Cubs linked to star pitcher from Japan |
Regarding the Cubs and their upcoming offseason, it is safe to say they will be looking for talent all over. That includes overseas, where the Cubs have been heavily invested in the NPB market and will continue to scout those players. You have already heard reports about the Cubs being one of five teams that will make a serious run at Yoshinbu Yamamoto, but the train doesn't stop there.
Along with Yamamoto comes a pair of Japanese arms that the Cubs have not only scouted but have shown a ton of interest in. One of those is right-hander Naoyuki Uwasawa, who recently announced he will be leaving the NPB circuit and trying his luck stateside on the free agent side. Uwasawa will be joining an already crowded foreign market and will be one of the more sought-after starters once he is officially posted. Unlike his counterpart Yamamoto and guys like Aaron Nola and Blake Snell, Uwasawa isn't going to be a front-of-the-rotation arm, but he is still worth taking a look at as a middle-to-back-of-the-rotation option. When you consider the uncertain future of Marcus Stroman and Kyle Hendricks, the Cubs may need to add more starting depth than they initially anticipated, and this is a guy who would help the depth side of things. The 29-year-old has been around for quite a while and has put together a very successful run in the NPB. The righty has a career 3.19 ERA in the NPB, returning to his debut at age 19. He doesn’t strike many guys out (7.3 K/9), but he also doesn’t walk a lot of guys (2.8 BB/9), and he seems to predicate most of his success on managing batted balls. Ideally, you would love to see better strikeout numbers, but when you consider what playing at Wrigley Field entails, perhaps this is a pitcher that makes sense. In what may have been his final season with the Nippon Ham Fighters, Uwasawa went out with a bang and posted very good numbers. The right-hander had a 9-9 win-loss record with a 2.96 ERA in 24 games in 2023, throwing 170 innings. When you consider the MLB is a league where teams need pitchers that can eat innings, Uwasawa is the perfect fit for that as he is an inning eater. That is something the Cubs rotation lacked at times last season, so to have someone capable of eating innings every time they take the mound it does help the bullpen down the stretch. Unlike some of the other NPB names that have been well-known for years, Uwasawa is someone that you had to do some digging on once you found out he was coming to US soil. According to recent reports, the Cubs may be the most heavily invested team on him right now (and scouted him), but the Angels, Diamondbacks, Reds, Royals, and Rangers have all been showing significant interest in recent weeks. If you notice anything about those teams, most of them have rotations that need an inning eater in them, so you can see the overall interest in Uwasawa. If there was a concern regarding how his success would translate in the MLB, it would have to come from his arsenal. Uwasawa isn't an overpowering arm by any means, as his fastball averages just 90.8 MPH. Considering this is a league where high velocity is king, Uwasawa would have to get extremely crafty to get hitters out consistently, and teams will take that into consideration before signing him. Granted, his ability to change speeds and disrupt the eye levels of hitters is crucial, he doesn't have the strikeout stuff you look for in a starter, so he will have to be close to perfect every time out. If you were to compare Uwasawa to any current MLB pitcher, look no further than the Texas Ranger Kohei Arihara. Another guy not known for his velocity in Japan, Arihaha, struggled with his command this season which has a lot of Texas fans questioning his signing. No one is going to see that Uwasawa will end up the way Arihara did, but when you consider that an MLB baseball is slightly larger than an NPB ball, there is a reason to be concerned. Either way, should he land somewhere in the 3-5 million range per season as Arihara did, it wouldn't hurt to at least see what he can do, even if it is just for one season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiRwqARtiy4
