Baseball in Japan & Around the World
Lotte has announced the acquisition of infielders Gary Burnham and Chase Lambin. We’ve know Burnham was Lotte-bound for a while, but this is the first official note I’ve seen on former Marlins AAA’er Lambin. These are budget signings for Lotte — Burnham will make 13m yen and Lambin will earn 20m yen. I’ll let you do the dollar conversion yourself, but the strong yen favors these guys. Good luck Chase & Gary in ’09!
I found out via Baseball America that NPB veteran Jeremy Powell has signed a minor-league deal with the Pirates. Here’s what BA had to say about Powell:
You might remember Powell as a nondescript righthander with the late-90s Expos. But given that he played his last game in this country in June 2001, you’d be forgiven if he had been expunged from memory. Montreal’s fourth-round pick in 1994, Powell peaked with the ‘99 Expos, compiling the sixth-most innings on the squad (behind Dustin Hermanson, Mike Thurman, Javier Vazquez, Miguel Batista and Carl Pavano and finishing just ahead of Anthony Telford) and going 4-8, 4.73 in 17 starts. He joined the Padres organization as a free agent in 2001, a decision that proved to be career altering. The then-25 Powell pitched well for Triple-A Portland (63-14 K-BB and 1.58 ERA in 74 innings as a starter), sure, but that success was nothing compared with the eight-year run in Japan that he embarked upon that summer. Unlike many players, who struggle to adjust to both Japanese baseball and culture, Powell was a success almost from the get-go. His first season with Kinetsu was shaky, but from 2002 through 2006, he went 63-52, 3.73 while averaging 150 strikeouts, 49 walks and 194 innings per season. His ‘07 and ‘08 campaigns featured ERAs of 5.80 and 5.29, however, so the 32-year-old Powell now will try to latch on with the Pirates.
JP’s last two seasons in Japan were marred by injuries and a contract controversy with Orix and SoftBank. Best of luck to Jeremy in catching on in Pittsburgh.
Update, Jan 16:Â Mitsui will remain with Seibu for 2009 and take another crack at a move to MLB next offseason.
Seibu’s second attempt to post Koji Mitsui this offseason has ended just like the first one did. This is the first time we’ve seen the same player posted twice in the same offseason; not sure why they expected it to go differently the second time. Akinori Otsuka was acquired by the Padres on his second posting attempt, but that was a full season after his first unsuccessful attempt. Otsuka is also one of the best relievers in NPB history, while Mitsui has been marginal.
Seibu team management is going to talk with Mitsui in the next couple of days and decide what direction to take in with him. I guess the two options would be for Seibu to release him outright and let him pursue an MLB contract, or let him rebuild value this season and try again next year.
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked on NY Baseball Digest Radio if there were any foreign players in Japan who could potentially make an MLB comeback, a la Cecil Fielder. I drew a blank. Given a little time to think it over though, I came up with a couple of candidates:
Though not to the extent of Fielder, Hector Carrasco, Lee Stevens, and Darrell May are a couple examples of guys who enjoyed some big league success after playing in Japan. Fielder’s 1991 Detroit Tigers teammate Bill Gullickson played two seasons with the Yomiuri Giants, where he became good friends with feature major leaguer Masumi Kuwata. They were so close, in fact, that Gullickson gave one of his children the middle name “Kuwata”.Â
Â
Update, January 12, 8:09 pst: Things are picking up for Takahashi. Daily Sports has published a report saying that Ken heard from his agent on the 12th, and had this to say: “I’m told that we’re in the middle of negotiations. I don’t really know what kind of response we’re getting. I’m in waiting state. Just getting my body into baseball shape. I can’t say anything beyond that.” Despite this, the Daily Sports report says that the Cubs remain in the lead, but there are official offers from the Orioles and Phillies, and that a decision on his destination could come as early as the beginning of next week.
A Mainichi report states that the Blue Jays and Mets are also interested.
Update, January 11, 10:30pm pst: Sanspo has comments from Takahashi: “I don’t know the details of what was published in the newspaper. I’m just practicing by myself to get my body ready for baseball.” Commenting on the fact that his destination hasn’t been decided yet, Takahashi said, “I’m certainly waiting nervously. Even if it takes the whole month, I think there’s not much you can do”.
Sports Hochi is reporting that the Cubs are close to a deal with lefthanded pitcher Ken Takahashi. According to Hochi it’s a one-year, major-league deal and the Cubs would look to him to start and pitch in middle relief. The article speculates that the Cubs are looking to bring in someone to support Kosuke Fukudome, but I don’t see the logic in signing another rookie. They might as well bring in Akinori Otsuka or someone that’s been through the league already. Ken Kadokura and Shigeki Noguchi auditioned for the Cubs last month as well.
This is very early speculation and I haven’t found any other mentions of it in the Japanese media, so we’ll see if the story develops.
Jon Heyman noted an alleged interest in Eric Hinske from an NPB team last week, which I previously hadn’t heard of. I completely missed this Sponichi article from November that says the SoftBank Hawks were looking at him. SoftBank has since acquired Chris Aguila out of the Mets system, so it’s unclear whether they’d still be interested in Hinske.
While I’ve got the Cubs fans here… anyone remember when the North Siders fired Kosuke Fukudome’s translator last year?
Ryuji Araki has found a job doing translation and pr for the Nippon Ham Fighters. Previous translator Ken Iwamoto, who had worked for Trey Hillman, is moving into team director position and evaluating foreign player acquisitions. I’ve read a couple of interviews with Iwamoto and he seems like an interesting guy.
Reading that first article may shed a little light on why the Cubs are making a little more of an effort to acquire Japanese players this offseason. Another thing they could try is hiring Shigetoshi Hasegawa as bullpen coach or something. He definitely speaks English and Japanese fluently.
Former SoftBank Hawks pitcher Michinao Yamamura is the latest released NPB minor leaguer to announce he’s taking a shot at signing on with an American organization. He’ll be flying to Arizona on the 25th to spend 4 days playing winter league games and trying out. “My agent is talking to a number of teams about a minor league contract. Ever since I threw in international games in college, going overseas has been a dream,” said the righthander. Yamamura, 30, has made 25 appearances at the top level in Japan, going 2-2 with a 3.58 era in 27 2/3 innings.
I can’t remember ever hearing about this many released  minor leaguers attempting to move to MLB organizations in a single offseason. Perhaps I’m paying more attention this year.
So far, I’ve come across:
All of these players have been released by their NPB organizations. With the exception of Kadokura, Noguchi, and Maekawa, none of them spent that much time at the top level in Japan. Even if they are signed, most of these guys are more likely to be organizational players rather than actual MLB prospects, but it’s still an interesting trend.