University Baseball

You have very good timing with this question as today's Shukan Baseball features Wada as one of this coming draft's players to watch.

Egawa struck out 443 between 1974 to 1977. As of October 6, Wada had struck out 460 since 1999.

Over four years (8 seasons - spring and fall), Egawa struck out 7.11 batters per 9 innings, where as Wada's strike out percentage is a whopping 11.98! Egawa struck out 10 or more batters in 10 games while Wada has done it in 23 games. Also, Egawa played one more season than Wada as Egawa saw action his freshman year (3 K' in the spring, 58 in the fall) while Wada had only 4 strike outs to his minimal use in the fall of his freshman year.

(For those not familar with the Japanese school calendar, the school year begins in April and ends in March. So the spring season is always first. This is the opposite of the school calendar in the U.S.)

For all of his strike outs, though, Wada doesn't come close to Egawa's 47 and 12 record (.796 winning percentage) as he's only got a record of 24 and 13 (.648).

There was no mention in this Shube article of where he wanted to go, just his strike out feats. But you can bet that all of the teams are courting this Waseda lefty.

I've written quite a bit about Wada at Baseball Guru. You can read one such article at: http://baseballguru.com/ggarland/analysisggarland05.html

He's going to the Daiei Hawks. There were a number of teams interested in him, including the Giants (though it appears that they are going to get Hiroshi Kisanuki, so they're not doing too shabby). When I told one of the guys at BA about Wada and the number of strikeouts he has been ringing up despite not having overpowering stuff, he responded that he sounded like a Japanese equivalent of John Stephens, the Orioles prospect. The only thing is, though, that Wada throws harder (on a good day, he'll max out at 90-92) and has a better change up. He depends on command and changing speeds and thus is farther along, I think, than most Japanese college pitchers who can throw hard (such as Nagisa Arakaki, who may also end up with Daiei, or Yuhei Takai). The Dodgers were reportedly interested in Wada, but I don't know if they've actually tried to offer him a deal. I think that Wada's ceiling is a Kimiyasu Kudoh or Kei Igawa type.