Little-known fact: I once wrote an article about Japanese pitchers that was so loaded with falsehoods it inspired Japanese baseball expert Patrick Newman to start the excellent NPBTracker.com.
That, ironically, is probably my greatest contribution to the baseball blogosphere.
Anyway, with word surfacing that the Mets are about to sign Japanese reliever Ryota Igarashi, I turned to NPBTracker for info. Patrick posted a profile of Igarashi in May. He wrote:
Igarashi is known one of the hardest throwers in Japan, and jointly holds the record for fastest pitch* by a Japanese pitcher in an NPB game with a 158 kmph (98.75mph) fastball….
Although he doesn’t throw quite as hard as he used to, but still runs his heater into the upper 90’s, and augments it with a hard splitter that he throws at around 90mph. He’s also got a slider and a curve that he’ll mix in occasionally, but is primarily a fastball/splitter pitcher.
Igarashi’s weakness has been his control. Over the course of his career through 2008, he’s allowed 221 walks and thrown 42 wild pitches over 517.1 innings.
So it sounds a tiny bit like the Mets are signing the Japanese Fernando Rodney. Anyway, see for yourself:
Tedquarters 
His blood Type A. That has to count for something!!
(http://theropolitans.com/#ixzz0ZnJKXwgY)
“That, ironically, is probably my greatest contribution to the baseball blogosphere.”
High praise indeed. Thanks Ted :)
He throws 158! That’s like better than Sidd Finch. Could we change the rules so that foreign pitchers can throw in kilometers per hour? Seems like cultural imperialism or something to make him drop to mph where he only throws 98.75. Isn’t there any angle we can play here?