The Toronto Blue Jays have not added the next Daisuke Matsuzaka, or even the second coming of Kei Igawa in reaching a verbal agreement with Japanese veteran Ken Takahshi on a minor-league contract.
No, the main thing they may have acquired in the transaction is a small foothold into the Far East, a region the club had largely ignored due to past financial restrictions but is now on the radar screen thanks to scouting budget increases. "It's a tough market to break into but it's a start,'' general manager J.P. Ricciardi said yesterday. "This was an opportunity we were able to take advantage of and if he doesn't come in on a minor-league deal, I don't know if it gets done.
"Maybe it gets our foot in the door and hopefully he helps us out.''
The Takahashi deal, the team's first bringing a player over from Japan, is expected to be finalized in the next few days. The Blue Jays are also awaiting word on a minor-league offer to 37-year-old first baseman Kevin Millar, who hit .234 with 20 homers and 72 RBIs for the Baltimore Orioles last season.
"It's up to him now,'' said Ricciardi.
The GM raised eyebrows a couple of weeks back when he told fans during an event for season-ticket holders that the club was planning to boost its scouting in Asia. Rob Ducey, the former Blue Jays outfielder from Cambridge, was put in charge of the venture, in part because of the familiarity with Japanese Baseball he gained during two seasons playing for the Nippon Ham Fighters in the mid '90s.
Takahshi is not a product of that plan, but of a previous relationship Ricciardi and player development director Dick Scott had with an agent. A soon-to-be-40-year-old lefty who has enjoyed 14 solid but unremarkable seasons with the Hiroshima Carp, Takahashi represents a worthwhile gamble for the Blue Jays, who will consider him for the fifth starter's job or a spot in the bullpen.
Starter Tomo Ohka, signed as a free-agent retread in 2007, is the only Japanese player to suit up for the Blue Jays.
Ducey describes Takahashi as a "wily old veteran who knows how to pitch,'' and believes "there's definitely something there.'' But he'll be aiming higher once the department is fully up and running.
"This signing is no indication of the type of player that might come out of the scouting department,'' he said from his office in Tarpon Springs, Fla. "The guys I would be able to recommend are guys I could go over and see.''
Ducey plans to make three trips per year to Japan to start "building it from scratch.''
