I Can Be Your Masahiro, Baby.

Let's face it: this offseason, for all its early moves and its excellent Hall of Fame results (congratulations to first-ballot inductees Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas!), has mostly been underwhelming. Maybe we're spoiled as fans, since we've seen mega contracts handed out pretty frequently over the last few years, some of which were signed by teams other than the Angels. And sure, we've had our moments: the Prince Fielder-Ian Kinsler trade was seismic, the flurry of moves just before the Winter Meetings was as exciting as it was exhausting, and Robinson Cano signing with the Mariners was a great laugh, but overall, a lackluster free agent class has made for an even more unbearable wait for Spring Training. However, many "top" starters like Matt Garza, Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana ("top" starters compared to the rest of the available options) remain available, as teams are hesitant to part with a draft pick for the last two and all of them are anything but elite. These dominos aren't likely to fall, though, until the latest Japanese import, Rakuten Golden Eagles ace Masahiro Tanka, finds a new home stateside.

You can see why Tanaka, a complete unknown as far as Major League Baseball goes, would be attractive not just to teams in desperate need of pitching but any team hoping to contend in the next 5 years: his stats from last season, and indeed several seasons before that, are the kind of numbers you'd see if you cheated in MLB '14 The Show. His numbers for last year need no introduction; 24-0, 1.27 ERA and 183 strikeouts in 212 innings, all capped off by Rakuten's first Japan Series win since their founding in 2005. What was news to me is that his numbers in 2013 look pretty similar to what he did in 2012 and 2011: 10-4 and 19-5, 1.82 and 1.27, 169 and 241 (career high) in 173 and 226.1. Therefore, this season wasn't an aberration for Masahiro, he's been pretty consistent in his dominance. Thanks to the new posting system, any team can bid up to $20 million for the opportunity to negotiate with him, although in the event of multiple highest bidders, he can choose the team he wants to talk to, making him a virtual free agent. The posting fee does not count towards a team's luxury tax and it only has to be paid if he picks them, meaning it would be foolish for any team to not at least consider bidding. He's still quite young at 25, meaning even a 7 year deal (early reports indicate most of his offers are for at least 6 years) would have him hitting the market at 32, when he could possibly have a very impressive MLB resume and most likely still have plenty left in the tank.

That's still a lot of uncertainty in regards to how he'll perform here, though. And, if you're anything like me (hopefully you aren't, it's no picnic), that creates a lot of doubt and skepticism. The cautionary tales are too numerous to ignore. Sure, Yu Darvish has been spectacular since jumping the Pacific, and Hisashi Iwakuma (whose nickname, The Flying Salmon, is the best today) had a breakout 2013, but what of Kei Igawa? Hideki Irabu? Daisuke Matsuzaka after his rookie season? Even Hideo Nomo didn't have the MLB career many assumed he would based on his Nippon Professional League numbers. It seems like a few Japanese pitchers have found success as closers or middle relievers: Hideki Okajima and Koji Uehara have both been part of Red Sox championship teams in non-starting capacities. There have been absolutely zero indications that any team wants Tanaka coming into the game later than the first inning, obviously with good reason. If I were running a Major League team (HAH!), I'd probably need to write out a few checks for the posting bid because I'd keep drooling over them while writing them out, but at the same time, I'd be a little hesitant. Baseball in Japan, while mostly similar to our national pastime, is not the same game. The baseball is smaller and tougher to hit, pitchers go every 6 days instead of 5, and they often pitch fewer innings as a result. Tanaka's been great since he came up in 2007, but he's only thrown more than 200 innings twice in his career. Throwing an average of 185 innings, while nothing to turn your nose up at, isn't the kind of production that teams in need of a frontline starter are going to be chomping at the bit to overpay for. His strikeout numbers aren't bad either, but most Japanese hurlers see those numbers dip a bit after making the switch. None of this bodes particularly well for Tanaka, but all things considered, he's pretty much the best guy available.

So where will Masahiro be pitching in 2014? The popular choices are the Yankees, Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Cubs, with the Angels and Astros considered strong contenders vying for his services as well. He'd be a massive boost to any of these franchises, but his value would be maximized if he lands in New York or Los Angeles (not Anaheim). Should he join the Yankees, he immediately becomes the Opening Day starter next season, depending on how much faith the front office has in a CC Sabathia bounceback campaign. He'd join Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, another former NPB pitcher who has sustained moderate success over here, Ivan Nova, and [insert over-the-hill, overpaid, former All-Star free agent pitcher here] in a rotation with low expectations. Conversely, if he ends up with the Dodgers, he makes one of the top 3 starting staffs in today's game unquestionably the best. Here's what that rotation looks like:

Clayton Kershaw
Zack Greinke
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Masahiro Tanka
Dan Haren

You know, as much as I hate the Dodgers for their Yankees imitation, I think I just convinced myself that I want to see Masahiro end up in Hollywood.

It'll be a few more days before we find out where Tanaka will be pitching next season, but one thing is clear: for all his perceived flaws, his moderately light workload to this point, and the expected regression that comes with playing in a brand new country with a different set of rules, Masahiro will get paid handsomely, his signing will finally establish the market for the remaining free agent starters, and whatever team signs him will cross their fingers and pray to the baseball gods that he doesn't end up like Tomo Ohka.

Can't Handle The (Hall Of) Fame.

As we enter a brand new year, we're approaching what is usually the most aggravating time of any brand new year (at least for me): in roughly 1 week, this year's Hall of Fame class will be announced. We already know who 3 of the new inductees will be, and boy, do we know them well. Managers Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre (who, not coincidentally, happen to be 3rd, 4th and 5th respectively on the list of all-time managerial wins, beaten out only by legends Connie Mack and John McGraw) were all unanimously elected by the Expansion Era committee during this year's Winter Meetings, a rare feat for the latter, who historically have made more inexplicable and astounding selections (or lack thereof) than the writers who vote for people still on the ballot.

Now seems like a bad time to mention this, but stop for a second and think of how many steroid users, proven and suspected, these new living legends managed during their now-HOF careers.

And that feels like the perfect segue into the main point of this post. Last year, in a wonderfully idiotic display of hypocrisy and self-righteousness, the BBWAA (Biased Boneheads Working Awfully Arbitrarily) saw fit to "send a message" in the first year of eligibility of noted steroid users Barry Bonds (home run champion and 7-time MVP) and Roger Clemens (354-game winner and 7-time Cy Young recipient) and not vote these artificial greats into Cooperstown. Both men still received half of the necessary votes for induction, which seems strange if you consider that 110 percent of sportswriters (who, by the way, were actually in clubhouses with these guys for decades and supposedly saw nothing they felt was newsworthy in regards to the worst drug scandal this game has ever seen) said they wouldn't vote for either one even if Randy Johnson threatened to take care of them "John Kruk-style". This was supposed to be a good thing, as it meant that guys like Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling and Craig Biggio could get the timeless recognition we all assumed they'd attain during their careers. But none of them got enough support to be enshrined last July either, with only Biggio and Jack Morris on his second-to-last ballot cracking 60 percent. It was the first time since 1996, and just the eighth time since its creation in 1936, that the writers failed/refused/forgot to elect anyone into the Hall. All these writers from around the country, all with their own affiliations to the teams they cover, managed to agree on at least one deserving candidate in every other year for close to 8 decades, until the time came for them to make an actual decision on some controversial greats. They spent years writing articles about how this day would come, and how something would need to be done to assuage the blowback. You know, the same blowback THAT THEY CREATED when they took part in MLB's efforts to sweep the entire steroid scandal under the rug. Instead of neglecting Bonds and Clemens while elevating Jeff Bagwell or Tim Raines, or even shaking things up by voting the BALCO Brothers into the Hall, they sent a message. And the message was clear: the system is broken, we don't know how to fix it, and we shouldn't have been counted on to do so in the first place.

The picture only gets blurrier from here. Joining this year's ballot with the holdovers from 2013 are Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas (virtual locks to get in by all accounts, but you have to decide if you can believe those accounts), along with other greats such as Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina and Jeff Kent. In coming seasons, we'll also see names like Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz, Jim Edmonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Trevor Hoffman, Vlad Guerrero, Ivan Rodriguez, Jim Thome, Chipper Jones, Mariano Rivera, and a slew of other perfectly qualified candidates, all of whom will merit serious consideration. So, with a gigantic logjam looming, one that we're all completely aware of, it would behoove the brilliant Twitter scribes to do THEMSELVES a favor and clear off some space by voting some guys in already. Remember, each writer can vote for a maximum of 10 guys, and anyone inducted needs to be on at least 75 percent of those ballots. Sounds easy enough.

These two will escape ballot purgatory, but what of the other poor souls who will be sticking around for some time?

And yet, here we are. Chances are very good that most of the men mentioned in the last two paragraphs will still be on the ballot in 2018, at which point it's assumed that the Hall of Fame will simply collapse into itself, and a vacuous black hole will be all that remains of the shrine to the national pastime. We know there's a problem! Why isn't anything happening to fix it?! Do these writers really have their heads buried so deeply in the sand that they've forgotten what sunlight looks like? Or do we simply not have the capacity to fix it yet? Will we ever? For Selig's sake, this is only going to get worst before it gets better, and that's being optimistic about it getting better period.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that it isn't time for a complete overhaul of the Hall of Fame voting process. That time passed years ago. It's a process that just can't be fixed. You can't take the power out of the writers' hands and give it to someone else because, unfortunately, nobody sees these players or knows them better than the men who follow them like it's their job. And if not the writers, then who? Not the fans; as little faith as I have in the writers, I have even less faith that the common baseball fan can put aside their own geographical or personal biases and fairly determine if a player is an all-time great or just great. Not former players, that's what the Expansion Era committee is for. So we don't really have much of a choice but to let the writers remain an integral part of the process. I'm afraid that nothing short of a renaissance of the human spirit will make a difference in this. The writers have to get off their incredibly high horses and realize that trying to make amends for their compliance in Bud's Steroid Scandal Spectacular by denying these players entrance into the Hall solves absolutely nothing. The players still live with the guilt, the game still reels from the after effects of the more intense period of this era, and the writers pretending like they suddenly have a moral compass after YEARS of being in clubhouses with these men, day in and day out, and not saying a word until it was far too late? You may not agree, but in my eyes, that's the worst part of this pickle we collectively find ourselves in.

Ignoring the past doesn't make it go away. Bonds, Clemens and the like put up numbers that would make Ruth and Mathewson blush. Build a separate wing, put asterisks on their plaques, throw eggs at them during their induction speeches, whatever the BBWAA feels necessary. But put them in. Vote them in alongside the Biggios, the Piazzas, the Madduxes, the Schillings. It's not like anybody will ever forget what's happened in Major League Baseball over the past two decades. The writers need to remember that the next time they punish the men they watched over and wrote about religiously for years.