Owner in Waiting

[Cole]

Hey sir - I spent about an hour today on your blog and also on CJ's blog that you had a plug for. The inpatience of Asian managers evidenced by the deactivation of CJ and 3 other players so quickly into a season really surprised me. Maybe this is why Asian teams fare so well in WBC - they are used to single games having big importance and being asked to perform all of the time while American ballplayers aren't overly worried about a bad game every now and then since they know eventually the breaks will come for them. Any thoughts on that take of the WBC?

[Alan Ehlers]

Welcome, I do not know much about the LRS but if it is anything like PEBA then you are in for a great time

[Aaron Tassano]

@Badgers -- I think you're on the right track. The Korean manager in particular was extremely game to game in his decision making process...the best pitcher in the KBO and Olympics hero -- Kim Kwang-hyun, had one bad start vs. Japan and was relegated to a mop up relief role for the rest of the WBC. However, I'd say that on average teams tend to do that less during the regular season.
One big reason new foreign players are generally on a short leash in Korea and Japan is their race. It sounds odd to say out loud, but plain and simple foreign players aren't held to the same standard as the Japanese or Korean players. In Korean the word for foreign player translates to "mercenary." Doesn't sound much like a 10-15 year career player does it? There are exceptions of course...Tuffy Rhodes just hit his 450th HR in Japan. But if a foreign guy doesn't produce, or doesn't fit in, teams will quickly judge it as a lost cause and ditch them.

I recommend LRS managers take the same approach