A foreign concept

The closest thing the Orioles have to an Asian presence is Melvin Mora who played in Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League.

I'm a Seattle Mariners fan - it was fascinating this weekend seeing the Mariners face Daisuke Matsuzaka in Boston; Seattle's Baek against New York's Kei Igawa the next day; and Seattle versus the Yankees' Wang.

Just my topic, the Orioles and their complete ignorance of the Asian market, since I'm a die hard Orioles fan. I mentioned this earlier over in the this thread.

If you remember the Hideki Matsui situation, when he came over, the O's front office brass didn't even meet with Matsui, just forwarded their interest via e-mail. If you want to show common courtesy you actually meet with the player in question. Though this is for the most point moot, since Matsui seemed to make his mind up that he only wanted to play with the Yankees while with Yomiuri.

Next, like I mentioned in that topic, the Orioles are miles behind other teams in international scouting and spending. The Orioles spent a measly $750,000 in singing bonuses for international players. Compare that to the Yankees, Braves, and Mets? They all spent over $4 million. What does this all mean you ask? Well it shows that, so far, the Orioles' front office brass are unwilling to spend money on international players, not just in Asia, but all throughout Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. I mean we have an outdated facility in the Dominican Republic.

Third, the Orioles lack the contacts necessary to even know who the players in Japan are who could help a team. They've never been active there like the Yankees, Mariners, Mets, Red Sox, and other teams. I mean, it takes more than analyzing stats and videos, and watching them in the WBC.

Fourth, yes I know the Orioles aren't a powerhouse in Japan, but it isn't like they don't know who they are either. The Orioles played in two goodwill tours there, 1971 and 1984, after we won the World Series in 1970 and 1983.

Like Okuda-san said in the above Sun article, if the Orioles were to sign a few Japanese stars:

The Baltimore Orioles still have a chance to be one of the more popular teams at the major league level for the Japanese.

Finally, so far the Orioles have one Asian player in the whole system, and he's a 32 year old Korean pitcher, Sohn Hyuk, who's been out of baseball for 3 years. He's currently sitting on the minor league DL, with AA Bowie. He also doesn't project to make a major league impact. Also, the Orioles tested out former Yomiuri Giants pitcher Kazuaki Minami, earlier in spring training [Baltimore Sun], but he failed to impress, failing to reach 90 mph on his fastball, and was nothing special with Yomiuri.

The Orioles are the most clueless team when it comes to international scouting, and when I say that, I don't just mean Asia, I mean everywhere. Our front office is run by King Peter, he has no clue whatsoever of making a competitive team, hence the last 9 straight losing seasons.

Like Kiyoshi said, Mora is the closest we have to a player who played in an Asian league (since Kevin Millar was claimed off waivers by Boston) when he played in the CPBL in 1998 with the Mercuries Tigers, who ironically don't even exist anymore, since they disbanded in 1999.

All in all, unless our clueless owner and his front office puppets get a clue sometime soon, the Orioles will continue to be miles behind the Yankees and Red Sox when it comes to the Asian market. It's not finances which keep us out of the market as the new MASN channel (similar to what the Yankees have with YES and the Red Sox have with NESN) are flowing with cash. As you see with this 2007 Forbes MLB team valuations article [Forbes], the Orioles are 14th out of 30 teams at $395 million (USD), and are owned by trial lawyer Peter Angelos, who has his share of money from numerous successful cases.