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More on Akinori Iwamura E-mail
Written by Pat Lackey   
Tuesday, 03 November 2009 23:37

The more I think (and read) about this trade, the more I like it for a few reasons. The first reason should be obvious; Iwamura makes the Pirates better at a position of need without giving much up. He's not blocking anyone from playing in the immediate future, so why is becoming better in 2010 a bad thing? The Pirates are mostly done tearing things down; at some point they have to begin building up. Iwamura gives the Pirates a lot of flexibility in an area they previously had none. If he plays well and is open to an extension, Andy LaRoche becomes expendable if he can't adjust to second base. If he plays well and the team is bad, they'll likely get more than Jesse Chavez in return for him. If he plays poorly, isn't traded, and doesn't re-sign, the Pirates haven't given much up.

The other reason that this is a good move for the Pirates is that it gives the Pirates their first significant Japanese player. Michael Street has a good post on this at Baseball Digest Daily. Beyond vastly expanding the Latin American operation since 2007, Neal Huntington's staff has signed players from South Africa, Taiwan, India, and Australia. Trading for Iwamura furthers the movement to rebrand the franchise as an international one to potential international signees.

This isn't a move that turns a 99-loss team into a playoff team or even a .500 team, but it's hard to argue with bringing a useful player like Iwamura in without giving up much. There's just not a whole lot of downside to this move, no matter what angle I look at this from.

UPDATE: While I'm tossing links about this trade out, Dave Cameron has a very good analysis of what wins mean to a team like the Pirates at FanGraphs.


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Comments (13)add comment

Maxwell said:

...
I am also a big fan of this trade. Although I would have to say the only way it could be disappointing is if he plays just a year with the Pirates and leaves as a free agent. I would much rather us sign him to an extension (1 more year at 5 mil, with an option for another), then see how it plays out but eventually flip him when we have a cheaper/younger replacement (D'Arnaud, Harrison, Ford[?], etc).

Even if we cannot get him to sign on for another year+, then they should wait until June/July at which point Iwamura proves he is back to 07/08 form (maybe even better since he is going from the AL East to the NL Central, which I think has been largely ignored), and then flip him to a contender and try Andy at second.

Either way, I think the Pirates are smart enough to get something more than just a year of Iwamura.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +1

matt w said:

I really don't understand this line from Street
"Pittsburgh—particularly after the debacle with Alvarez (whom they bypassed Matt Wieters for, figuring they couldn’t afford the top-rated catcher)—is realizing they can’t afford to pursue domestic free agents."

It's not just that there's a typo, or thinko, involved, it's that I don't understand exactly what he meant to say. If you substitute Moskos for Alvarez it doesn't make sense; if you remove the parenthetical it doesn't really make sense (since they did get him signed after all); and it's not like Neal Huntington has only now realized that he can't sign a lot of top-drawer free agents in the US.

The main point is well taken, that the Pirates have to look to new sources for talent, though I'm not sure that it makes sense to think that Iwamura is going to buddy up with the Taiwanese prospects, or even be in the same city with them ever.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: -1

whygavs said:

I think ...
That's a typo and Street meant "Moskos." That's the only thing that makes sense there.
 
November 04, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

MDBuc said:

...
Steet also has Nyjer on the team next year. His over all article is good. It's nice to see an outsider agree with the direction the Pirates are heading.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +1

w.k. kortas said:

...
In a very broad and conceptual way, I like the trade--the Pirates have plugged a hole by acquiring someone else's excess talent in without opening up another one in return. The particulars I'm less excited about; Iwamura is Freddy Sanchez in pastel colors, and Chavez is a power arm (although, like any reliever, he's a fungible talent). Still, it's an example of how the Pirates are going to have to do business--they have to develop their own top-tier talents, and fill the gaps with excess talent from other clubs as opposed to trying to play the free-agent lottery.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +0

whygavs said:

Iwamura and Freddy
But Iwamura being "Freddy Sanchez in pastel colors" isn't a bad thing. Consider: the Pirates could have Sanchez at $8.whatever million and Jesse Chavez in the minors, or they could have Aki Iwamura at $4.85 million and Tim Alderson in the minors.
 
November 04, 2009 | url
Votes: +1

Fat Jimmy said:

...
A lot of people who don't like the trade are pointing to the "5 years of control" for Chavez. I was thinking about that point: arbitration begins after Year 3, right? So we would only have 2 more years before he was arbitration eligible in 2012. At that point, assuming he was playing well enough for us to even care about him, he'd command several million through arbitration. The Bucs will never be in a position to spend multimillions on a RH middle reliever. So we picked up a valuable guy for 2010 for probably 2 years of Jesse Chavez -- not 5.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +1

gorillagogo said:

...
The Bucs will never be in a position to spend multimillions on a RH middle reliever.

The Pirates spent $1.3M on Tyler Yates last year. Assuming he remains a middle reliever, I doubt Chavez would get much more than that in arbitration.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +0

Maxwell said:

...
I don't think Chavez would ever get more the 2 million in arbitration unless he became our closer, but the bigger point here is the belief that Chavez was any good in the first place.

He threw hard with good command (a rarity for a Pirate reliever), while utilizing a changeup that could neutralize lefties. But other than that, he really had very little else going for him, due to his K and HR rates, he was never going to be more than average to replacement level. Now he could improve his K rate and reduce his HR rate to something a little more akin to his MiL numbers (7-8 k/9, .8-1 hr/9) but I really don't see that happening with his move to the AL East.

Another problem is the hubub about his strong arm and avg fastball velocity, the problem is the only fastball he threw was a flat four-seamer that ended up his worst pitch last year (-4.8 wFB according to fan graphs). It doesn't matter how hard you throw, if it's flat and up in the zone, it's gonna get crushed.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +0

andy coulter said:

...
I like the deal. I see A LOT of Tampa games (ugh) and I think Aki will be a good fit. He's a "do-what's-best-for-the-team" guy who two years ago, moved to second to accomadate Evan Longoria. I just hope his knee is 100% because he's not young. But if we get two or three years out of him, then it's a GREAT deal. He's become very good at turning two. As for Chavez, we got WAY more out of him than I ever expected. He had a decent year, but our 'pen is bad. We'll see how he does in Tampa...
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +0

azibuck said:

...
Jesse Chavez = one red paperclip
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +2

Tj. said:

...
Iwamura has a career OPS+ of 97 and he has only played in the US in his prime years... He has also been caught stealing a bunch in his first two years... I don't think this is a bad trade, but I can't get excited about it.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +0

bwzimmerman said:

to put a more positive spin on this...
Jesse Chavez = one red paperclip

awesome, and worthy of my +1, but technically they just traded Kip Wells for Aki, as Kip is who we sent to the Rangers for Chavez.

it may have taken 8 years, but "Kip Wells = one red paperclip" sounds like a fine place to start.
 
November 04, 2009
Votes: +1

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