KingFish Tales

Ishii Enough?

So the Dodgers went out and splurged big time in an effort to atone for letting one the games brightest young starting pitchers get away from them when they made little if any real effort to sign Chan Ho Park. Park was the number two on a staff that was beset by a whole series of serious injuries last season. He was the one steadying force on the staff that until late in the season was relied on as the ace go-to guy. With Brown, Ashby and Dreifort all suffering big time injuries, Chan Ho was expected to carry a heavy load. His numbers were very good as he went 15-11 with a 3.50 ERA and held opposing hitters to a .216 batting average. He was also a strikeout machine and an innings horse with 218 K’s in 234 innings of at times, grueling work. The offense did not exactly pour on the run production and Park could have very well of racked up 20 wins if not for the weak and inconsistent bats. Almost as important as his production was his fan base. Los Angeles is truly the melting pot of the world when it comes to the shear variety of cultures. Park had a very strong Asian, not just Korean following while with the Dodgers. He brought in a lot of fans to Chavez Ravine whenever he was on the mound and more than earned his pay. Well he’s now a Ranger, so that is all history.

The Dodger management determined during the off-season that were not going to go after Baldwin after they had supposedly expressed interest in signing him to a long term contract. Then they let Adams slip away. Terry had provided strong innings to the floundering starting staff by converting back to a starter from out of the relatively stable pen. Of the remainder of the staff the management had sworn that their youngsters where here to stay. Both Gagne and Prokopec looked to have very good futures. Prokopec is now gone and it remains to be seen whether, in the now crowded rotation, Gagne is retained or not. The management did go out and pick up several arms in the off-season simply because three of their key starters were recovering from injury. Their status would not be known for months at best. They went shopping and came home with a whole grocery bag full of arms. Some old, some new and some that may not look very good in blue but they had to do something before there was nothing left to select from.

Former Dodger’s Omar Daal and Hideo Nomo returned to the team as the Dodgers spread out some money for free agents. Odalis Perez came to the Dodgers as part of the Sheffield deal. Several other pitchers joined the Dodger pitching staff including Tim Crabtree from the Rangers, Andy Brown from the Braves, Paul Quantrill from the Jays and Rickey Bones form the Marlins. They also resigned venerable Jesse Orosco. Like I said before, some old and some new but mostly tried before and perhaps not the whole answer for the Blue Crew. At least that’s what I think management’s thoughts were. They obviously felt they had not done enough to ensure some semblance of a decent starting rotation taking the hill in the upcoming season. It’s a tough hill to climb when you have let your best offensive player, Sheffield and your number two starter Park, go away and still expect to draw around three million fans to the park. For some yet to be determined reason those fickle Dodger fans expect a winning team out on the field. Who would have ever thunk that?

Well they had to find more someplace and they did. The Asian market, that they had been active in for some time now, again provided what is hoped to be a very good answer in Kazuhisa Ishii. After weeks of back and forth mud slinging by both management and Ishii’s agent a long-term deal that will not break the bank was inked. In early January the Dodgers made an $11.25 million dollar blind bid just for the rights to negotiate with his agent. Stiff price to pay but there was certainly active interest from several major league clubs. It took all the way to the very last minute before he was finally signed to a reported four year $12.3 million dollar contract.

Variously listed as either 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-2, Kazuhisa Ishii, 28, has been compared to a poor man's Randy Johnson by striking out 162 in 164 innings in Japan. He throws in the 90s, setting up his slider and forkball with his fastball. Ishii's fastball is average by major league standards--between 90-93 mph--but he has an excellent slider and curve and mixes in an occasional split-fingered fastball. Ishii was 12-6 with a 3.40 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 175 innings for Yakult last season. Though he doesn't change speeds much, Ishii deceives batters with a variety of arm angles. Ishii had a 78-46 career record and 3.38 earned-run average in 10 seasons for Yakult, striking out 1,277 and walking 603 in 1,184/3 innings. He led Japan's Central League with 241 strikeouts in 1961/3 innings in 1998.

He fits the Dodgers needs almost to a tee. His relative youth and Japanese heritage will certainly be attractive to a thriving Asian fan base in Los Angeles. He’s left-handed which will fit in well with the Dodgers near annual strong bias to the right-siders. His pitch assortment should work well and induce a lot of ground balls onto a grass field with half of his starts at Dodger stadium with its reputation as a pitcher friendly park to lend further assistance. Welcome to the friendly confines of a pitcher’s paradise. Things are just looking peachy keen at this point.

He does have a reputation for poor eating habits. Hmmm, that may be a bit of a problem as the available Southern California cuisine offers a very wide variety of pleasing to the pallet and deadly to the waistline menus. His favorite American food? "Double-cheeseburger." I can just see those late night runs to Inn & Out now. Two double-doubles with cheese and onions. It will take some will power and strict work habits on his part to avoid bloating up ala Mr. Irabu. Ishii reportedly also refuses to pitch more than seven innings or 100 pitches whichever comes first. Say what? Sounds a tad like a Prima Donna in baseball drag if you ask me. This is not a good sign and he better learn to get over those feelings very quickly. He’s in the big show now and he will have to prove his worth to stay. That does bother me quite a lot though. He now has more money than he has ever had in his life and he only needs to show up to collect his checks. He is young, rich and in a new country. He seemingly comes with some pre-set notions of what he will and will not do for his team. Taken all together this may not be a very good combination. Hopefully his pride will drive him to excel but a few rough outings and I wonder. Still one has to admit that it's hard to pass up on a potential Japanese star after watching Ichiro dazzle last season. One huge advantage in his favor will be having Hideo Nomo as a Dodger teammate. This veteran knows what is expected, fluently converses in his native tongue and has been there and done that with the Dodgers before. Dodger General Manager Dan Evans and Manager Jim Tracy stressed the importance of tempering expectations for Ishii, and the Dodgers hope fellow Japanese pitcher Hideo Nomo, who signed a two-year contract with the Dodgers this winter, will deflect some attention from the Japanese media, which attaches rock-star status to Japanese players in the U.S.
The Dodgers management sure seems to be sold on him as the following quotes indicate.

"What impressed me the most about him was the fact he's been part of a very good club
that has played in six [Japanese] World Series," Dodger General Manager Dan Evans said. "He's been in high-pressure situations throughout his career, and he's excelled. We're trying to win here, not rebuild.... We've heard he's a great competitor. There is no questioning his ability in big-game situations." But the performances that really sold the Dodgers on Ishii were an eight-inning, one-hit, 12-strikeout shutout of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in Game 1 of the Japan Series championship last season, and a complete-game, three-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts in Game 1 of the 1997 Japan Series against the Seibu Lions.
"He could win 20 games here," said Dodger pitching coach Jim Colborn, who, as a former Orix Blue Wave pitching coach and director of Pacific Rim Scouting for the Seattle Mariners saw plenty of Ishii in Japan. "We want him to find his own level without a lot of pressure, but I'm sure he'll be a very solid pitcher who wins a lot of important games."

Well I’m not sold on winning 20 games with that suspect Dodger offense behind him. I’m fairly certain that the first time around the circuit he should do reasonably well as it will take the hitters and coaches awhile to pick up on his variety of arm angles, delivery and overall pitch assortment. After that I guess we will have to just wait and see if this experiment works out. I hope it does for the Dodgers fans and in some small way makes up for loosing Park in the first place.

So Sayeth the Fish!