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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Dodgers Sign Hiroki Kuroda, 3 Years/$35-36M

The Dodgers have signed starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda to a three year deal worth an estimated $35M-$36M, according to reports in the Times and Tony Jackson's blog. (Also in dodgers.com.)

Instant uninformed analysis: Kuroda (J-ball stats) fills a significant hole in the Dodgers rotation. He functioned as the Hiroshima Carp's staff ace for a number of years, and has been healthy in the main while posting strong but not overpowering numbers. He'll slot in the 3-4 holes in the rotation, and should provide the Dodgers with a much better player than any of Mark Hendrickson, (an injured) Randy Wolf, or whoever happened to be fifth last year (Hong-Chih Kuo, Jason Schmidt, etc.). It also helps the Dodgers by making a suicide trade of Matt Kemp unnecessary, and best of all, they don't have to surrender a draft pick for the signing, either. It's very likely this will qualify as the smartest thing Ned Colletti has done all offseason.

Update: True Blue LA harshes my bliss, likening Kuroda to Kyle Lohse, only older and maybe more homer-tastic:

Kuroda is a player entering his mid 30s that had trouble missing bats against inferior competition. The only starters that have come from Japan with strikeout rates worse than Kuroda's are Keiichi Yabu and Masato Yoshii, neither of whom were exactly successful in their time in the states. Kuroda comes in with better control that either of those guys had, but it's still not a list of players that you want to be associated with.

Kuroda's "upside" comes from the fact that we aren't entirely certain that he's going to suck like Lohse will. Will he be able to get by just by being a new arm in the league in his first season? Maybe. But there's absolutely nothing here that suggests Kuroda will have any real sustained success in the bigs. If he can't keep his slider down, Kuroda becomes a two pitch pitcher in the bigs, and his out pitch isn't really all that fearsome.

And yes, all of this could be wrong, just look at what Saito did. However, I might have to invoke the Jamie Moyer rule and say that Takashi Saito can not be used as a precedent for anything. A guy leaping from a mediocre middle reliever in Japan to quite possibly the most dominant closer in the MLB at age 37 isn't likely to happen again. Unless Saito's magical transformation starts happening again and again, mediocre in Japan will probably mean worse than mediocre in the states. That pretty well sums up Kuroda.

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Comments:
how in the world does this make sense? they give a middling pitcher from a AAA-type league $12m/season. we saw what happened to dice-k last season. i do not have good feelings abt this.

would've much preferred colleti pulling the trigger on johann, and then signing him to a $200m contract. expensive, yes. but at least we know what we're getting.
 
Kuroda's (ZIPS) projected rate stats are very similiar to Lowe's.
vr, Xei
 
John -- how much do you like Matt Kemp AND Andre Ethier AND Clayton Kershaw AND ... ?
 
I'm not sure Kuroda will end up staying in the rotation as a starter, he doesn't seem very durable and has only pitched over 200 innings once. However, ideas that his strikeout rate is declining is premature, they are going off his 2005 season where he pitched 212 innings. He always strikes out between 120 to 150 batters a year, regardless of how many innings he throws. He is not a strikeout pitcher and seems to be a groundball pitcher who is neither hit lucky or blast happy so he should do well as long as our infield holds up. Also, it would be nice if True Blue actually saw him throw pitch rather than just saying his forkball isn't good because he has low strikeout totals. I've seen Kuroda pitch and he at least holds his own. Not someone worth 12 million but considering if he is even average for two years, he will be worth it, can be converted to the bullpen and doesn't cost a draft pick. Alot better than Loaiza in my book. Also, Kuroda has even better control numbers than Saito and that seems to have been one of the things Saito has used to stay effective.
 

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