The Orioles have just signed 33 year old Japanese and former Yomiuri Giants pitcher Koji Uehara to a multi-year deal. It is still pending a physical though, so it wont be announced for a while. He is a very good player over in Japan and not to mention he had to wins in the World Baseball Classic. He was drafted with the first pick overall in the Japanese baseball draft and he is a career winner with him only having on season in which he had more losses than wins in his 9 year career. All of his nine seasons were with the Giants where he had only one season with a 4.00+ ERA.
I like this move because not only does it plant the O's flag in Japan with him being the first signing of a player from their he is very versatile. Most of his career was spent starting but the past two years he was a closer. He can ether start or close over here, but with the rotation the way it is he probably will be starter.
This probably will not affect the O's going after other pitchers like Kenshin Kawakami from Japan, who is the same age as Koji, and domestic born pitchers like Tim Redding and Braden Looper. In my opinion they need to get one more starting pitcher(at least) to make it a suitable rotation that might be able to force the prospects to fight there way up to the show even though I would not bet on that. I think that the O's will probably get Kawakami of the Chunichi Dragons and this signing will only make him feel more at home in Baltimore.
It's time for us to plant the Oriole flag firmly in Japan
You can view Koji's career stat at:
http://www.japaneseballplayers.com/en/player.php?id=uehara
and form your own opinions
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