Can We Please Stop Calling Japanese Players Rookies

cause they are not.

On Friday Yu Darvish became the 16th pitcher in MLB history to have 200 strikeouts in his "rookie year". Now of those sixteen four played before WWI and let's be honest, the game at that time was so different it's hard to really compare those records with modern ones. The other twelve have done it sporadically over the last 80 years (one in the 1950's, four in the 1960's and two in the 70's). In fact since 1984 (when two pitchers did it in the same season) it has only happened four times.

Hideo Nomo in 1995
Kerry Wood in 1998
Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2007
Yu Darvish in 2012


One of these pitchers in not like the others.

U.S born Kerry Wood aside, all three have been Japanese players who in fact had played for years in the Japanese professional leagues. While the competition isn't the same calibre as MLB it isn't all that bad either and the media attention and contracts are hardly the $100/m common to Cuban pro's.

Yu Darvish played for seven years in Japan, won awards and championships, played for the Japanese national team at the Olympics and at the World Cup when Japan won it in 2007.

Other notable Japanese "rookies" include Kazuhiro Sasaki who won rookie of the year in 2000 as a relief pitcher in Seattle and of course Ichiro Suzuki, who won rookie of the year in 2001 also with the Mariners. Hideki Matsui was denied rookie of the year based allegedly on his age by writers who had voted for Ichiro and Sasaki previously and his not winning it is generally seen as unfair or in Steinbrenner's words "a travesty".

But here is the thing. No real rookie CAN do what Ichiro, Nomo, Darvish etc. can do in their first year. The skills just aren't there yet. Ichiro played for nine years with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan and won every hitting award there is in Japan. Darvish and Matsuzaka were comparable with pitching as was Nomo in his time. Matsui played ten years with the Yomiuri Giants (the Tokyo team akin to the Yankees in Japan) in a home stadium comparable to any in MLB (and has since hosted two MLB regular season games). He dealt with media, pitched in front of 44,000 every home game and had ten years of professional coaching and practical playing time. What other "rookies" can claim that?

I'm not suggesting that Nippon pro ball is the same as MLB. The fact is that MLB is a higher quality game where the best of the best play. But take soccer, where a pro is a pro. He may be making his English or Spanish debut one year, but if he played three years in Germany he is not considered a rookie despite the lower level of competition he played in previously because the the German league is still really good.  MLB should apply this to guys from Japan. The Japanese league deserves that respect and legitimate rookies need to be held to reasonable standards. How about the "Ichiro Suzuki Award" for best player to complete a full season of MLB but not be a rookie, whether an import or a AAA call up?