The Philadelphia Phillies are feeling empowered with an increase in Japanese scouting.
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Before signing with the Angels last December, the Philadelphia Phils shot their shot in the foot. They put together an hours-long presentation that highlighted their organization and the city, and they felt good about it.
The Phils didn’t hear from Ohtani’s camp until a few weeks later, when his agent Nez Balelo told them they didn’t make the second round in the bidding for Ohtani’s services.
The lack of communication was disheartening, but Balelo’s update didn’t come as a surprise.
A few months ago, Ohtani told MLB.com that he had no interest in Philly. When he arrived in the United States, he said he wanted to take a picture in front of the statue of Rocky Balboa. The reporter reminded him that the Phils had a baseball team.
He said, “I just want to go there.”
The Phillies didn’t entirely waste their time trying to land Ohtani. They used parts of his pitch in other recruiting attempts, including the one they made on Harper.
On Monday, Ohtani signed a $20 million, 10-year deal with the Dodgers. Again, the Phils didn’t have much of a chance to land him.
Only two Japanese players have ever played for the Phils: Iguchi from 2007-08 and So Taguchi from 2008. The Phils would love to have a third, fourth or fifth Japanese player, but they haven’t been able to do so.
The opportunities to do so are expected to grow in the next few years.
This past offseason, Harper gave a pitch to free agent right-hander Yusei Kikuchi, though the Phils don’t anticipate signing him.
There is an abundance of talent that is ready to contribute immediately at the major league level,” said Phillies GM Sam Fuld at last week’s Winter Meetings, “and that will continue to be the case. That’s largely due to the development of the KBO and NPB in Japan over the past ten years. They are just getting better and better, and it’s wise to invest a lot of time and money in those areas to make sure you cover as many of them as possible.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary to do it just to do it,” said Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Dave Hagerty, “if we had a player that could help us, absolutely.”
Dombrowski did say, however, that the Phillies are in a better position to sign the player when the time comes.
When I first arrived, we had our initial meeting, which was towards the end of the ’21 season, and we were talking about players from Asia, and we didn’t have a lot of information on them, so it was like, “You can’t do those moves based on the kind of information we had from a comparison point of view.” There were a few reasons for that, and some people quit the organization.
The Phillies have expanded their Asian operations in recent years, with assistant GM Jorge Velasquez spearheading the effort. Last month, the Phils promoted international scouting director Derrick Chung, who had been with the team since 2017, to head up the team’s Asian scouting efforts.
“Now that we have a better basis to work with clubs, I think we don’t necessarily need to sign someone to get that more established, but having that base, having that interaction to get that player at the appropriate time is going to be important,” Dominguez said.
When asked about the difference between the club’s Asian player reports from two years ago and the ones he has in place now, he said, “I’m totally comfortable with them.”
