00:00John Heyman reported that Kazuma Okamoto and Tetsuya Imai are expected to be posted for Major League Baseball.
00:08The big ticket name in international free agency this year is the power hitting third baseman that was on Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic,
00:16Murataka Murakami, if you remember that name.
00:19Murakami was dealing with some serious strikeout issues over the last couple of years.
00:22He was all the rage in 23 because in 22, he had over 50 homers in Nippon Professional Baseball, which is that league in Japan.
00:31It's the second best league on the planet.
00:34Murakami struggled for a little bit.
00:36He's having an out-of-body experience offensively right now.
00:40But what jumps out about these two guys?
00:42We can start with Murakami or we can go to these two.
00:45Yeah, quickly on Murakami, the more I've been able to watch of him and the more I've been digging and trying to get info or research,
00:50the more I'm buying in.
00:53He was hurt, you know, banged up the last year or so.
00:57Still also a guy that's sneaky, just 25 years old.
01:00Then you start to compare the batted ball data to a guy that had a lot of power that came over,
01:06but also had some things he needed to clean up and some whiff, Shohei Otani.
01:11And it's not that different.
01:12Now, I'm not comparing him to Shohei, but it's important to note, like,
01:15Shohei's data was not perfect when he was coming over.
01:18And, yes, he did make a ton of changes and found things.
01:20And it may not be a path that everybody can follow, but Murakami's hitting the ball harder.
01:25So there's just some interesting wrinkles there.
01:28But the more I dig in and the more I watch, the more I'm getting excited about what he can be.
01:32And, yeah, I keep hearing phenomenal things about the makeup of Murakami as well,
01:36which is really important when you're coming over and totally having your life flipped upside down
01:41and just put into such difficult situations, both socially and in terms of just playing.
01:48But I'll start with Imai.
01:51Is that how you pronounce it?
01:53I think so.
01:54Tetsuya Imai.
01:55And I do want to give you kind of the survey look of his stats as they stand right now.
02:00Not a big guy.
02:0127-year-old.
02:02Listed at 5'11", 154.
02:03I'm not sure if you have a different listed height and weight.
02:05No, that's exactly what I got.
02:06In 143 and two-thirds innings, he's got a 1-5 ERA.
02:11Opponents have 85 hits against him in 144 innings pitched.
02:15He's punched out 159, and he's not walking, guys.
02:18Fewer than two and a half walks per nine.
02:20So the statistics from a survey look are unbelievable for him.
02:24Yeah, I think the floor is pretty high for a guy like this.
02:28And I think he's got a great chance to come over stateside and get outs.
02:31What I'm interested to see is just how much swing and miss.
02:34We talk about just kind of the differences when you go to the big league ball as well.
02:39Because what's interesting with Imai is you have kind of low release,
02:43and it's kind of a low three-quarters release, and he works down the mound well.
02:48So when he's getting 13 inches of induced vertical break and 13 inches of horizontal,
02:52which is kind of dead zone, from that low release and that arm angle,
02:55that's going to play up and still generate whiff at the top.
02:58I don't know if he's going to get that same kind of action with a four-seam
03:01where he may end up with a big league ball, may end up kind of getting off on the side of it
03:05a little bit more and turns into more of a sinker.
03:07So it's just something that's interesting there.
03:09The splitter has been good, and it's a really nasty swing and miss pitch,
03:12but his feel for it already is a little bit spotty at points.
03:16So is it going to be there more or less with a big league ball?
03:20What's interesting with Imai is that he actually has a really good slider.
03:23And that pitch, it's like a gyro slider that's a big swing and miss offering,
03:27which should bode well for his move over, the fact that he can really spin a pitch there.
03:31But the command is so good, very athletic on the mound.
03:35The one other thing is I've seen him throw fastballs as hard as 98.
03:39I've seen him throw fastballs as low as 92.
03:41There's this kind of wide range of velocities here,
03:44and that's something that is important because I think he's going to be a VLO-dependent guy.
03:49So if it's more 95s, I think he's going to be in a really good spot.
03:54But if it's 92s, 93s, and probably a little bit flatter, those are going to get hit harder.
03:59So that's the fascinating wrinkle in this whole thing.
04:02But you also remember he's not going to be throwing 125 pitches every outing.
Be the first to comment