Author’s note: Minor edit toward the end.

Yes. Here’s why:

– Darvish has had three straight seasons better than than any one Daisuke Matsuzaka managed in Japan. In each of the past three years, he’s posted a sub-2.00 era and a whip of 0.90 or better. Matsuzaka never achieved either figure during his time in NPB.

– NPB batters find him nearly unhittable. Over the last three seasons, he’s hits/9IP were: 5.84 (2009), 6.10 (2008), 5.33 (2007). Nippon Ham’s strong defense plays a role here, as Darvish’s BABIP was .241 last year. But Darvish keeps the ball on the ground, and his number was well ahead of the team average of .291.

– He throws six or seven pitches for strikes in game situations. According to my un-trained scouting eye, five of them are potentially above-average MLB pitches: his fastball, slider, forkball, curve and shuuto (two-seam fastball). To get a sense of how Darvish mixes things up, take a look at the velocity chart his opening day start.

– He’s got velocity. Darvish usually works his fastball in the 92-93 range, but is capable of running it up to 95-96.

– He changes speeds. Darvish’s curveball bottoms out at under 60mph, and he has other offerings in the 75-85mph range.

– Darvish is young (not yet 24), and “projectable” (6’5, 188 lbs).

– He eats up innings. Darvish has averaged about eight innings per start over the last three years.

Darvish does have a few minor areas of concern:

– He throws a lot of pitches. Darvish threw 147 pitches on opening day, in a complete game losing effort. Back in July 2008, Darvish threw 165 pitches in a loss.

– He hasn’t put up a truly dominant strikeout season. Over the last three years, Darvish has been in the 8-9 K/9IP range, but given his stuff and the number of pitches he throws, I’d love to see him put up 12-13 K/9IP season.

– The amount of mileage on his arm is somewhat of a concern, though not as much as it might be. Darvish throws a lot of pitches and goes deep into games, but gets plenty of rest between starts. His career high for innings is 207.2, in 2008. Matsuzaka, on the other hand, was abused to the tune of 240.1 IP during his age 20 season. Still, Darvish missed the last month of the 2009 season with lower body strains.

The question I most commonly receive from readers is “when will Darvish come to the majors?” The answer is that Darvish has been outspoken about not wanting to make the leap to MLB. This is a stark contract to most other NPB stars — Koji Uehara, for example, talked for years about his dream of playing MLB ball before he actually did.

This is where Darvish’s ethnicity comes in to play. Darvish is half Iranian, but born and raised in Japan. He said in an interview prior to the 2007 Japan Series that growing up, he tried to fit in and gain acceptance with the other kids by performing on the baseball field. This in turn fueled his desire to succeed as a pro in Japan. I’ve also heard speculation that he’s reluctant to play in America because of a possible perception of anti-Iranian sentiment*, but I can’t remember seeing a quote attributed to him on the subject.

In any event, all the MLB teams will have an eye on him, just in case.

* a little disclaimer here: I’m not meaning to comment on the possible presence of anti-Iranian sentiment in the United States; I’m merely attempting to underscore the fact that Darvish’s background is uncommon for a ballplayer, which may make his situation a little more complex than we’re used to as fans.

Tangotiger is once again running his pre-season playing time survey. Be sure to fill out a ballot for your favorite team here!

The Indians won just 65 games a year ago, and in the process, traded away two of their best players in Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee. Their trades of major league talent for minor league prospects emphasize that the team is rebuilding, but yet, I think Cleveland could surprise quite a few people this year. This team isn’t that bad.

At the plate, these guys are going to do some damage. Asdrubal Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, and Shin-Soo Choo are all good on base guys with power and speed, and then some combination of Travis Hafner, Russell Branyan, and Matt LaPorta provide some power in the middle. Even the 7-9 hitters won’t be terrible, especially once Carlos Santana claims the catching job at some point during the season.

The pitching has issues, certainly, and I wouldn’t pick the Indians to win the AL Central this year, but they could hang around for a while and make things interesting. And the future only looks better in 2011 and beyond.

The core of the team is young and cheap, as the organization has quality players or high level prospects at nearly every position on the diamond. The rotation is a big question mark, but there are a quantity of arms to sort through with differing levels of potential. The bullpen is full of young power arms who rack up strikeouts. Give this team a year to mature and figure out how many starters they need to add, and they could be a serious contender in the AL again. There’s that much young talent in place.

And, despite the backlash against the Indians front office for the lack of results, this is still one of the best run organizations in the game. They have a large enough payroll to win, especially considering how many below market contracts they’ll have on the team, and the farm system is deep enough to provide necessary trade chips for when the organization shifts into go-for-it mode.

Don’t sleep on the Indians – they’re on the verge of being good once again.

On ESPN2 at 3:30 EST, they’ll be talking about WAR and WPA and I get to chime in with a few observations.

Part of me wants to criticize the Indians process for procuring prospects, if only because they were so dogmatic in the 2009 draft: their first 10 picks were four-year college players. While process has been a clear aspect of each organization’s analysis in this series, I struggle to put a lot of weight in it here, if only because the Indians’ young talent is so bountiful. And as a proponent of college baseball, and a backer of many players in the Indians system, I just don’t have a lot of criticism. But even if you want to ascribe some penalty for the amateur scouting department’s obvious leaning, give credit where it’s due: the Indians scout the minor leagues better than any team in baseball.

Mark Shapiro makes a lot of trades. He realizes when they can’t compete that trading veterans for something, anything, is worth it. And, given their market share, the Indians often aren’t able to keep their stars, so before losing them in free agency, Shapiro adds much by flipping them. He does this because they are the right moves, but also because of a faith that the people his team tell him to acquire are very good at their job. It’s a trust that has been earned. Recognize (I’m cherry-picking off the top, but I think that’s excusable given how one-sided these are):

June 30, 2006: Indians trade Eduardo Perez to Mariners for Asdrubal Cabrera.
July 26, 2006: Indians trade Ben Broussard to Mariners for Shin-Soo Choo, Shawn Nottingham.
July 26, 2008: Indians trade Casey Blake to Dodgers for Carlos Santana, Jon Meloan.

The insignificance the Indians traded away here isn’t worth the increase of my word count, but the ability to recognize Cabrera, Choo and Santana is such a credit to this organization. Yes, Cabrera needs to find the plus defense of his minor league days, and Choo might be a platoon player, but who cares? There’s also Santana, a converted catcher, who wasn’t a top 20 Pioneer League prospect for me in 2006, but is now a consensus top 20 prospect in all of baseball. It was the heist of all heists, and it sure makes you wonder about Connor Graham, Scott Barnes, and Yohan Pino, the three pitchers Shapiro acquired last year for Rafael Betancourt, Ryan Garko and Carl Pavano, respectively.

Then, there’s the big trades. The Sabathia trade, where I could point out the team chose Michael Brantley as the player to be named later, who could lead off for this team down the line. That’s if the prize of the trade, Matt LaPorta, isn’t in his way. You have the Cliff Lee trade, which should net four Major Leaguers, including one of the team’s better pitching prospects in Jason Knapp. And I can’t say enough about getting value for Victor Martinez, because you all probably know about my long-standing affinity for Justin Masterson. To add Nick Hagadone on top, another highly rated pitching prospect, is icing on the cake. I haven’t even mentioned the Mark DeRosa haul, if only to spare myself from Erik Manning’s groans.

This is all to say nothing of the team’s homegrown talent, which is impressive itself. I see the best of this amateur scouting department in the 2008 draft, when the team found Lonnie Chisenhall at a junior college (after he was kicked off the South Carolina college team), took a chance on high school arms Trey Haley and T.J. House, and paid decent dollars to college guys like Zach Putnam, Cord Phelps and Tim Fedroff. The team left no stone unturned, and snagged quite a bit, as I think Chisenhall is their future third baseman. Putnam and House, meanwhile, are among an embarrassment of pitching prospect riches. The quality minor league arms include the names I’ve mentioned here, but also: Alex White, T.J. McFarland, Jess Todd, Clayton Cook, Hector Rondon, Chris Jones, Steven Wright and others.

All in all, Cleveland has put themselves in a really good position to succeed starting in a year or two. This isn’t a division where they’ll be drastically outspent, so as you see, good scouting helps a team rise to the top. While the Indians don’t do things in the traditional sense, the way they do it is working. And, ultimately, that’s what this whole series is about.

How does a team feature the AL Cy Young winner two straight years, yet find itself in rebuilding mode? The Cleveland Indians know. In 2007, when the team made it all the way to Game 7 of the ALCS, CC Sabathia won the Cy. The next year, however, Cleveland stumbled out of the gate and found themselves in last place, 10.5 games out of first, on June 30. They didn’t waste much time in trading Sabathia to the Milwaukee Brewers for Matt LaPorta and others (including, eventually, Michael Brantley). Yet Cleveland still had something brewing in the rotation.

On July 1, Cliff Lee tossed eight innings of one-run ball against the White Sox. That pushed him up to 111.2 innings, in which he allowed just 28 runs, a 2.26 ERA to go with a 2.57 FIP. That was his halfway point. He pitched 111.2 innings after July 1 and saw slightly worse, but still elite, results: a 2.82 ERA and 3.09 FIP. The Indians improved, too, They entered play on Jul 7, the day they traded Sabathia, with a 37-51 record, a .420 win percentage. They finished the season 81-81, having gone 44-30, a .595 win percentage, after the trade. Things, then, didn’t look so gloomy. That’s why 2009 came as something of a surprise.

After trading Lee to the Phillies and receiving a handful of prospects in return, the Indians head into 2010 with a relatively thin pitching staff. Jake Westbrook, who hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since May 28, 2008, will likely start Opening Day. He was a solid option when healthy in the mid-00s, pitching 770.2 innings to a 4.06 ERA and a nearly identical FIP from 2003 through 2006. In the final year of a three-year, $33 million contract, and if the Indians again find themselves out of the race in July, he could prove a viable trade chip if healthy.

Justin Masterson and Fausto Carmona figure to follow Westbrook in the rotation. Carmona’s story is well known by now. After a standout performance in 2007 he’s struggled over the past two years, walking three more batters than he has struck out. He has pitched well this spring and will get another shot. With $18 million guaranteed to him over the next three years, it might not be his last, either. Masterson, acquired from the Red Sox in the Victor Martinez trade, will get a chance to prove his worth in the rotation. Lefties have killed him during his career, posting a .374 wOBA against him in 479 plate appearances.

The final two rotation spots appear a battle among three competitors: Aaron Laffey, David Huff, and Mitch Talbot. Laffey, a lefty who will turn 25 in April, has posted a near-league average performance in parts of three seasons with the Indians. Last season he started in 19 of his 25 appearances, logging 121.2 innings. He walked nearly as many as he struck out, though. He’s never been a strikeout guy, so he’ll have to bring down his walk totals if he’s to succeed. Huff, also a 25-year-old lefty, fared a bit worse in terms of results in 2009, a 5.61 ERA in 128.1 innings. They had comparable FIPs, though, Laffey at 4.54 and Huff at 4.69.

Talbot, acquired from the Rays in exchange for Kelly Shoppach this off-season, presents an interesting case because he is out of options and has pitched only 9.2 innings at the major league level. Over his minor league career he has struck out 7.4 batters per nine to 2.6 walks, a good ratio and a good walk rate. If he doesn’t win a rotation spot he’ll likely end up in the bullpen. Carlos Carrasco, acquired from the Phillies in the Lee trade, has performed well this spring, though he is likely ticketed for AAA to begin the season. Considering the state of the Indians rotation, he could force his way into the majors in a few months.

On the offensive side the Indians look relatively strong, but have a few question marks in terms of health. Grady Sizemore could again be the team’s best hitter. He posted the worst wOBA of his five-year career in 2009, .343, though an elbow injury certainly affected his play. A recovery to the ~.380 wOBA figures he posted in the previous three years would be a huge boost. He won’t be batting leadoff this year, but instead second. This leaves room for Asdrubal Cabrera to bat first. He greatly increased his production last year, raising his OBP to .361 while hitting for a bit more power. If he can maintain that OBP he should score plenty of runs.

After Cabrera and Sizemore, the Indians could have three lefties in a row. Shin-Soo Choo, Travis Hafner, and Russell Branyan figure to hit 3-4-5 in some order. Choo began his breakout in 2008, though he played in only 94 games. In 2009 he again displayed middle of the order skills, posting a .389 wOBA in 685 PA. Hafner remains an injury concern, having just 617 PA over the past two years, though 383 came last year. He hit decently enough, a .355 wOBA. It’s unlikely that he returns to the .420+ wOBAs he posted from 2004 through 2006, but he could still provide power if healthy. Branyan presents a similar situation in that he can hit for power and he’s an injury risk.

After that portion of the lineup, the only Indians hitter long on experience is Jhonny Peralta. He experienced a down year in 2009, though he could certainly rebound to his prior production levels. He slides over to third, too, where his defensive deficiencies shouldn’t hurt the team as much. The remaining three, Luis Valbuena, Lou Marson, and LaPorta, have just 726 career PA among them. That’s fine, though, for a team like the Indians. With only an outside chance of contending, they should get a very good look at their up and coming players.

What would it take for the Indians to make a run in 2010? A complete recovery to 2007 form for Carmona, for starters. They’ll also need an effective return from Westbrook and progress from Masterson. They’ll also need a few more things to go wrong for the Twins, the AL Central favorites. Perhaps then they could sneak into the picture. More likely, though, the Indians will perform well, but not playoffs well. They have a good crop of talent. It just seems like they underachieve most years.

On talent, the Dodgers may be top ten. They’re the favorites in the NL West this year (or at least co-favorites with Colorado) with a club built around mostly young talent, including several of the best under-27 players in the game. The core trio of Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, and Chad Billingsley are tough to beat, and they’re surrounded by quality or upside at most spots.

So, why are they 14th? The Divorce. The uncertainty surrounding the ownership of the Dodgers is a big problem. Frank McCourt can talk about how it will be business as usual once everything gets settled and the court gives him control of the team, but that’s not the only possible outcome, and he knows it. There’s a reason they didn’t really spend any money this winter.

The whole thing is a mess. The revelations that have surfaced in the divorce proceedings paint the McCourts in an even less flattering light than before, which is saying something. Any owner that would essentially use his team as an ATM to finance his personal lifestyle is a problem, and that description undersells how the McCourts behaved with Dodger money.

As a Dodger fan, I can only imagine the frustration when you see the team declining to offer arbitration to players who clearly won’t accept it, because of the perceived risk, yet later finding out that the team has both of the McCourts sons on their payroll at a total of $600,000 per year, when neither actually work for the Dodgers. I bet Logan White would love to have another $600,000 to spend on the draft. I can only imagine how much they could upgrade their information systems with a $600,000 per year investment.

Regardless of how it turns out, the McCourts have been exposed as people you don’t want owning your team. Through their own personal issues, they have created a cloud that hangs over the team, and is now affecting the way they put together their ball club.

If I’m a Dodger fan, I’m hoping that the Judge orders a sale of the team. But, no matter what, this doesn’t look like its going to end any time soon, so while 2010 should be an exciting year for LA fans as they push for a playoff berth, it’s all secondary to the drama of the owners.

This once-mighty prospect factory has fallen on hard times to a degree. The organization has some interesting sleepers – Trayvon Robinson, Kenley Jansen, and Allen Webster, for example – but it lacks the impressive collection of high-ceiling talent that it once had. With that said, the likes of Devaris Gordon, Andrew Lambo, Josh Lindblom, Ethan Martin, and Chris Withrow possess a lot of potential.

There is a serious lack of depth at catcher, first base, second base, third base, and left-handed pitching. The deepest positions are right-handed pitching and the outfield. Gordon and Ivan DeJesus Jr. are interesting shortstop prospects.

The organization’s recent drafts have been good but they really haven’t produced high-ceiling talents. Aaron Miller was an interesting pick in ’09 but he was not a consensus first round selection, and the club chose not to sign players to over-slot deals. Martin (’08) and Withrow (’07) have the potential to be impact starters but they have yet to truly take “that next step.” Scouting director Tim Hallgren, in his fourth season, will have his work cut out for him. This organization needs depth.

The organization’s international signing efforts have also fallen on hard times. Based on Baseball America’s Top 30 prospect list for the Dodgers, the club has just four international prospects amongst the organization’s best players. Four. Five years ago, the club had nine international prospects listed. In the publication’s first handbook in 2001, the system had 11 internationally signed Top 30 prospects. The organization’s player development system seems lost. Where is the club investing in prospects?

On the plus side, the club does have some exciting, young players currently in the Major Leagues. Outfielders Matt Kemp (25) and Andre Ethier (27) are some of the best hitters in the NL West under the age of 30. Kemp flirted with a .300 average while also just missing a 30-30 season. He drove in 100 runs for the first time in his career. Ethier also topped 100 RBI for the first time and slugged 31 homers and 42 doubles. James Loney (25) doesn’t have prototypical power, but he’s a valuable first baseman. Catcher Russell Martin is just 27 but his bat has fallen on hard times.

On the mound, the club has innings-eater Chad Billingsley (25) in the starting rotation and bulldog Jonathan Broxton (25) holding down the bullpen. Left-hander Clayton Kershaw, 22, has the ceiling of a No. 1 starter. Those are three very talented arms, but the depth is just not there are the MLB level, either.

There are a lot of question marks surrounding this organization entering the 2010 season and there may not be many answers until the ownership mess is resolved.

The situation surrounding the ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers has been well publicized. The financial tie-up that has resulted has already had a negative impact on the team the Dodgers will put on the field in 2010. The Dodgers lost Randy Wolf and Orlando Hudson to free agency, and the only outside free agent of note to come to L.A. is Jamey Carroll. The Dodgers did manage to maintain SP Vicente Padilla, but for a team in a market such as Los Angeles, that’s certainly no free agent splash.

This means that there will be some question marks for this year’s Dodgers squad. Ronnie Belliard, Blake DeWitt, and Jamey Carroll are fighting for the 2B spot. Belliard is a poor defender and a fringe major-leaguer at this point. Carroll can provide value either at 2B or as a utility man due to his good defense and versatility, but is weak with the bat. DeWitt is a total question mark – he didn’t put up great minor league batting numbers and doesn’t have a good fielding reputation, but he did perform quite well in 421 PAs in 2008.

The pitching staff as a whole still has questions remaining to be answered. Chad Billingsley had a down year last year, but was still quite productive. Clayton Kershaw has the potential to be one of the best starters in the NL and had a fantastic season last year, but he could see some regression with regards to home runs this year. Hiroki Kuroda has performed excellently in the majors (3.59 FIP), but health has been an issue. Vicente Padilla was roughly average last season, and should be a serviceable #4 starter. Then the question – who will fill that last spot? The choices range from Rule 5 pick Carlos Monasterios to knuckleballer Charlie Haeger to Russ Ortiz to Josh Towers. The back of rotation has plenty of depth but not much in terms of good pitching, and if one of the top 4 goes down for a significant stretch of time, the Dodgers could be in trouble.

The bullpen returns Johnathon Broxton, Hong Chi-Kuo, and George Sherrill, a trio that will make the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings tough on any team. Interestingly, nobody seems to know where Ronald Belisario is, but Ramon Troncoso pitched well last season and whoever loses in the fifth starter battle can probably fill the back of the bullpen just fine.

What really makes this team click is the starting lineup. The outfield of Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and Andre Ethier is one of the best hitting outfields in the league, even if the defense in the corners is suspect. There’s a good chance that Russell Martin rebounds this year, even if he doesn’t quite return to 2007 or 2008 numbers. A.J. Ellis is a serviceable backup while Martin recovers from a groin injury. Casey Blake, at age 36, is starting to hit the decline phase of his career, but he still projects as an above average hitter.

James Loney doesn’t provide the pop that is expected of a first baseman, but he still is a lock for an above average OBP and about 15 HRs. As only an average fielder at 1B, that makes him one of the few below-average players in this lineup. At SS is Rafael Furcal, who is starting to slow up at age 32. His 2008 season, where he put up a 176 wRC+ in 164 PAs, was certainly a fluke, as he projects as below average at this point. He can still run a bit, but it remains to be seen how his fielding holds up.

The Dodgers bench should be solid, as the losers of the 2B battle and Reed Johnson will be a formidable first trio off the pine. Chin-lung Hu is an interesting option, as well, as he has an excellent defensive reputation at SS but isn’t quite ready with the bat at this point.

Overall, the Dodgers are a good team but certainly aren’t without their weaknesses. This is a team that should compete for a division title but by no means should run away with one, as the Colorado Rockies and possibly Arizona Diamondbacks are fielding very competitive teams this year. Look for the Dodgers to be right in the thick of an intense NL West race.

Baseball’s playoffs stretch on far longer than they ought, into the sleet and snow of November. Major League Baseball finally has begun to admit its problems and to address them. In this fall’s League Championship Series, there will no longer be an off day between games four and five, thanks in part to Mike Scoscia’s complaints a few months before. “The removal of the off-day during both League Championship Series,” said Bud Selig, “marks the first step in a process that will ultimately result in an improved postseason format for our game.” In other words: the format isn’t quite improved just yet. I tend to agree.

It was not a day that made sense to have off, considering that it was not a travel day, and a scheduled travel off day occurs after the fifth game anyway. It’s good that it’s gone, and that particular series will have greater continuity. But the monthlong playoffs have not been shortened. Even a fan of the team that won it all last year, Benjamin Kabak of River Ave Blues, complains: “The truth is that the Yanks played 15 games over 30 days in October, and that stop-and-start schedule disrupted the flow of the games.” Yankee fans join players and managers like Mike Scoscia in their general dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs.

The reason, of course, is the same as always: television revenue. As Tyler Kepner of the New York Times writes: “The World Series is still scheduled to start Wednesday, Oct. 27, because Fox wants only one scheduled weekend, not two, and does not want to broadcast a game on Friday night.” In other words, if baseball is serious about “an improved postseason format,” they’ll have to ruffle Fox’s feathers. Thanks to its share of a $3 billion deal signed in 2006, Fox retains exclusive control of the World Series through 2013, and will split the rest of the postseason with TBS for the rest of that timeframe. It’s hard to imagine that MLB will reduce the number of days in the playoffs while that deal is still in effect.

However, change is necessary, particularly since Selig is serious about regularly holding the World Baseball Classic. Because baseball is an outdoor sport, and the baseball season stretches from spring training in February to the World Series in November, there’s really no healthy time to hold the WBC. Shaving a few extra days off the playoffs would permit far greater leeway to hold the Classic before or after the regular season.

But the Classic only occurs every four years. The most compelling reason for change is the simplest: the playoff format is widely recognized to be flawed, and even the Commissioner of Baseball recognizes that his sport needs “an improved postseason format.” Seldom is there an issue on which everyone agrees, as they do on the need to fix the playoff schedule. That rare fact ought to lead to action.