Update on North American Players in Japan, Part IV: “E”, “F” & “G”

He was hurt last year, and hit only .200 with 11 HR’s in 225 AB’s. He took a steep cut in pay from more than $1M to about $450,000 to come back to the Swallows for a third year in 2009, to prove he still had something left.

He does. He hit his 11th HR of the season today, and he’s batting .290 with a .924 OPS.

Marcus Gwyn, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Gwyn is a 31 year old right-handed pitcher, who pitched in the A’s and Angels’ minor league systems in the U.S. He got a three game, 5.1 IP cup of coffee for the Angels in 2007.

He was a having a fairly strong season with the Angels’ AAA team, the Albuquerque Isotopes, in 2008 with five saves and 37 K’s in 44 IP in 2008, when the Golden Eagles signed him to finish out the season in Japan.

This is now a fairly common occurrence: if a 30+ year old player is having a fairly strong AAA season and a Japanese team comes calling it is usually because one of their foreign players signed before the season hasn’t panned out

The MLB team won’t stand in the way, and will release the new player from his minor league contract so he can go make some real money in Japan. The Giants did the same for 37 year old Scott McClain when the Hiroshima Carp wanted to sign him in May this year.

Needless to say, it’s in the U.S. teams’ benefit to do so. Giving veteran 4-A players a chance to make more money in Japan keeps all the other 4-A players playing in the minor leagues hoping either for an injury at the major league level, or to attract interest from a Japanese club.

The upshot is more depth in U.S. AAA ball. Of course, the U.S. team only lets the player go if they think they don’t have any real need for the guy.

In 19 games for the Golden Eagles last year, Gwyn went 1-1 with three saves and a 3.86 ERA. He had 16 K’s in 18.2 IP.

He’s doing better this year. In 25 games so far he’s 1-1 with two saves and 2.39 ERA. He has 25 K’s in 26.1 IP.

The Golden Eagles have an excellent bullpen, and seem to be closing games by committee, with four pitchers including Gwyn having at least two saves so far this year.

The Golden Eagles seem intent on developing 25 year old Koji Aoyama as their closer for the years to come. However, they have three veteran pitchers (Gwyn, Shinichiro Koyama, and Kanehisa Arime) pitching better than Aoyama so far this season, so all four have been getting save opportunities.

More U.S. clubs should do this when they have bullpen depth but don't have a pitcher who is a lights-out closer. This would give teams more opportunity to take advantage of individual match-ups, to take advantage of the hot hand, and to keep the relievers rested.

However, most U.S. major league teams prefer to have their pitchers assigned to given roles, even if doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

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