Kei Igawa was a colossal misread of a Japanese pitcher.

Igawa’s major league signing occurred before the 2007 season, when the Yankees gave the left-hander a five-year contract worth $20 million and paid a $26 million posting fee to the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball.

For that money, the Yankees received 16 appearances over parts of two seasons from Igawa, who pitched to a cumulative 6.66 ERA.

There is always some level of trepidation about how a Japanese pitcher’s success in his homeland will translate to the MLB stage, but much of the guesswork in recent years has been mitigated by technology.