series a year ago and was viewed as the team's clear-cut No. 3 starter before the season.
If Matsuzaka returns in time to show off his progress before the season ends, he might again be that No. 3 starter in the team's postseason rotation.
7. Paul Byrd (in the minors)
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the struggles of Penny and Smoltz prompted the Red Sox to sign Byrd to a contract in hopes he could round himself into form in time for the stretch run. The veteran threw 74 pitches in four innings for the PawSox on Wednesday, surrendering three runs on six hits, and he'll likely pitch twice more in Pawtucket before rosters expand on Sept. 1.
8. Bowden (in the minors)
Don't make too much of Bowden's disastrous two innings against the Yankees. For one thing, he's been a starting pitcher all season and not only did he have to pitch in relief on Friday, he had to do so (a) after having warmed up once already only to sit back down; (b) with runners on first and third and no outs; and (c) against a lineup already feeling good about itself, as Francona would say.
If Wakefield gets hurt again and neither Matsuzaka nor Byrd pan out, Bowden likely would become the team's fifth starter in September.
9. Brad Penny (in limbo)
Here's the chart from Friday that tells the story:
Penny threw his fastball with good velocity (95 miles an hour) and even offset it with changeups, sliders and curveballs. But everything he threw was right down the middle of the plate. You can't win pitching like that.
Penny indicated earlier this season he has no desire to pitch out of the bullpen. He might not, however, have any say in the matter. His repertoire actually makes him a better fit as a reliever than as a starter, and he'd have a vested interest in performing well in mop-up duty as he heads back out on the open market this winter. (You can bet the Mets will be watching.)
With rosters due to expand a week from Tuesday, the Red Sox appear to have no reason to release Penny outright. If they can stash him away for seven or eight days, they can use him in mop-up duty out of the bullpen. If something goes terribly wrong in mid-September -- such as half the starting rotation catching swine flu -- he can make a spot start. Otherwise, though, he's all finished pitching meaningful innings in Boston.
N/A. Smoltz (DFA'ed) and Masterson (traded to Cleveland)
Both are gone. Neither is coming back.
Masterson, though, earned his first win as a member of the Cleveland Indians on Thursday night, tossing 6 1/3 strong innings to beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. He now has a 3.78 ERA since the Red Sox traded him to the Indians as part of the Victor Martinez deal on July 24.
But you have to give something to get something, right?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tazawa settles down after wild first inning
(Thanks again to brooksbaseball.net for the PitchFX charts.)
Junichi Tazawa's first inning -- Nick Green error or no Nick Green error -- looked quite a bit different than his final four innings. He repeatedly let Detroit hitters off the hook in the first inning, going to a two-strike count six times and an 0-2 count four times and striking out exactly no one. Even when he got outs, he repeatedly let hitters extend at-bats far beyond what he needed to do.
"We somewhat self-destructed defensively a little bit to extend that inning," pitching coach John Farrell said. "That was completely out of his control. The thing he did that was most impressive was continue to execute pitches despite a couple of ground balls that could have shortened up the first inning."
Said Tazawa through a team interpreter, "I was wondering, 'What will happen? Will I be OK?' It was an unsteady time for me."
By the fifth inning, though, it appeared that he'd figured things out. He jumped ahead of Clete Thomas by an 0-2 count -- the same Clete Thomas who had singled up the middle on a 1-2 pitch in the first inning -- and put him away with a fastball up and out of the strike zone.
"I think, in the first two innings, my control was not as good as it should have been," Tazawa said. "But by the third inning, I was getting more used to it, and I think the pitches responded to that."
Check out these two charts. The key to the approach plot is to imagine it from the catcher's point of view, meaning everything off to the right side of the chart is outside and everything to the left side is inside, be it again lefties or righties.
Tazawa's first inning
Junichi Tazawa's first inning -- Nick Green error or no Nick Green error -- looked quite a bit different than his final four innings. He repeatedly let Detroit hitters off the hook in the first inning, going to a two-strike count six times and an 0-2 count four times and striking out exactly no one. Even when he got outs, he repeatedly let hitters extend at-bats far beyond what he needed to do.
"We somewhat self-destructed defensively a little bit to extend that inning," pitching coach John Farrell said. "That was completely out of his control. The thing he did that was most impressive was continue to execute pitches despite a couple of ground balls that could have shortened up the first inning."
Said Tazawa through a team interpreter, "I was wondering, 'What will happen? Will I be OK?' It was an unsteady time for me."
By the fifth inning, though, it appeared that he'd figured things out. He jumped ahead of Clete Thomas by an 0-2 count -- the same Clete Thomas who had singled up the middle on a 1-2 pitch in the first inning -- and put him away with a fastball up and out of the strike zone.
"I think, in the first two innings, my control was not as good as it should have been," Tazawa said. "But by the third inning, I was getting more used to it, and I think the pitches responded to that."
Check out these two charts. The key to the approach plot is to imagine it from the catcher's point of view, meaning everything off to the right side of the chart is outside and everything to the left side is inside, be it again lefties or righties.
Tazawa's first inning
Tazawa's final four innings
The biggest thing to notice: The Tigers put two pitches in play (blue dots) that were up and over the middle in the first inning alone: Curtis Granderson's pop-up to short and Brandon Inge's run-scoring double to left field.
In the final four innings, though, Tazawa effectively kept the ball out of the middle of the plate -- and, more importantly, kept the Tigers from putting any of those pitches in play. The only ball the Tigers hit that could be considered up and over the plate was Ryan Raburn's bunt attempt in the fifth inning.
"His fastball command, particularly down in the strike zone, and his split got better as the game went along," Farrell said. "He was very impressive for the five innings he pitched tonight."
Tazawa also didn't waste pitches well off the plate the way he did in the first inning. His waste pitches instead were curveballs and changeups in the dirt, pitches that are going to induce more swings and misses than fastballs well outside.
His chart from the first inning looks like a dartboard in which his misses seem evenly spaced out on all sides. His chart from the final four innings looks like that of a pitcher who has a game plan -- keep the ball down and away, particularly to the Tigers' righthanded hitters, taking the Green Monster away as an ally. (He attacked the zone more against lefties, venturing up and out of the zone in his strikeouts of Clete Thomas and Alex Avila.)
"The action and the consistency to his secondary pitches, particularly his split, became a little more sharp (after the first inning) and a little bit more consistent down in the strike zone to get some swings and misses," Farrell said.
You can't take too much out of one start. John Smoltz, after all, settled down after a rough first inning in Washington back in June but never again recaptured the promise he'd shown in the final four innings of that outing.
But seeing Tazawa execute his game plan through the final four innings against the Tigers on Tuesday night still had to bring a smile to the face of everyone in the Red Sox organization.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Junichi Tazawa just one of the guys
PAWTUCKET, R.I. -- Everyone wants to hear what Junichi Tazawa has to say.
About an hour before Thursday night's game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Norfolk Tides, the 23-year-old righty and translator Masaki Kubota were involved in a conversation with a reporter in the middle of the McCoy Stadium clubhouse. But a handful of PawSox teammates -- among them pitcher Rocky Cherry, catcher Mark Wagner and infielders Chris Carter, Jeff Natale and Ivan Ochoa -- began to edge closer and closer to try to hear what the highly touted prospect was saying.
The first question was about the difference between Double-A and Triple-A. The answer was about the way he's had to adjust the way he sequences his pitches and the way he can't just use his stuff to overpower hitters anymore.
"At Double-A, at the beginning of the season, the coach said, 'You can pitch fastball and curveball,'" Tazawa said through Kubota. "It is part of growing up, part of the process. But here is more like preparing for the big leagues."
Kubota tried to continue the answer, to relay what Tazawa had said about the process of learning to pitch one step below the major leagues, but he couldn't hold back the giggles as the group edged closer and closer, their expressions of eager attention growing more and more exaggerated.
The translator finally gave up when Natale casually dropped the towel he'd been wearing around his waist. Tazawa, too, started laughing uncontrollably as Kubota shoved the completely naked Natale away and toward his locker.
If the episode demonstrated nothing else, it was that Tazawa, language barrier and all, really has become one of the guys.
He hasn't had much of a chance to become assimilated to American culture. He spends most of his time at the ballpark and thus "did nothing like shopping or anything," Kubota said. "But he needs to learn English and communicate with his teammates, and this is challenging right now."
(Most of the English he's learned from the other players in the clubhouse, as you can imagine, is not fit for print.)
The promotion from Double-A Portland to Triple-A Pawtucket actually helped with that process because he had a chance to reunite with some of the players who he'd first met at major-league camp during spring training in Fort Myers. Wagner spent most of the first half of the season at Portland, too, but players like Carter and Ochoa and pitchers Michael Bowden, Francisco Cabrera, Hunter Jones, Marcus McBeth and Billy Traber have spent most, if not all, of their season with Pawtucket.
"He knows the big-league guys and the Triple-A guys, but when he's going to Double-A, nobody knows (him)," Kubota said. "But most of the Triple-A guys know him from big-league camp in the spring, so this is good for him."
Said Wagner, "That's a testament to how relaxed he's getting and how comfortable everybody is making him feel. Before, he was just quiet, sitting next to the translator, and now, he'll joke around and (chat) with the guys, and it's fun because we all have a good time with it."
(Wagner and Tazawa challenge each other on the Nintendo DS during long bus rides. Tazawa dominates when they play the Japanese baseball game he brought with him, but Wagner will "whip up on him a little bit" when it comes to Mario Kart.)
It helps that the righty can really, really pitch.
He had a 2.57 ERA in 18 starts at Portland earlier this year before the Red Sox promoted him, and he allowed three earned runs in 11 1/3 innings (good for a 2.38 ERA) in his first two starts at Pawtucket. So far this season, he has 94 strikeouts and just 27 walks in 109 1/3 innings pitched.
That comes on the heels of a spring training in which he allowed just one earned run in nine innings with the big-league club, striking out 10 and walking just one in the process.
Though he throws righthanded, he was particularly devastating against lefties (.213 batting average against) while he was at Portland. He did have a better strikeout-to-walk ratio (almost 6-to-1) against righties than against lefties, and he's seen his splits turn the way you might expect -- lefties are hitting .300 off him while righties are hitting .056 -- since his promotion to Pawtucket.
But he's everything changes at Fenway Park next week if and when he takes over for the DFA'ed John Smoltz in the Red Sox rotation. That will give him his first chance to showcase his repertoire -- like Clay Buchholz, his changeup and his curveball are his best pitches -- against major-league hitters.
"He's really learning how to control those pitches and when to use them in what spots," Wagner said. "Before, it was just kind of like, 'OK, we're going to throw this because we haven't really done it,' and it was good enough that he could get away with it. But at this level, he's really refining. Now there's a purpose behind why we're doing this. Before, his stuff was good enough just to overmatch batters, but now that we're here, he's starting to sequence it."
About an hour before Thursday night's game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Norfolk Tides, the 23-year-old righty and translator Masaki Kubota were involved in a conversation with a reporter in the middle of the McCoy Stadium clubhouse. But a handful of PawSox teammates -- among them pitcher Rocky Cherry, catcher Mark Wagner and infielders Chris Carter, Jeff Natale and Ivan Ochoa -- began to edge closer and closer to try to hear what the highly touted prospect was saying.
The first question was about the difference between Double-A and Triple-A. The answer was about the way he's had to adjust the way he sequences his pitches and the way he can't just use his stuff to overpower hitters anymore.
"At Double-A, at the beginning of the season, the coach said, 'You can pitch fastball and curveball,'" Tazawa said through Kubota. "It is part of growing up, part of the process. But here is more like preparing for the big leagues."
Kubota tried to continue the answer, to relay what Tazawa had said about the process of learning to pitch one step below the major leagues, but he couldn't hold back the giggles as the group edged closer and closer, their expressions of eager attention growing more and more exaggerated.
The translator finally gave up when Natale casually dropped the towel he'd been wearing around his waist. Tazawa, too, started laughing uncontrollably as Kubota shoved the completely naked Natale away and toward his locker.
If the episode demonstrated nothing else, it was that Tazawa, language barrier and all, really has become one of the guys.
He hasn't had much of a chance to become assimilated to American culture. He spends most of his time at the ballpark and thus "did nothing like shopping or anything," Kubota said. "But he needs to learn English and communicate with his teammates, and this is challenging right now."
(Most of the English he's learned from the other players in the clubhouse, as you can imagine, is not fit for print.)
The promotion from Double-A Portland to Triple-A Pawtucket actually helped with that process because he had a chance to reunite with some of the players who he'd first met at major-league camp during spring training in Fort Myers. Wagner spent most of the first half of the season at Portland, too, but players like Carter and Ochoa and pitchers Michael Bowden, Francisco Cabrera, Hunter Jones, Marcus McBeth and Billy Traber have spent most, if not all, of their season with Pawtucket.
"He knows the big-league guys and the Triple-A guys, but when he's going to Double-A, nobody knows (him)," Kubota said. "But most of the Triple-A guys know him from big-league camp in the spring, so this is good for him."
Said Wagner, "That's a testament to how relaxed he's getting and how comfortable everybody is making him feel. Before, he was just quiet, sitting next to the translator, and now, he'll joke around and (chat) with the guys, and it's fun because we all have a good time with it."
(Wagner and Tazawa challenge each other on the Nintendo DS during long bus rides. Tazawa dominates when they play the Japanese baseball game he brought with him, but Wagner will "whip up on him a little bit" when it comes to Mario Kart.)
It helps that the righty can really, really pitch.
He had a 2.57 ERA in 18 starts at Portland earlier this year before the Red Sox promoted him, and he allowed three earned runs in 11 1/3 innings (good for a 2.38 ERA) in his first two starts at Pawtucket. So far this season, he has 94 strikeouts and just 27 walks in 109 1/3 innings pitched.
That comes on the heels of a spring training in which he allowed just one earned run in nine innings with the big-league club, striking out 10 and walking just one in the process.
Though he throws righthanded, he was particularly devastating against lefties (.213 batting average against) while he was at Portland. He did have a better strikeout-to-walk ratio (almost 6-to-1) against righties than against lefties, and he's seen his splits turn the way you might expect -- lefties are hitting .300 off him while righties are hitting .056 -- since his promotion to Pawtucket.
But he's everything changes at Fenway Park next week if and when he takes over for the DFA'ed John Smoltz in the Red Sox rotation. That will give him his first chance to showcase his repertoire -- like Clay Buchholz, his changeup and his curveball are his best pitches -- against major-league hitters.
"He's really learning how to control those pitches and when to use them in what spots," Wagner said. "Before, it was just kind of like, 'OK, we're going to throw this because we haven't really done it,' and it was good enough that he could get away with it. But at this level, he's really refining. Now there's a purpose behind why we're doing this. Before, his stuff was good enough just to overmatch batters, but now that we're here, he's starting to sequence it."
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Felix List
Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times wrote an whiplash-inducing story on Monday, reporting that the Mariners had received a list of eight prospects from the Red Sox, a list from which they could choose five players they could receive in a trade for Felix Hernandez.
The Mariners turned down the offer, in part because, as Baker wrote, "the Mariners didn't think any of the packages they were being offered would go down much in substance over the next 12 months, when they'd only have another year-plus of Hernandez under control. Why give up the extra year, their reasoning went, if they could still get a similar offer at the 2010 deadline?"
The list, according to Baker:
1. RHP Daniel Bard
2. RHP Michael Bowden
3. RHP Clay Buchholz
4. LHP Felix Doubront
5. LHP Nick Hagadone (since traded to Cleveland)
6. RHP Justin Masterson (likewise)
7. SS Yamaico Navarro
8. OF Josh Reddick
The players on the list are intruiging. (If I were the Mariners and decided to make the deal, I'd have taken Bard, Buchholz, Hagadone, Masterson and Reddick -- just in case you were wondering.)
But what's more intriguing -- particularly as the concept of "untouchable" becomes more and more commonplace in the trade market -- is the list of players who weren't on the list, the list of players who the Red Sox apparently wouldn't even include in a deal for a pitcher who's almost as good as Roy Halladay but 10 years younger and not eligible for free agency until after the 2011 season. Those -- and not, say, Bard -- are the true untouchables of the Red Sox system.
Among those players (SoxProspects.com rank in parentheses):
1. Casey Kelly, P (1)
If there's been a more spectacular pro debut than that of Kelly with Single-A Greenville this spring, well, it would have to be some debut. Kelly allowed six earned runs in 48 1/3 innings in his first nine starts at Greenville -- a 1.12 ERA -- and had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.33. He then was promoted to a higher Single-A league and actually saw his strikeout-to-walk ratio get even better (5.0) while his ERA remained more than respectable (3.09.)
Oh, and he's 19 years old.
The only reason he's not pitching at Double-A Portland right now, in all likelihood, is because he wanted to try his hand at shortstop and because the Red Sox want to limit his innings at such an early stage of his career. But don't be surprised if he's pitching in the major leagues before Hernandez hits the free-agent market.
2. Lars Anderson, 1B (3)
The star of Anderson, so bright before the season, appears to have lost a little bit of luster as he's struggled through his first full season in Double-A. He's hitting just .243 with almost twice as many strikeouts (99) as walks (51), and he's hit just eight home runs in 366 at-bats.
But if his stock had fallen that much in the eyes of Red Sox evaluators, he would have been included on the list given to Seattle, right?
Anderson, one must deduce, remains a future cornerstone of the Red Sox organization. He did, after all, OPS over .900 in both of his stops a year ago. (He OPS'ed .921 at Single-A Lancaster and .962 in fewer than 150 at-bats at Double-A Portland.) One first-half slump -- a slump that has threatened to turn into a seasonlong downturn -- hasn't changed the way the Red Sox look at him.
3. Junichi Tazawa, P (5)
The Red Sox made a bold statement this winter in signing Tazawa straight out of Japan's amateur ranks. He first turned heads in spring training -- he allowed just one run in nine innings pitched and had a 10-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio -- and hasn't let up so far this season.
He had a 2.57 ERA and a 3.38 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 starts at Double-A Portland and has a 2.38 ERA with six strikeouts and one walk in his first 11 1/3 innings since his promotion to Triple-A Pawtucket.
Tazawa would have been a spectacular trade chip to offer Seattle, the franchise that signed Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhiro Sasaki. The fact that he wasn't included on the list tells you something: The Red Sox anticipate the 23-year-old Tazawa being a key part of their pitching staff in the not-too-distance future.
4. Ryan Westmoreland, OF (6)
One might think that the Red Sox refused to trade Westmoreland simply because it would be kind of a lousy thing to sign a Rhode Island kid away from Vanderbilt -- capitalizing on his love for his hometown team -- and then trade him away.
But you can't imagine that kind of sentimentality would stand in the way of a trade for one of the major leagues' best young pitchers.
Westmoreland, then, remains one of the top position-player prospects in the organization. He missed the first half of the season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum but is OBP'ing .394 and slugging .487 so far this season for Single-A Lowell, a short-season team consisting mostly of newly signed draft picks.
He has a long way to go -- like Kelly, he's just 19 years old, but unlike Kelly, he's a pretty raw product -- but is the type of five-tool talent around whom the Red Sox could build their team by 2013 or 2014.
The Mariners turned down the offer, in part because, as Baker wrote, "the Mariners didn't think any of the packages they were being offered would go down much in substance over the next 12 months, when they'd only have another year-plus of Hernandez under control. Why give up the extra year, their reasoning went, if they could still get a similar offer at the 2010 deadline?"
The list, according to Baker:
1. RHP Daniel Bard
2. RHP Michael Bowden
3. RHP Clay Buchholz
4. LHP Felix Doubront
5. LHP Nick Hagadone (since traded to Cleveland)
6. RHP Justin Masterson (likewise)
7. SS Yamaico Navarro
8. OF Josh Reddick
The players on the list are intruiging. (If I were the Mariners and decided to make the deal, I'd have taken Bard, Buchholz, Hagadone, Masterson and Reddick -- just in case you were wondering.)
But what's more intriguing -- particularly as the concept of "untouchable" becomes more and more commonplace in the trade market -- is the list of players who weren't on the list, the list of players who the Red Sox apparently wouldn't even include in a deal for a pitcher who's almost as good as Roy Halladay but 10 years younger and not eligible for free agency until after the 2011 season. Those -- and not, say, Bard -- are the true untouchables of the Red Sox system.
Among those players (SoxProspects.com rank in parentheses):
1. Casey Kelly, P (1)
If there's been a more spectacular pro debut than that of Kelly with Single-A Greenville this spring, well, it would have to be some debut. Kelly allowed six earned runs in 48 1/3 innings in his first nine starts at Greenville -- a 1.12 ERA -- and had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.33. He then was promoted to a higher Single-A league and actually saw his strikeout-to-walk ratio get even better (5.0) while his ERA remained more than respectable (3.09.)
Oh, and he's 19 years old.
The only reason he's not pitching at Double-A Portland right now, in all likelihood, is because he wanted to try his hand at shortstop and because the Red Sox want to limit his innings at such an early stage of his career. But don't be surprised if he's pitching in the major leagues before Hernandez hits the free-agent market.
2. Lars Anderson, 1B (3)
The star of Anderson, so bright before the season, appears to have lost a little bit of luster as he's struggled through his first full season in Double-A. He's hitting just .243 with almost twice as many strikeouts (99) as walks (51), and he's hit just eight home runs in 366 at-bats.
But if his stock had fallen that much in the eyes of Red Sox evaluators, he would have been included on the list given to Seattle, right?
Anderson, one must deduce, remains a future cornerstone of the Red Sox organization. He did, after all, OPS over .900 in both of his stops a year ago. (He OPS'ed .921 at Single-A Lancaster and .962 in fewer than 150 at-bats at Double-A Portland.) One first-half slump -- a slump that has threatened to turn into a seasonlong downturn -- hasn't changed the way the Red Sox look at him.
3. Junichi Tazawa, P (5)
The Red Sox made a bold statement this winter in signing Tazawa straight out of Japan's amateur ranks. He first turned heads in spring training -- he allowed just one run in nine innings pitched and had a 10-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio -- and hasn't let up so far this season.
He had a 2.57 ERA and a 3.38 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 starts at Double-A Portland and has a 2.38 ERA with six strikeouts and one walk in his first 11 1/3 innings since his promotion to Triple-A Pawtucket.
Tazawa would have been a spectacular trade chip to offer Seattle, the franchise that signed Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhiro Sasaki. The fact that he wasn't included on the list tells you something: The Red Sox anticipate the 23-year-old Tazawa being a key part of their pitching staff in the not-too-distance future.
4. Ryan Westmoreland, OF (6)
One might think that the Red Sox refused to trade Westmoreland simply because it would be kind of a lousy thing to sign a Rhode Island kid away from Vanderbilt -- capitalizing on his love for his hometown team -- and then trade him away.
But you can't imagine that kind of sentimentality would stand in the way of a trade for one of the major leagues' best young pitchers.
Westmoreland, then, remains one of the top position-player prospects in the organization. He missed the first half of the season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn labrum but is OBP'ing .394 and slugging .487 so far this season for Single-A Lowell, a short-season team consisting mostly of newly signed draft picks.
He has a long way to go -- like Kelly, he's just 19 years old, but unlike Kelly, he's a pretty raw product -- but is the type of five-tool talent around whom the Red Sox could build their team by 2013 or 2014.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Asked and answered: Junichi Tazawa, Red Sox reliever
Junichi Tazawa is almost certainly bound for the minor leagues at the end of spring training. Red Sox manager Terry Francona said as much between games on Saturday: "He's going to go through our system and learn to pitch and play the game the way we feel."
But he's certainly opened looked sharp enough to open some eyes at the big-league level. He tossed a shutout inning last Wednesday against Boston College and looked even sharper on Saturday. He struck out four and walked one -- Nashua's James Donaldson -- in two innings of work. The next question, naturally: Can he do it against major leaguers?
(Angel Chavez is another player who'll be sorry to see college teams disappear off the schedule. the non-roster invitee, who played last season at Triple-A Las Vegas, doubled and homered twice, including a grand slam Saturday, against Boston College and Northeastern.)
Here's a sampling of Tazawa's Q&A with reporters -- through a translator -- after Saturday's 14-0 win over Northeastern:
What has been your impression, after two outings, of what camp has been like?
"When it comes to the hitters, I've only faced college players so far, so it's tough to say. But right now, I'm just trying to figure out which type of batters swing and hit which type of pitches. I've had some early success so far, but there's still a lot of learning left in terms of what types of batters I'm going to face. As for the team and the camp overall, everything is new to me, but I've had lots of support from the Japanese staff here, and I think that overall things are going well."
Are you eager to test yourself against major league hitters?
"Yeah, I certainly want to see how I stack up against major league hitters. But at the same time, I'm a little bit nervous to face them."
What has surprised you the most about spring training?
"I don't know if there's any one thing in particular, but I was surprised by the number of fans that always come out for our games, even during the week. That's been impressive."
People have talked about how comfortable you look. Do you feel as comfortable as you look, and what's making you that comfortable?
"When it comes to the workouts, there's a lot of people that I can talk to, so I feel a little bit relaxed. But when it comes to facing live hitters, whether that's during BP or in the games, I certainly feel pretty nervous out there."
Have you done anything different this spring from what you did in Japan?
"One difference is that, previously, where I would pitch side sessions of 100 to 200 pitches to get ready for the season, now those side sessions are much shorter. For example, they're timed sessions of, say, 12 minutes. So that's one adjustment I've had to make."
Does that feel different so far?
"In Japan, I would often throw 100 pitches every day, day after day, without any rest. But right now, for example, after an outing, I'll get two days off of pitching from a mound. But right now I don't feel I need to pitch more. I feel good where I am, so I think things are going well."
Has it been beneficial to have Takashi Saito and Hideki Okajima around?
"Everything is so new to me that having the chance to speak to them, to both Okajima-san and Saito-san, and to hear their stories has been a big source of confidence for me."
Saito said that because you are so young coming over here, you could be a trailblazer for other, younger Japanese players to come to the United States and assimilating quickly. Can you envision yourself in that role?
"I don't think as myself as a pioneer. I just wanted to play baseball in the U.S., and that's why I'm here. If I can perform well, that might give other Japanese players the opportunity to play over here. In that regard, I would like to play well."
But he's certainly opened looked sharp enough to open some eyes at the big-league level. He tossed a shutout inning last Wednesday against Boston College and looked even sharper on Saturday. He struck out four and walked one -- Nashua's James Donaldson -- in two innings of work. The next question, naturally: Can he do it against major leaguers?
(Angel Chavez is another player who'll be sorry to see college teams disappear off the schedule. the non-roster invitee, who played last season at Triple-A Las Vegas, doubled and homered twice, including a grand slam Saturday, against Boston College and Northeastern.)
Here's a sampling of Tazawa's Q&A with reporters -- through a translator -- after Saturday's 14-0 win over Northeastern:
What has been your impression, after two outings, of what camp has been like?
"When it comes to the hitters, I've only faced college players so far, so it's tough to say. But right now, I'm just trying to figure out which type of batters swing and hit which type of pitches. I've had some early success so far, but there's still a lot of learning left in terms of what types of batters I'm going to face. As for the team and the camp overall, everything is new to me, but I've had lots of support from the Japanese staff here, and I think that overall things are going well."
Are you eager to test yourself against major league hitters?
"Yeah, I certainly want to see how I stack up against major league hitters. But at the same time, I'm a little bit nervous to face them."
What has surprised you the most about spring training?
"I don't know if there's any one thing in particular, but I was surprised by the number of fans that always come out for our games, even during the week. That's been impressive."
People have talked about how comfortable you look. Do you feel as comfortable as you look, and what's making you that comfortable?
"When it comes to the workouts, there's a lot of people that I can talk to, so I feel a little bit relaxed. But when it comes to facing live hitters, whether that's during BP or in the games, I certainly feel pretty nervous out there."
Have you done anything different this spring from what you did in Japan?
"One difference is that, previously, where I would pitch side sessions of 100 to 200 pitches to get ready for the season, now those side sessions are much shorter. For example, they're timed sessions of, say, 12 minutes. So that's one adjustment I've had to make."
Does that feel different so far?
"In Japan, I would often throw 100 pitches every day, day after day, without any rest. But right now, for example, after an outing, I'll get two days off of pitching from a mound. But right now I don't feel I need to pitch more. I feel good where I am, so I think things are going well."
Has it been beneficial to have Takashi Saito and Hideki Okajima around?
"Everything is so new to me that having the chance to speak to them, to both Okajima-san and Saito-san, and to hear their stories has been a big source of confidence for me."
Saito said that because you are so young coming over here, you could be a trailblazer for other, younger Japanese players to come to the United States and assimilating quickly. Can you envision yourself in that role?
"I don't think as myself as a pioneer. I just wanted to play baseball in the U.S., and that's why I'm here. If I can perform well, that might give other Japanese players the opportunity to play over here. In that regard, I would like to play well."
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