Free Agent Watch: Ryota Igarashi

Ryota Igarashi put up a -.6 WAR in his two years as a Met. He had a .2 WAR in 2011. He made 3 million dollars in the two year span. Obviously this is a typical Met free agent disaster, but at least it wasn't real big money. He threw just 69 innings in the past two seasons, all in relief. His PE was too high for a reliever at 1.42, and he walked 6 hitters an inning. He gave up a monster .366 BABIP in 2011, and combined with the walks, that is a disaster. Opponents actually got on base 40% of the time in 2011, and hit more flyballs then groundballs. However, it is not all bad for Igarashi, he had a FIP of 4.01 in 2011, and his FIP is about 1.3 less than his actual ERA. Whether it is luck or the terrible Met team, Igarashi is better than some of his standard statistics suggests. For a flyball pitcher, he doesn't give up much homers, and that may be because of the big Met ballpark. In his last two years in Japan (08-09, he was terrible in 06 and didn't pitch in 07) he just threw 97.1 innings before being coming to the United States. He had a 2.87 ERA, which through the Japanese Metric, would be a 3.48 ERA in the States. That obviously hasn't translated. His WHIP was a shiny low 1.063, and he had 8.7 strikeouts per 9 innings (about the same as he has had in the States). However, with his less than 100 innings pitched in his last two years Japan, there has to be some concern about sample size. Did the Mets jump the gun on a small sample size? Perhaps, his pre-2006 numbers were pretty solid though, as he had 5 straight seasons of an ERA under 4 and an ERA under 3 twice. If he can maintain his FIP at 4 like he did in 2011, there is no reason for someone not to pick him up, he can be a solid reliever, he just won't be worth a whole lot of money.