Time Machine: Posting System a path for NPB players, but no guarantee for MLB teams

This story originally ran in the Japanese newspaper Yukan Fuji in 2019.

TOKYO — The year 2019 marks the 25^th year that Japanese players have been playing in the major leagues. That’s almost a quarter of a century and a total of 50 players not counting “Mashi” Murakami who played for the San Francisco Giants in 1964 and 1965 as an ‘exchange student’ if you will.

There have been a number of great stars among them including strikeout artist Hideo Nomo, batting whiz Ichiro Suzuki, who will go into the Hall of Fame, and pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani, who may well prove to be the best of them all, when everything is said and done. However, not all of these athletes have been worth the time, effort and money spent on them. Kosuke Fukudome, Kazuhisa Ishii, Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Hideki Irabu are among those who also signed for big money, multi-year contracts and proved to be failures. Approximately one out of every two imports from Japan to MLB turns out to be a flop.

The worst of all was Kei Igawa. A Sawamura Award winner in Japan for best pitcher, Igawa signed a five-year, $20 million contract with the New York Yankees in 2007, but wound up spending almost all his time in the minor leagues. He pitched a grand total of 71 and 2/3 innings in MLB while posting an embarrassing  6.66 ERA.