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Hideki Irabu, Twenty Years Later

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(Bill Kostroun/Associated Press)
(Bill Kostroun/Associated Press)

A bit over twenty years ago, the San Diego Padres purchased the contract of Hideki Irabu from the Chiba Lotte Marines. There was no bidding process, nor was any other team able to offer Irabu a contract – the Padres were the early bird to the worm, and they stood to reap the rewards. This is noteworthy in and of itself, as it played a tremendous role in the creation and implementation of the posting system that we all know and loathe (though, to be fair, the system that brought Masahiro Tanaka over was an improvement, even if subsequent tweaks will prevent us from seeing Shohei Otani for a couple more years). But I digress.

The demand for Irabu was understandable. In addition to throwing the hardest recorded fastball in the history of the NPB (98 or 99 MPH, depending on the account), he was probably the league’s best pitcher from 1994 through 1996. Some called him the Japanese Nolan Ryan, while Bobby Valentine – a former manager – compared him to Roger Clemens (the 6’4″, 240 pound frame helped), and several scouts believed he would be better than Hideo Nomo. That last bit may not mean much nowadays, but it came on the heels of Nomo’s first two MLB seasons, which included a Rookie of the Year award, two Top-4 Cy Young finishes, over 10 K/9, a 133 ERA+, and 9-plus WAR (per both B-R and FanGraphs).

Unfortunately for the Padres (or fortunately, depending on how you want to weigh hindsight), Irabu refused to pitch in San Diego. He was a lifelong Yankees fan, after all, and that was the only organization that he would play for. And George Steinbrenner was more than happy to oblige, and a deal was struck. The Yankees sent top prospect Ruben Rivera (rated 9th overall by Baseball America a couple of months prior), Rafael Medina (64th on the same list), and $3 MM to the Padres, in exchange for Irabu, Homer Bush, and Gordie Amerson. They subsequently signed him to a four-year, $12.8 MM deal, with a team option for a fifth.

Fans, players, and talking heads the world over had strong opinions about the manner in which Irabu forced his way to the Yankees. A Tokyo-based newspaper was headlined “ARE YOU BLINDED BY MONEY?” on the heels of the deal, which is seemingly a timeless question for athletes. And both Andy Pettitte and Kenny Rogers questioned the signing, with the former griping about their comparative wages (Pettitte made around $600,000 in 1997). There was excitement, to be sure, but the skepticism and anger was palpable.

Irabu made his stateside debut shortly thereafter, making six warm-up starts in the minors. He dominated the competition, allowing a 2.32 ERA in 31 IP, and posting a ridiculous 34 strikeouts against just 1 walk. His fastball sat in the 94-96 MPH range, and his forkball had vicious bite in the upper-80s, low-90s. More than satisfied with his stuff and performance, the Yankees called him up to face the Tigers at home on July 10, 1997.

(Chuck Solomon/SI)
(Chuck Solomon/SI)

I was there that evening, as a part of a sell-out crowd (as compared to the average weekday audience of around 28,000), and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen the stadium more excited for the first pitch of a relatively inconsequential game. That level of excitement was steady throughout the evening, with cheers at every strike and veritable roars with every punch out. When Joe Torre pulled Irabu in the top of the 7th the crowd reacted as though he had thrown a perfect game, demanding a curtain call. All told, he finished that night with 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 4 BB, and 9 K. It was a fine debut, and it seemed as though a legend was being born.

The brakes were pumped in short order, though, as Irabu was awful over his next seven starts, earning a demotion to the minors and a return engagement in the bullpen. In the eleven appearances between his first and last starts of the season, batters hit .343/.395/.663 against Irabu, which led to an 8.42 ERA in 41.2 IP. The first uses of ‘I-Rob-U’ were born during this stretch, as fans turned on him rather quickly. Some faint glimmer hope was found in his final start of the season, against those same Tigers, when he went 5 IP, allowing just 2 hits, 1 run, and no walks, while striking out 6. The final line was ugly – a 7.09 ERA and -0.9 bWAR in 53.1 IP – but there were flashes of brilliance sprinkled in.

That glimmer of hope expanded tenfold in the first few months of the 1998 season. Irabu allowed 1 run or less in six of his first seven starts, and boasted a 1.13 ERA in 47.2 IP when Memorial Day rolled around. When the first half came to a close, he was sitting on the following line: 86.2 IP, 67 H, 40 BB, 65 K, 2.91 ERA. The strikeouts and walks weren’t terribly strong, but we were at the tail end of the dark days of baseball analytics, and that ERA was quite good in the run environment of 1998. The wheels fell off in the second half, to the tune of a 5.21 ERA in 86.1 IP, and Irabu didn’t factor into the 1998 playoffs.

Overall, 1998 wasn’t a terrible year for Irabu. Disappointing? Sure. But 173 IP of 109 ERA+ ball isn’t too shabby, and he actually bested Pettitte in H/9, K/9, ERA+, and bWAR. The sequencing of it all kept him off of the playoff roster (as it should have, as he was all but unpitchable down the stretch) – but there were still some signs that he could be a competent back of the rotation starter. And, given his contract, he’d get the chance to be just that.

Instead, Irabu was viewed as a dead man walking in 1999, his season tarnished by Steinbrenner referring to him as a “fat pussy toad”  after he failed to cover first in a Spring Training game. (Pussy as in full of pus.) He was sent to the bullpen to open the season, spending the entirety of April as a mop-up reliever, before rejoining the rotation in May. The writing was on the wall at that point, it seemed, and Irabu did little to help his cause. His strikeout and walk rates improved markedly over his 1998 season, and he looked quite good in June (3.33 ERA in 24.1 IP) and July (2.64 ERA and 4.1 K/BB in 44.1 IP) – but that represented the high point to an otherwise dreadful season, including two-plus awful months to close the season (6.63 ERA between August and October).

The Yankees officially gave up on Irabu thereafter, and he was dealt to the Expos for Jake Westbrook, Ted Lilly, and Christian Parker in the 1999-2000 off-season. He spent three more years in the majors (two in Montreal, one in Texas), battling injuries, ineffectiveness, and demotions to the minors, throwing his last big league pitch on July 12, 2002 … he allowed a walk-off single to Jacque Jones in  a 4-3 loss to the Twins.

Irabu finished his career with 514 IP across 126 appearances (80 starts), posting a 5.15 ERA (4.97 FIP) along the way. His 18.1% strikeout rate and 7.8% walk rate were both better than average for their time, but his propensity for the long ball (1.59 HR/9 for his career) and gradually increasing hittability felled him. Luckily for the Yankees, their return for Irabu was much better than what they gave up back in 1997 – and he didn’t stop them from winning back-to-back World Series championships.

He returned to the NPB in 2003 at 34-years-old, pitching for the Hanshin Tigers of the Central League (in a rotation with Kei Igawa, because of course). He finished fourth in the Central League with 164 strikeouts, with a league-average-ish 3.85 ERA. He attempted a return engagement in 2004, but injuries essentially ended his career.

Irabu’s post playing days were discussed quite a bit when he committed suicide in 2011, and they don’t bear repeating here. Despite his struggles with the Yankees, I remember him somewhat fondly. He started one of the most exciting games that I’ve ever attended (I was eleven at the time), and his forkball stands out as one of the first filthy breaking balls in my memory. His career was a disappointment, and much of it was a circus – but the talent was there, and he was fun to watch when he was right.

If you’d like to take a few moments to see what could have been, I recommend these two videos. The first is from 1994, when he was still pitching in the NPB:

And the other is from his MLB debut:

Hideki Irabu, 42, found dead in Los Angeles home

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(Photo Credit: NY Daily News)

Via The Kyoto News, former Yankee Hideki Irabu was found dead at his Los Angeles home today. He was 42. TMZ reports that he committed suicide by hanging himself. Irabu lived in LA with his wife and two children, where he had investments in various Japanese restaurants.

The Yankees originally acquired Irabu from Padres in April of 1997, after San Diego purchased his contract from the Chiba Lotte Mariners. Irabu said he would only play for New York, forcing the trade. Ruben Rivera, Homer Bush, Rafael Medina, and $3M went to the Padres in the transaction. Irabu pitched for the Yankees from 1997-1999, posting a 4.80 ERA in 64 starts and ten relief appearances. His best season was 1998, when he pitched to a 4.08 ERA in 173 IP. The Yankees traded Irabu to the Expos for Ted Lilly, Jake Westbrook, and Christian Parker before the 2000 season. He is perhaps most remembered for being called a “fat pussy toad” (as in “full of pus”) by George Steinbrenner after failing to cover first base in Spring Training one year.

After two seasons in Montreal and one as the Rangers’ closer, Irabu was out of Major League Baseball at age 33. He returned to Japan and pitched another year with the Hanshin Tigers, and made a comeback with the Long Beach Armada of the independent Golden Baseball League in 2009. He spoke of attempting another comeback in Japan after that. Irabu ran into some trouble with the law after retirement, getting arrested for assaulting a bar manager in 2008 and for DUI in 2010.

From Irabu to Swisher with a side of Justice

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Once upon a time, the Yankees had to make a trade to get a player they coveted. Due to the vagaries of the Japanese league’s posting system and the international player market at the time, in April of 1997, the Yankees had to ship a package of players to the San Diego Padres for the rights to Hideki Irabu. The heralded right-hander — Japan’s Roger Clemens — had landed with the Padres in January but refused to play for anyone but the Yankees. So the Bombers sent Ruben Rivera, Rafael Medina — two amateur free agents the club had signed — and $3 million to San Diego. Today, they have Nick Swisher, and it’s all because of that trade from 1997.

Trade histories often run deep as multiple prospects and established veterans are shipped off for a variety of parts. Over time, those players acquired become key cogs in a system moving ever forward. Some contribute to championship clubs while others are repurposed in future trades while still others never make their mark on the game. The path from Ruben Rivera and Rafael Medina, a pitcher who threw 90.2 forgettable innings for the Marlins in the late 1990s, to Nick Swisher unveils the tale of the Yankees over the last 13 seasons.

In 1997, the Yankees were fresh off of their first World Series title in 18 years, but the club knew it had to both improve and look for ways to expand its market into the emerging international scene. With Jimmy Key pushing 35 and Dwight Gooden no sure thing, the Yanks turned their eyes to Irabu, a famous name in Japan, and landed him at the cost of Ruben Rivera, then one of the team’s top prospects. The Padres earned nothing much from the Yanks in that deal, but the Yanks didn’t get much from Irabu either.

Despite the hype, Irabu had a tenuous tenure with the Yanks. He incurred the wrath of George Steinbrenner when he failed to cover first base. The tabloids had a field day with him, and “fat pussy toad” still evokes images of Hideki Ira-boo-boo. Still, despite a 29-20 record with a 4.80 ERA (95 ERA+), Irabu pitched on part of two championship clubs even if he never earned himself a World Series invite. The Yankees eventually shipped him to the Expos for Jake Westbrook, Ted Lilly and Christian Parker, not a bad haul in the long run.

Westbrook, the sinker baller who lost to Javier Vazquez and the Yankees last night, was not long for the pinstriped world. Considered a top pitching prospect prior to the 2000 season, the right-hander appeared in three games for the Yanks. He went 0-2 and got shellacked to the tune of 15 hits and 10 earned runs in 6.2 innings. But the Yanks realized Westbrook’s true value in a late-June trade that still stands as one of Brian Cashman’s bests.

With the Yanks’ offense struggling, Cashman packaged Zach Day, Ricky Ledee and Westbrook to the Indians for David Justice, and the lefty with the sweet, sweet swing was an instant sensation. Over 78 games with the Yankees that year, he hit .305/.391/.585 with 20 home runs and seemed to carry the Bombers when they need a pick-me-up. In the ALCS against the Mariners, his towering three-run home run in the 7th inning against Arthur Rhodes set the stadium shaking, and it gave the Yanks a lead they would not relinquish. It also won him the series MVP award.

After a poor 2001 season, Justice’s time in the Bronx would be up as the club tried to get younger while filling roster holes. Although Justice would end up in Oakland in 2002, he spent one week in December with the Mets, an in return, the Yankees landed themselves Robin Ventura. The long-time White Sox stalwart had an unmemorable time in the Bronx. He hit 27 homers in 2002, but in the middle of 2003, he was mired in an offensive malaise. The Yanks shipped him and his .251/.344/.392 line to the Dodgers for Bubba Crosby and Scott Proctor.

As the Yankee Dynasty declined, Proctor came to stand for everything wrong with Joe Torre’s managerial approach. After two cups of coffee in 2004 and 2005 where he flashed plus stuff with little command, Proctor stuck in 2006 and earned a spot in the Circle of Trust. He made 83 appearances and threw 102.1 innings of decent relief work. In 2007, after Proctor had made 52 appearances in the club’s first 103 games, Brian Cashman took away Torre’s favorite toy and traded him to the Dodgers for — drumroll, please — Wilson Betemit. (Proctor, of course, met his demise when Torre took over the Dodgers in 2008 and used him again in half of the club’s games until his elbow gave out. He has yet to pitch in the Majors since.)

We all know the rest of this story. Betemit was an underperforming backup infielder who had some power but couldn’t field a lick. With Swisher’s bad 2008 fresh in his memory, Chicago White Sox General Manager Ken Williams traded Swisher and Kanekoa Texeira to the Yanks for Wilson Betemit, Jhonny Nunez and Jeff Marquez. It too stands out as one of Brian Cashman’s all-time heists.

Inevitably, this week, the Yankees will move some players and acquire others. They want bullpen help; they need bench help; and they appear to be lurking on the wings of some starting pitching rumors, waiting to pounce. In 13 years’ time, who knows which trade will take on a journey through recent Yankee history? This tale — one that, for now, ends with a home run last night and an All Star Game appearance — started with an overhyped Japanese pitcher, a top outfield prospect and a team hellbent on getting its man. Somehow, that Irabu deal turned out OK so many years later.

That other Hideki

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Remember the other Hideki to don pinstripes? Hideki Irabu, George Steinbrenner’s favorite whipping boy, had quite the Yankee debut on July 10, 1997, but it was all downhill from there. The pitcher touted as the Japanese Nolan Ryan never lived up to his hype (cough, cough Kei Igawa), and Irabu bounced around the Majors before ending his career back Japan. Earlier this week, Billy Witz checked in with Irabu, in a way. He’s still living in the states and running some SoCal restaurants.