Yu Darvish to pitch for Texas Rangers

[Blazerbob]

I like Japanese hitters. But I'm still not sold on their pitching, Ichiro is one of the best hitters I have ever seen, but he is loyal to the Mariners, why? I have no clue, the Mariners need to give him the support to give him a chance to win a title or trade him.

[Blazerbob]

Darvish is better than any Japanese pitcher who has ever come to America. His father is Persian, he met his mother (Japanese) when they were both college students in the US (so they both speak English fluently and one guesses that they made sure Yu studied his English lessons in school.

The dude is 6'5", has command of seven pitches, ranks at the top of every pitching category in the JPL and is still incredibly young.

Ichiro is going to stay in Seattle for a number of reasons, first of all he's the franchise, he has the keys to the city. Secondly, all of the big West Coast cities have a large Japanese-American contingent and Ichiro sells a lot of tickets to those folks.

I like Ichiro, a lot, he is one of the best hitters of all time, I hate to see him waste away in Seattle, he deserves a lot better, by far the best Japanese player.

[Joe Liberty]

I like Japanese hitters. But I'm still not sold on their pitching...

Japanese pitchers don't have a great track record in the States. If I recall, Daisuke Matsuzaka had similar numbers to Darvish in Japan before Boston signed him, and we've all seen how well that turned out. It's difficult to gauge Japanese pitchers, their level of play is generally around AAAA (meaning perhaps slightly better than our AAA minor league but not MLB material).