Junichi Tazawa
(From Philadelphia Inquire)
A day after it was reported that the Atlanta Braves had made an offer for Japanese pitcher Junichi Tazawa, the Phillies’ general manager indicated that his club also has some interest in the 22-year-old righthander.
“We know of him,” Ruben Amaro Jr. said yesterday before departing the general managers meetings. “We’ve seen him, but we haven’t made an offer.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ESPN.com reported that the Braves had made a formal offer, but that terms hadn’t been not revealed. They listed the Phillies, Red Sox, Cubs, Tigers, Marlins and Mariners as other teams with interest.
“It’s an exciting opportunity,” Braves GM Frank Wren, who saw Tazawa pitch three times in Japan in September, told the newspaper. “We think he has the potential to be a major-league starter.”
What also makes Tazawa attractive is that he isn’t playing in the Japanese majors, so there is no team to compensate. The Red Sox paid Daisuke Matsuzaka’s Japanese club $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with the pitcher.
Despite being a top prospect, Tazawa went undrafted after he announced that he planned to play in the United States.
The reports noted that he was committed to his industrial-league team through mid-November and could not sign with a U.S. team until then.
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