Third Year Wall - Japanese Pitchers In ML

[texasdave]

Interesting.


When the Boston Red Sox signed Daisuke Matsuzaka to a six-year contract beginning in 2007 -- a $103 million investment including a $51 million posting fee to acquire his rights -- they worried about the Third-Year Wall. Research by the Boston quantitative analysts showed that most pitchers from Nippon Pro Ball suffered a sharp decline in performance about three years into their transition to Major League Baseball.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/11/15/japanese.players.yu.darvish/index.html#ixzz1dob7a0VU

[LeDoux]

I am curious as to how Japanese pitchers would compare a to non-Japanese control group. Is there no "wall" for others or a smaller wall?

[texasdave]

I am curious as to how Japanese pitchers would compare a to non-Japanese control group. Is there no "wall" for others or a smaller wall?

What kind of control group? Could you be more specific? Pitchers that signed big free-agent contracts?

[LeDoux]

What kind of control group? Could you be more specific? Pitchers that signed big free-agent contracts?

I suppose there could be several types:

age-matched, vs. all starting pitchers with more than 30 starts for 3 consecutive years, other FAs.

I would be most interested in the age-match group controlling for previous IP.