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Bank on it Yankees set sights on a marketable Japanese sluggerPosted: Friday November 08, 2002 1:43 AM
The Yankees get what the Yankees want, and the word for some time now has been that they want the latest, greatest player from Japan, outfielder Hideki Matsui. The 28-year-old slugger would fit perfectly with the Yankees. He'd fill an immediate need in the outfield, where the Yankees have Bernie Williams in center and two problematic corner spots. Matsui would provide another big left-handed bat -- his, in fact, is the biggest in Japan -- and that certainly would be welcomed in Yankee Stadium with its short porch in right. And, really, Matsui already knows what it's like playing for the most beloved, most hated team in the country. Matsui has played his entire 10-year career for the Yomiuri Giants, by far the most popular -- and sometimes most resented -- team in Japan. Jigoku ni ochiro jiantsu, a cheer sometimes heard in stadiums throughout Japan, translates to "Go to Hell, Giants." Kind of the Far East equivalent of "Yankees suck!"
There still may be a couple of other teams that make a run at the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Matsui. The Mets, White Sox and San Francisco Giants all have been mentioned. But it's practically predestined that Matsui, like it or not, will land with the Yankees, especially considering the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Dodgers already have said they won't pursue him. Why all the fuss? Nobody is quite bold enough to hang the "can't miss" tag on Matsui. But he is a three-time Central League MVP in Japan. He's a .300 hitter with power and patience. He's played in 1,250 straight games, the second-longest streak ever in Japan. He's in the prime of his career. He shows all the skills, according to scouts, necessary to make the transition from Japan to the major leagues. The scouts aren't the only ones impressed. "As talented as he is," San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds said the other day in Japan, where a group of major leaguers is touring the country, "I don't think he'll have to make a lot of major adjustments." The expectations are that Matsui could make a bigger impact than former Japanese star Ichiro Suzuki made on the major leagues in 2001, when he signed with the Seattle Mariners and became the American League Rookie of the Year and its Most Valuable Player. Matsui, almost everyone figures, certainly will be closer to Ichiro than to, say, So Taguchi of the St. Louis Cardinals or Tsuyoshi Shinjo of the San Francisco Giants. And Matsui has the power that Ichiro does not. "They were all All-Stars here in Japan," said Wayne Graczyk, a Tokyo-based sportswriter, "but [Matsui] was the only one who hit a bunch of home runs and was a Triple Crown threat." Matsui's numbers over his career are fairly staggering. He was drafted out of high school in 1993 as a third baseman and made his pro debut less than a year later. He was a full-time outfielder by 1994. He's never hit under .283 and broke out his best season in 2002, hitting .334 with 50 home runs and 107 RBIs. And that's in a 140-game season.
There's a perception that Japanese ballparks are smaller, and that's still true of many. But in recent years bigger ballparks have been built. Matsui plays most of his games in the Tokyo Dome, where the ball is said to carry well, but it's 328 feet down the lines, 361 feet in the power alleys and 400 feet to center. Not exactly a hatbox. There are also questions, maybe somewhat legitimate, that the level of pitching in Japan is not as good as it is in the major leagues. Not everyone agrees on that, either. "I think the pitching's better," says Marty Kuehnert, a broadcaster and sportswriter in Tokyo who covers Japanese baseball. "Their best position is pitcher in this country, by far. The best players grow up pitching and batting cleanup." Whatever his numbers in Japan, most everyone who has seen Matsui hit figures he can make the adjustments. "Some power hitters can't react to all pitches," Ichiro told The Seattle Times earlier this year. "[Matsui] can." Says Kuehnert: "I don’t see him winning a home run title, but I see him hitting a lot of home runs." Before the 2002 season, Matsui turned down a $50 million contract offer from the Yomiuri Giants, instead opting for a one-year, $6 million deal. That may have been the first sign that he was thinking about the major leagues. Not long after that, the Yankees started making it known, sometimes subtly and sometimes not, that they'd be interested in the slugger. Many figure the Yankees will have to pay Matsui at least $8 million per year for a multi-year contract. No one is allowed to negotiate with Matsui until next week but, for the Yankees, $8 millon or so per year is no deal-breaker, for a couple of reasons. First, they're the Yankees. Money is hardly ever an object. Secondly, owner George Steinbrenner is still smarting from missing out on Ichiro a couple of years ago, so he is said to badly want Matsui. Most importantly is the fact that the Yankees can make a lot of money off Matsui, known as "Godzilla" by his fans. There are all sorts of whispers about a lucrative agreement to televise Yankees games in Japan (the Mariners have an agreement to televise their games in Japan) and for the Yomiuri Giants to get some television time on the Yankees' YES network. It all could turn out to be a very successful, and shrewd, move for the Yankees, both on the baseball field and on the bottom line. It would be, as it often is, just the way the Yankees want it. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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