Woodrum: Reassessing NPB talent levels
From Bradley Woodrum at FanGraphs on October 8, 2012:
With the likes of Junichi Tazawa, Hisashi Iwakuma and even Munenori Kawasaki providing value across the league, it is time to reconsider the the levels of professional and amateur talent in East Asia, and more importantly, reconsider how those talents might translate into the MLB.
One of the key elements in reassessing the talent available in Japan is the new NPB baseball. Like, their new literal baseball. In the 2011 offseason, the league switched from stadium specific balls to a standardized, more MLB-like ball.
In my May 31st article wherein I advocated Norichika Aoki deserved a starting job (and under-predicted his offensive ability), a commentor by the name of Nate offered a great glimpse as to why the new baseball could make NPB statistics much more useful.
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/reassessing-npb-talent-levels/
Originally published: October 8, 2012. Last Updated: October 8, 2012.