JapaneseBaseball.com Update
Michael Westbay has given JapaneseBaseball.com a thorough makeover. If you haven’t been to his site before, now is a great time to check it out.
Archive > 25 April 2009
A Vote of Confidence for Mench
Kevin Mench’s physical returned “no irregularities” and the outfielder is on his way home to rest for a few days before joining Hanshin’s minor league team.Â
In a vote of confidence for Mench, Hanshin owner Shinya Sakai said, “we’re not at all thinking of adding reinforcemts (signing another foreign player)”, before adding “I want Mench to get a good rest and then do his best”.
Patience with foreign players is notoriously short in Japan, but in this case Hanshin’s management appears to be saying the right things. The Tigers brass notably stood behind Jeff Williams when he was named in the Mitchell Report a few years ago as well.
2009 NPB Team Payroll Ranking
This ranking is based on calculating information from Daily Sports Online, and converting into US dollars at the April 24 dollar-yen exchange rate from Google Finance. The numbers are based on the start of the 2009 season. I hope this will be interesting and insightful for new NPB fans to learn how much Japanese teams pay their players.
| Rank | Team | Payroll | Players Under Contract | Highest Paid Player |
| 1 | Yomiuri Giants | $45.30M | 78 | Seung-Youp Lee, $6.2M |
| 2 | Hanshin Tigers | $40.49M | 74 | Tomoaki Kanemoto, $5.6M |
| 3 | Softbank Hawks | $34.11M | 74 | Nobuhiko Matsunaka, $5.1M |
| 4 | Chunichi Dragons | $30.02M | 70 | Hitoki Iwase, $4.4M |
| 5 | Chiba Lotte Marines | $27.67M | 78 | Naoyuki Shimizu, $2.4M |
| 6 | Seibu Lions | $26.75M | 68 | Kazuhisa Ishii, $2.8M |
| 7 | Orix Buffaloes | $26.04M | 69 | Tuffy Rhodes, $3.3M |
| 8 | Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters | $24.97M | 66 | Atsunori Inaba, $3M |
| 9 | Â Tokyo Yakult Swallows | $23.77M | 71 | Norichika Aoki,$Â 2.6M |
| 10 | Yokohama Baystars | $23.03M | 68 | Shuichi Murata, $2.6M |
| 11 | Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles | $20.74M | 67 | Hisashi Iwakuma, $3M |
| 12 | Hiroshima Toyo Carp | $17.71M | 70 | Katsuhiro Nagakawa, $1.6M |
- One note is that teams with more than 70 players on contract are from the existence of ikusei (training) players.