Where have you gone Masahiro Tanaka, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you

By my count, we are 2-5 in Japanese signings. Back in the day of Nomo, we signed with a pitcher named Katz Maeda: He dyed his hair silver, threw 100 mph, popped his sword in spring training, never threw a pitch for us. Then came the Fat Toad, Hideki Irabu, R.I.P. Killed himself during Hope Week. Say what you will about Irabu, we traded him for Ted Lilly and Jake Westbrook, and if we had simply kept those guys, we'd have done alright.

Then came Godzilla: Hideki Matsui spoiled us. Still, we let Dice K go to the Redsocks, then panicked and signed Kei Igawa. Ouch. We didn't go near Yu Darvish, ouch again. (Actually, we had Nomo for a couple weeks, at the end of his time.) We sort of rectified things by grabbing Hiroki Kuroda, who Girardi worked like a rented mule. Poor guy had nothing in September, and I'm not sure it was his fault.

Last winter, we won a posting auction for a supposedly all-star Japanese infielder, a hitting shortstop, but we were too cheap to follow up with an offer. Too bad. Considering our 3B/SS situation last summer, the guy might have saved our season. Who knew?

Have I missed anybody? (Yes, I'm leaving Lenn Sakata off the list on purpose.)

Now, it's Masahiro Tanaka, the latest thing from Japan. According to the Internet, Hal has been shamed into chasing him. We'll pay a huge posting fee - $60 million plus, probably - and then seek a five year deal, probably in the neighborhood of what we were paying Andy. Obviously, nobody knows what we'll get. But I hope we show more patience than we did with Igawa, and treat the guy more carefully than we did Kuroda.

The key is that we are now seeing the Management Philosophy of Hal:

Wait until a team misses the playoffs, then chase whatever is out there.

Quick question: Is that how St. Louis does it?