More Thoughts On Iwakuma

So I’m kind of been slow on churning out content the last week. There is always plenty to talk about but I kind of want to piggy back off the thoughts I had the other night.

It’s reasonable to believe that Iwakuma may not ever be a valuable major league pitcher. It’s easy to become concerned with the lack of velocity that he has displayed. But watching a bit of MLBNetwork last night and disecting Yu Darvish‘s start they gave some interesting thoughts.

There was a lot to like about Texas’ important and his start against the Reds. The problem being however, that the overall outing was limited and it was hard to get any real future read on him. It’s easy to say that he’s going to be just as good as advertised or being a very valuable pitcher for Texas this year. But as Chris Rose pointed out anyone that can tell that after that few of batters is in the wrong career.

Rose pointed out that we need to give Darvish an entire month and really see what he’s capable of before really putting a label on him. Could we say the same thing about Iwakuma, at this point?

A lot of people have pointed out the lack of velocity coming from Iwakuma but it was consistently in the high 80’s and even touched 90 once. As pointed out there are changes in merely the ball that he’s going to have to become familiar with and it’s hard to say if that’s had any type of impact.

There are a few different right handed pitchers who put together useful starts that average similar velocities as Hisashi Iwakuma. Kevin Slowey, Shaun Marcum and Brett Myers are guys that come to mind. This isn’t to say they are similar pitchers they all do different things, but utlimately they show success.

Of course there are pitchers such as Bronson Arroyo, Joel Pineiro and Aaron Cook who all struggled last year. So there are always two sides of the coin. But the important thing to remember is that there are players who can be successful given their velocity.

Maybe Iwakuma even ends up being the 5th starter on this squad. It wouldn’t strike me as crazy he’s still got some potential and there adjustments that he’s still in the middle of making. It’s not unreasonable to be a little worried and mix that together with some thoughts that we may have jumped the gun with expectations a bit.

That said let’s give Iwakuma more than 10 innings before we start deciding what his future his with the organization. It’s point that many Ranger fans should be learning with Darvish and up north it’s lesson that Mariner fans should be learning with Iwakuma.