The Tigers are digging into the international amateur market to stock the lower levels of the farm system. The club officially signed starting pitcher Yodo Matsumoto out of Japan to a minor league contract.

It’s a low-risk swing at adding some raw arms to the pipeline. Matsumoto comes over strictly as an amateur, which means he’s going to need time to acclimate to professional baseball and the daily grind of the organizational pitching infrastructure. He won’t be skipping steps or getting rushed. The minor league deal dictates that he’ll start his Stateside career in the lower rungs, working his way up the ladder just like every other prospect in the system.

Finding usable starting pitching is the name of the game, and casting a wider net overseas is just standard operating procedure for a front office looking to build depth. You throw enough darts at the board, eventually one sticks. The Tigers are betting that Matsumoto has the makeup and the raw stuff to develop into something useful, but amateur signings out of Japan are always a waiting game. There is a lot of adjusting to do, from the baseballs themselves to the travel and the language.

Whether Matsumoto turns into a reliable inning-eater down the road or just a guy who fills out a Rookie League rotation for a couple of summers remains to be seen. The front office isn’t asking him to save the big-league rotation anytime soon. For now, it’s just ink on a minor league contract and another arm added to the depth chart. He gets to work, and the organization gets to evaluate.

Notebook

• [I]Injured (patellar tendinitis),out for 2 weeks.
• [I]Injured (mild hamstring strain),day-to-day for one week.