Category: Tigers
Posted by Tom Gage (The Detroit News) on Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 11:55 AMTigers and the Pacific RIm
That's what I find encouraging about the signing of Taiwanese left-hander Fu-Te Ni - the Tigers are expanding their reach.
Ni appears to a have a strikeout pitch (his breaking ball) because he struck out 132 in 145 1/3 innings last year while pitching for the Chinatrust Whales, a team that was disbanded because of a game-fixing scandale not involving Ni.
Some sites tout him as being the "Taiwanese Okajima" - while others aren't as impressed.
The Eastwindup Chronicle, for instance, called the attention around Ni "probably the most ado about a 'fringy' left-handed specialist."
One poster on that site lists Ni's career splits as .317 against left-handed hitters and .253 against right-handed hitters.
This shows, though, that the Tigers are looking both near and quite far for (affordable) bullpen solutions. There's no telling if Ni will indeed be a solution, but if he comes close to be being the Taiwanese Okajima, it should be interesting.
