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The story
Yokohama High School pitcher Oda Shoki (18) was drafted by the Yomiuri Giants but refused to accept the pick, aiming instead for a direct contract with an MLB team. In response, Padres pitcher Yu Darvish (40) said in a November 3 podcast, “I wouldn’t recommend going straight to the majors — going through a Japanese team definitely raises your odds of actually playing in MLB,” citing the brutal conditions of minor league life. On 5ch, opinions clashed: some argued that almost no player has stuck in the majors after turning pro straight out of high school, while others countered that Darvish’s “NPB first is best” theory falls apart once you consider cases like Shohei Ohtani and American players.
Darvish Responds to Oda Shoki’s Giants “Rejection”: “[Going straight to MLB] isn’t something I’d recommend. Going through a Japanese team definitely raises your odds of playing in the majors” — an “objective fact,” he says… the reason: the minors’ brutal conditions
Oda Shoki (18), the Yokohama High player who declared his intent to challenge MLB despite being forcibly drafted by the Giants, begins meetings with MLB clubs today, the 4th.
While he has “rejected” the Giants’ draft greeting, Padres pitcher Yu Darvish (40) answered a listener question on the 3rd Japan time, on the “Darvish Says Whatever He Wants” segment of the audio streaming service “stand.fm,” citing the harsh conditions in the minors as his reason
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
He wants to be a frontiersman though
There was a frontiersman named Mac Suzuki 30 years ago (went straight from high school to MLB in the '90s), so
either way he can't be a trailblazer
Oh, you mean a pioneer
There aren't many guys who could've made the majors just 2 years after going pro out of high school
I think Matsuzaka could've pulled it off right away
Yamamoto too, of course, but Darvish and Tanaka ('Ma-kun') were still a bit too early at that stage
are saying going through Japanese baseball first before trying MLB is the best route
There was a documentary about when Kawasaki once got sent down to the minors, and it looked like he barely had time to practice because he was constantly on the move
Guess the minor league environment really is that brutal
Saying that out loud in public is pretty risky, no?
Illegal under what law exactly?
Is there even a victim?
Go ahead, explain exactly how that's illegal
Seriously? Then his take is useless as a reference
Didn't Ohtani get ripped apart in America and the two-way thing basically fail?
It really was impossible though
How many times has he actually cleared the required innings pitched while doing two-way over a full season?
Taira was basically treating it as an obvious stepping stone the whole time
That sounds miserable, who'd want that
If he goes to the US now, the odds of making the majors by 26 are low
Worse, there's a real risk he gets cut partway through and comes home alone in disgrace
Where would they even do that kind of training
Who's gonna coach it
Rookie-league players get none of that
Those guys somehow build their bodies up on that
I guess making conditions brutal is how they make sure only insanely talented guys survive
Oda's got a 500 million yen signing bonus though
He had Tommy John surgery with the Rangers and made rehab starts at AA/AAA, so he does know the environment
He's got 500 million yen, and if he's based in LA there are facilities too, so he can hire his own coach and trainer
The problem for minor leaguers is that too much time gets eaten up by stuff that isn't training
By that logic Americans should also go build experience in Japanese pro ball first
The whole 'build yourself up in NPB first' crowd's logic falls apart
That's exactly the point — Japanese players are privileged because there's a route to an MLB contract without ever experiencing the minors
Without Japanese citizenship you're not even eligible for Japan's draft
Do you get that Japan has a foreign-player roster limit, unlike MLB?
Also, roster spots are far more limited than in MLB, so a foreign player who isn't an immediate contributor can't just casually sign on
Some teams do sign foreign players to development-squad slots, but most of those guys are from countries outside the US who wouldn't get picked in the MLB draft anyway — a young, draft-eligible American is never going to bother coming to Japan
Ito Hiromu clearly broke down from being used too much too
Is Sasaki even a success story?
Hiromu's national-team workload was rough.
Togo getting overworked wasn't great either.
Back when the system kept players from ever reaching MLB, the media ripped it apart plenty
If they develop a player well it turns into big money, so most teams probably welcome it
Orix alone pulled in 9.3 billion yen just from Yoshida and Yamamoto — that's a massive payout
Nah, it's already been that way since Ohtani
You can tell from these comments that his view has completely changed since then
Yeah, he and Tanaka ('Ma-kun') were saying Ohtani should just focus on pitching lol
Who knew he'd become a big enough star to win a Hank Aaron Award lol, guess they had no eye for talent
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Behind this story lies the fact that almost no Japanese pitcher has gone straight to MLB out of high school. As the thread notes, roughly 30 years ago Mac Suzuki did make that leap straight from high school, but no one who followed the same path afterward has managed to stick in the majors. The thread also saw a claim that “side letters are illegal,” but no one who posted that ever explained which specific law would be violated, and the claim was left unsubstantiated. Worth keeping in mind too is the asymmetry underlying Darvish’s remarks: Japanese teams operate under a roster limit on foreign players, meaning young American players essentially never come to Japan for development purposes, while the system leaves an open path for Japanese players to go straight to MLB — an institutional wrinkle behind Darvish’s comments.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisportsu Sokuho+) thread “[Baseball] Yu Darvish on Oda Shoki’s Giants “Rejection”: “I Wouldn’t Recommend Going Straight to MLB. Going Through a Japanese Team Definitely Raises Your Odds of Playing in the Majors…”“.
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