Baseball: A Two-Way Player-Chapter 578 - 139: Genius Showdown

"Bryan, Joe, I originally thought someone from the baseball scouting department's United States headquarters would be coming, but I didn't expect you two to be here in person..."

Standing in the terminal at Naha Airport, Brandon Daquworth looked at the two typical Caucasian faces before him. After embracing and greeting them, he expressed his surprise.

As a tourist destination, Okinawa often attracts a large number of foreign tourists year-round, so the appearance of these three people did not cause much of a stir nearby; however, if there were any professionals involved in professional baseball related matters, they would be astonished to see these faces.

Bryan Cashman, the General Manager of the New York Yankees, responsible for the affairs of the team's personnel configuration; Joe Girardi, the current head coach of the New York Yankees, who led the Yankees to win the World Series in 2009; Brandon Daquworth, a former foreign pitcher for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, who was hired by the Yankees after retiring in 2013, becoming their exclusive scout in Japan.

Logically, after a failed season, Cashman and Girardi, as the main people responsible for the team's poor performance, should be busy looking for off-season reinforcements, but they were appearing in Japan at this moment—clearly, both of them came for Lin Guanglai.

After receiving the relevant scouting report from Daquworth, Cashman and Girardi developed a strong interest in Lin Guanglai:

While Cashman, who has no professional baseball experience, might not see much, for Girardi, who was a catcher in the Major League for 15 years, he knew all too well the value of this young pitcher—such a player would absolutely be among the most elite top prospects in the Major League, any catcher would drool over a pitcher with such precise control and powerful pitch.

"I've got the tickets for the day after tomorrow's game for you, go to the hotel and adjust to the time difference—trust me, Lin will definitely not disappoint you!" Daquworth's strong confidence in his words made the other two smile wryly.

"Brandon, I should remind you..." Cashman teased his own scout, "The Lin we're talking about will be facing Pujols, Morneau, Altuve, Harper—these are the best hitters in Major League today, not something Nippon Professional Baseball can compare to."

"That's because you haven't seen Lin's performance in a complete game, Bryan." Daquworth could sense his superior's arrogance towards Nippon Professional Baseball but didn't care much, "Trust me, after watching this series, you will definitely change your mind—in my evaluation system, Lin is naturally the kind of player that should join the Yankees, his future achievements will definitely not lose out to Derek and A-Rod!"

"Do you know what you're saying, Brandon?" Even Girardi, who had been silent all along, couldn't hold back anymore, mainly because Daquworth's comment was too shocking—the former is a legendary captain who just retired at the end of this season and led the Yankees to win five World Series titles, while the latter is the team's current star with three MVP titles.

Daquworth shrugged and responded, "Believe it or not, everything will be revealed in the match the day after tomorrow—but I want to remind you, I've seen quite a few familiar faces from other teams here in Okinawa lately; if we really want to sign him, we should start preparing now!" 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Rest assured, Brandon, if Lin is truly the genius you say..." Cashman couldn't help but smile, full of confidence in his words, "Then we Yankees will stop at nothing to sign him—as you know, when we truly want to sign a player, no team can compete with us."

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"Buzz buzz!" At the training ground of the Major League All-Star team in Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, an abrupt whistle from John Farrell rang out. The championship coach stopped the training with an annoyed look and reprimanded the young man in front of him:

"Bryce, if I remember correctly, I said this was supposed to be a simulated real-game training, right? Could you please tell me why you didn't go all out to catch that ball just now?"

Standing in front of John Farrell was one of the most prominent young talents, Bryce Harper, from the Washington Nationals and even across the United States. At 22 years old, he was already in his third Major League season, averaging 20 home runs annually with dazzling stats of an OPS greater than 0.8.

The young talent walked up to Farrell, bearing a somewhat cheeky smile, and said, "Coach, I just didn't think it was necessary to be so serious, it's just a friendly match after all—besides, it's uncertain if those Japanese players can hit that kind of pitch, right?"

While saying this, Harper exchanged a few glances with other players nearby, which resulted in an outburst of laughter from everyone present—except for Farrell, whose face remained steel-blue.

Over at the side of the field, the biggest star of this All-Star team, Albert Pujols, was sitting, talking tenderly with his daughter over a video call—that is said to have originally planned to turn down this game, citing the reason of "a father shouldn't miss his daughter's gymnastics event"; if it wasn't for the player union's yet more persuasion, this Japanese-American exchange event might have ended indifferently. (Note1)