NPB Tracker

Sanspo and others have the scoop — Hideki Irabu has signed a deal with the Long Beach Armada of the independant Golden League. There’s an official announcement reportedly coming on the 27th.

Irabu is still a name, particularly on this side of the Pacific, and I think he’ll sell a few tickets for the Armada. We’ll see if he has enough left in his right arm to help them on the field.

Last week, I asked readers for suggestions on which pitchers to look at in my velocity charts series. Based the responses I got, here’s the order I’m going in:

1. Tsuyoshi Wada
2. Toshiya Sugiuchi
3. Top closers: Kyuji Fujikawa, Takahiko Mahara, Hitoki Iwase
4. Tetsuya Utsumi
5. A look at Nippon Ham’s secondary pitchers: Sakamoto, Tadano, and Sweeney

You can see all the velocity charts I’ve done so far here.

So let’s take a look at Wada’s most recent outing, a loss to the Rakuten Eagles in which he was outdueled by Satoshi Nagai. Here’s Wada’s velocity chart:

And a break down of his pitches:

I was surprised to see how much Wada relies on his fastball, and how many strikes he gets with it. I didn’t see this game, but I’m inferring that he uses his slider and fork to set up his fastball. He also only threw three off-speed breaking pitches.

Yesterday, Tuffy Rhodes went deep three times, hitting home runs numbers 450, 451, and 452 of his distinguished NPB career. I didn’t think Tuffy had 100 home runs left in him when he signed with Orix during spring training in 2007, but he’s hit 92 since then and shows no signs of slowing down.

Congratulations Tuffy! We’ll see you at 500!