Taguchi Turns the Series

Yes - an excellent write up.

But the journalists are still finding it hard to get the details right. In the game report on that website they have Taguchi coming from Japan's Central League. It's not hard to check these things.

- But the journalists are still finding it hard to get the details right. In the game report on that website they have Taguchi coming from Japan's Central League. It's not hard to check these things.

Yes indeed, that is a major problem with the American sport's press, the failure to do any significant research, as last time I checked the Orix BlueWave were in the Pacific League. Though, there are some sportswriters out of Seattle who do a pretty good job and good research about baseball in Japan. But for the major part, it wouldn't hurt for sportswriters to do some research first, as for the most part, most articles and stories do little to no research.

Wow, what a home run! A real nice at bat, too, fighting Wagner for 8 pitches before hitting that beautiful home run. A defensive replacement, ha!

Yes indeed, Taguchi has become quite the player with St.Louis and has been a favorite of Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa. Every year, Taguchi has been a key part of the Cardinals team, due to injuries or by just being one of the Cardinals' most consistent players that shows up everyday and plays well.

It was great seeing him celebrate the World Series victory with his teammates. He's really proven himself to be a valuable asset to the team.

Congrats to the Cardinals on their Series win, their first since 1982.

It took a couple of years, but I think Taguchi is the only Japanese player who managed to maintain his level of performance when going from NPB to MLB. It's especially impressive, relatively speaking, because of his age.

Shinjo probably comes close. Mediocre in Japan; mediocre in the majors.

This is going to sound worse than I intend it, but I think the only reason Taguchi maintained his level of performance is because he had a career .720 OPS before going across the ocean, and a career .730 OPS after.

In other words, he didn't have a superstar record to fail to live up to. He had a great glove and a not-terrible bat to begin with, and continues to have a great glove and a not-terrible bat. A lot of the Japanese star players who came over saw something like a 30-50% drop in isolated power (SLG-BA) their first year alone, but Taguchi simply didn't have that to lose in the first place.

I'll admit that I was cheering for Taguchi during the World Series just because the astounded looks on my friends' faces seeing him pinch-hit those home runs in the NLDS and NLCS was funnier than just about anything else I'd seen this year. Plus trying to translate article headlines like カージナルス世界一に王手！田口の神技バントに運の神様降臨 [Sankei Sports] was just too amusing as well. "Taguchi's divine bunting like the fortune of God descending"?

Yeah, that was my point. But even Shinjo suffered the expected drop off in performance even though he wasn't a slugger in Japan.

Haha, the ridiculous headline is made even funnier through translation.

The cry at Shea is, "Say it ain't So!" With all due respect to our good friend on these boards, Mr. Kranepool, it could not have happened to a nicer fan base. Mets fans are the most viscerally anti-Japanese I've ever come across.

Ooooohhhh please, can we get off the plays on his name! No offense man, but it's like hearing Wham's Last Christmas for the n-teenth time in a supermarket. A few examples:

• Dude, he is SOOOOOOO Taguchi (yes, we know)
• He's SO good (yes, we know)
• He came from Japan SO he could help us (actually, it was the money)

And the list goes on and on.

Being a Cardinal fan, I love him to death. He plays his heart out whenever he's on the field, and he's even taller than David Eckstein. Tons of stories circulate about him in Cardinal fan forums and everyone who meets him says he's the nicest guy in the world and always makes the time for autographs. I really hope he stays with the Cardinals.

Didn't mean to sound like I was having a go at you there, we've seen that it can mean torches and pitch forks in other threads.

Nah, it wasn't the money. Average Japanese players like Taguchi, Shinjo (though both are awesome defenders), and Saitoh took huge pay cuts and risks to go to the majors. They could've stayed home for equivalent of millions of dollars guaranteed. This fact actually makes guys like Taguchi, Shinjo, and Saitoh more likable.