The O’s Are Turning Japanese
The O’s appear to have gone out and signed their first big international player. Not since they set an email message to Hideki Matsui to express their interest in signing him have the O’s really gone out and looked at the international market. The O’s and Koji Uehara have agreed to a 2-year incentive laden contract that just needs a physical and the final language to be agreed upon before making Koji an Oriole. With incentives, the contract could reach $16 million.
Uehara has won the Sawamura award (equivalent to the Cy Young) twice, once during his rookie season when he finished 20-4 with a 2.09 ERA in 1999 and again in 2002 when he went 17-5 with a 2.60 ERA. But he has had bad years as well, finishing 10-7 with a 4.02 ERA in 2001 and just last year he had a disappointing 6-5, 3.81 ERA when he was shuffled between the rotation and the bullpen.
The O’s will probably stick him in the two spot when he is more deserving of the three spot in the rotation. Right now all the O’s have is Jeremy Guthrie and Mark Hendrickson, a bag of balls and a bunch of rookies and second year players with ERAs over 6.00. So Koji slides in nicely in the two spot, where he will face stronger pitchers than if he was tossing in the three spot. The troubling part about Uehara is that he tends to be a flyball pitcher and giving up too many fly balls in Camden can result in many of them leaving the park.
The O’s were also negotiating with Kawakami and if they sign him they may want to look into signing Japanese catcher Ryoji Aikawa. Ryoji could catche the Japanese catchers every two days and this would allow the Orioles to break in Matt Wieters.
For a profile on Koji go here: http://www.npbtracker.com/2008/06/player-profile-koji-uehara/#content