Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 629 - 2: Who Is Lin Guanglai?
After the special program aired, the list of the top 100 rookies for the 2017 season immediately caused a stir across the United States.
According to data from some third-party institutions, just on the day the program aired, the search volume for "Lin Guanglai" on search engines increased by a full 300%; The Major League Baseball section on Reddit, which is usually lukewarm, suddenly saw countless new posts, all expressing one sentiment——
"Who is Lin Guanglai?"
For most proud North American baseball fans, they usually only pay attention to domestic games in North America, knowing almost nothing about other parts of the world, especially Asian baseball; Therefore, on seeing this ranking, many of them first suspected there was a problem with MLB officials.
[Has even MLB started accepting public relations fees from those agents? It's unbelievable that a young player who has never shown himself in the North American baseball system can directly skyrocket to the top of the list of top 100 rookies!]
[Although I don't know this Lin Guanglai, based on the data from the top 100 rookies, is the Nihon Professional Baseball league really a professional-level baseball league—being able to achieve an ERA below 1 and hit 40 home runs in a single season at the age of 20? I think we need to re-evaluate the strength of Nihon Professional Baseball…]
[Even Dansby Swanson, who swept through college leagues, won 1 championship and 1 runner-up in 2 years, and punched through the Major League promotion path in just one full season can only rank fifth; What kind of ability does Lin have to overshadow a group of American geniuses? Can anyone introduce him to me?]
These voices dominate the forum, but at the same time, there are also different voices, most of which come from North American fans who have long followed Asian or Japanese baseball.
[Haven't North American fans put away their pride? Not to mention, the abilities of Japanese players like Nomo, Ichiro, Matsui, Matsusaka, Darvish have already proven the profound development capabilities of Nippon Professional Baseball. Just consider the last three World Baseball Classics, the Japan team composed mainly of Nippon Professional Baseball players has won 2 championships; And Team USA? Zilch! If Nippon Professional Baseball is worthless as you guys say, then what about Team USA?] 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞
[I bet 99% of these people belittling Lin haven't even watched his performance on the field. As long as I've been a fan following Nippon Professional Baseball, let me tell you, this person is a natural superstar; not to mention those stats, but just that aura of dominating the field already makes him a massive star in the making!]
[Let's put it this way, I'm already eager to see Lin's performance on the field——although I'm reserved about his Dual Swordsmanship decision, at least as a pitcher, he's flawless! Just his new pitch called the fork finger sinker is enough to make the best hitters in the Major League feel nasty!]
[Agree with the above, but my attitude is more conservative. Maybe he'll need a season to adapt to the intensity of Major League hitters, but once he gets accustomed to the rhythm of the Major League, he'll definitely become a key MVP contender——I'll bet on him winning the Cy Young and MVP within 3 seasons, feel free to dig this up by then.]
[Now they keep belittling him, but I guess by then they'll be begging Lin Guanglai to join their host team. Alas, who knows which team Lin will eventually choose as his next stop; pity our Dodgers in the National League have inherent weaker competitiveness, otherwise, Lin and Kershaw's pitching duo could perfectly complement everything, alas…]
Discussions among fans on North American sports forums are growing increasingly intense, with debates around Lin Guanglai even becoming one of the mainstream topics during this time; In the process, Lin Guanglai's name has gradually become familiar to North American baseball audiences, and related videos of his games in Japan have also garnered substantial attention on YouTube.
Soon, MLB officials further fueled the fire for this much-discussed rising star:
To introduce Lin Guanglai to those North American fans who focus only on MLB, they set up a special feature on the front page of the MLB official website dedicated to Lin Guanglai;
And the writers of the special feature are the renowned, long-time followers of Asian baseball, William Boor and the Seattle Mariners beat writer Daniel Kramer——the latter's team is also considered by major betting pools as one of the top choices for Lin Guanglai's next move.
In his article, William Boor wrote:
"I've been following Lin since he was in high school. After all, if you follow amateur baseball in Japan, you can't not know the name 'Lin Guanglai'——during his high school years, he was already a widely recognized prodigy across Japan and demonstrated extraordinary team-leading abilities and leadership qualities: He led a once fallen noted team back to the peak and to new unprecedented heights; From the moment he was picked by the Softbank Team, I eagerly anticipated what achievements this prodigy, dubbed 'A once-in-two-thousand-years monster' by Japanese media, would accomplish in the professional world."
"Back then I predicted Lin's ideal development path should be to spend a season adapting to the intensity of Nippon Professional Baseball, and then enter a rapid development phase after turning 22, so he could naturally enter the posting system at 25 and showcase his talents globally——but it turns out, I was terribly wrong."
