I am interested in finding out what this community knows about possible Japanese players coming to the US.  Forget Aroldis Chapman – I really want to see Yu Darvish (2nd MVP award in 3 yrs., and he’s only 23) come to MLB, but frankly I doubt that’ll happen in the next few years, if at all.  I’d also love to see Nori Aoki, a fine all-around hitting 27-year-old outfielder, but I also don’t know if he’ll be posting for another couple years.

Ryota Igarashi looks sure to come over.  He had Tommy John surgery in 2007, but pitched well in 2008.  Supposedly he can throw in the upper-90’s, but he is strictly a reliever.  Another reliever I have some interest in is Kyuji Fujikawa, 29, who has posted lights-out numbers the last five years (era’s all under 2.00, with two years under 1.00, and K rates around 13/9), but I don’t know if he’s coming over or not.

Hisanori Takahashi also looks like he’s MLB-bound.  He’s a 34-year-old lefty who went 10-6, with a 2.94 era for the NPB champs.  Meh.

There are a couple young guys, a la Junichi Tazawa who could come over.  18-year-old Yusei Kikuchi was entertaining thoughts about it, but I think he signed in Japan.  Yuki Saito, 21, nicknamed the Handkerchief Prince, could come over.  He’s said to have Koji Uehara type stuff.  I don’t know if he has the same control as Uehara.  Also I hear Shota Ichinoseki, 20, is looking to try out for major league scouts, but I think his fastball tops out around 90, and I don’t know how great a prospect he is.

All in all, it doesn’t look like there’s anyone’s bandwagon to jump on.  Any other thoughts or comments from the peanut gallery?

I'd assume Strasburg would be in everyone's top few.  Where would Ackley go on the list - is he top 10 or 20?  Who else from the recent 2009 amateur draft should go on a list of top 50 or so prospects?

And to get to the 75 word minimum, I'll just cut and paste what I just wrote...

I'd assume Strasburg would be in everyone's top few.  Where would Ackley go on the list - is he top 10 or 20?  Who else from the recent 2009 amateur draft should go on a list of top 50 or so prospects?

What exactly is the rule on how a player runs out of minor league options?  Is it determined by the total number of times he is moved to the minors.  I would hope not since so many teams capriciously send down fifth starters during the AS break, just to give them extra work.  I would hate it if doing that moved the player closer to being out of options.  Can anyone out there explain the rule to me?

In our AL-only league, for our minor league draft we can draft amateurs or players from Japan/Cuba,etc as long as they have not signed with an NL team.  One they sign with an NL team, we lose them.  Considering that at this point, it would appear Strasburg will go #1 to the Nats, who are other top amateurs?  More specifically, of BA's Top 50 prospects, only five are available - and three are catchers (and I already have Wieters) - and none in the top 25.  (The five available are: CSantana, DHolland, AHicks, JMontero, &JPArencibia.)  What amatuers, or what international players who might come over, would you rank above those five guys?

So he had pretty mediocre stats in college, but in two years in the minors he has been absolutely lights out.  102 innings pitched with 159 strikeouts (14.0 per nine), 60 hits allowed and 34 walks (0.92 whip), and era of 1.23, and he has not given up a single homer in those two years!  I guess part of it he's a man among boys, as he was a 24-year-old last year in High A ball, but that can only explain so much of it.  Why does a guy have such incredible numbers, but no one seems to know who he is?  What am I missing?

I am new to this site, but recently posed this question on a different site geared more towards prospects.  I'm curious if a site geared towards established major leaguers would yield a different result.  In my fantasy league, hitters compete in the following usual categories - avg, hr, rbi, sb, but also in walks and fielding percentage.  Given that, who would you rather have, both for this year, and perhaps the next two or three years - Jhonny Peralta or Alexei Ramirez?

I know this is supposed to be a minor league blog, but my problem is that I haven't found other sites with as many intelligent and serious fans as this site.  So, my first question is: what blogs are out there with good discussions with reasonable and reasoning fans of major league baseball.  And the specific question I pose is who would you rather have - Alexei Ramirez or Jhonny Peralta?  In my case I have a fantasy league with the following categories: avg, hr, rbi, sb, bb, & fielding percentage, and they'd be at a price where I could keep them for up to three years or so.  That's for the poll, but for the sake of discussion, let's not limit it to fantasy baseball, but real baseball with the various parameters in real life...

If the Angels spend money on signing some of their other free agents, might they let Francisco Rodriguez walk and try the unproven Arredondo, or would that be too much of a gamble for a rich-market team like them?  It sure looks to me like he could do the job.  Or if they let K-Rod go (and by the way - what's the deal with "K-Rod"?  His name doesn't begin with K, and I suppose it refers to his strikeouts, which is equally dumb since strikeout doesn't start with K either?  How about now that he has the saves record we call him S-Rod?  Or after he signs for a bajillion dollars this year, he could be $-Rod?  Oops, no - already got one of those.  But I digress...), might the Angels go with a crappy veteran knowing they got Arredondo in reserve?  What do others think?

Like many other fans, I had never heard of Brad Ziegler til about a month ago.  Now he's closing games for Oakland with that unbelievable run of scoreless innings.  (Another run tonight - ouch - that brings the ERA way up to 0.44 or something.)  With Huston Street pitching in the 7th inning, it certainly looks like he's Oakland's new closer.  I know he had some pretty awesome stats in the minors this year (0.37 era, 0.78 whip), but the guy's 28, almost 29, and he'd never done anything until this year.  so the question is, can he keep it up, and will he be closing next year, too?  (Okay, I guess that's two questions.)

I thought you guys might be interested in seeing the results of my league's midseason (i.e., give us a reason to look up baseball stuff during the all-star break) supplemental minor league draft.  Our league is AL-only, and we already had four minor leaguers to start with, so most of the big names are already gone.  These names are the ones who are moving fast up the lists, I guess.  I thought it interesting that there were just six positional players versus 12 pitchers.  Anyway, here they are: