NPB Tracker

The market for Ryota Igarashi is showing it’s first signs of life. Sanspo has quotes from a couple of key figures…

• Pirates GM Neil Huntington: “In acquiring(Akinori) Iwamura, we opened the door to getting Japanese players. We gave up a middle reliever to get Iwamura, so he [Igarashi] is a player we have interest in.”
• Giants GM Brian Sabean: “It’s not our top priority, but he’s a player we’re looking into.”
• Agent Arn Tellem: “There is high interest for stoppers in the majors. He’s a player that a lot of teams should show interest in, and we expect good results from him.”

Clearly a little agent-speak there at the end. As a side note, Igarashi and Iwamura played together with Yakult in Japan.

Sanspo is speculating on Akinori Iwamura’s future, and this time it doesn’t involve a move to the Hanshin Tigers.

Aki has a $4.85m option (with a $250k buyout) for next season that must be exercised or declined within a day after the conclusion of the World Series. The idea is that the Ray’s would pick up the option and then move Iwamura in a sign-and-trade style deal. The speculation is that the likely destination for Iwamura would be the Dodgers, who will have an opening at second base with Orlando Hudson not returning. Sanspo asked Ned Colletti about Iwamura, and he gave a boilerplate “I can’t talk about players from other teams” non-comment.

It looks like we could to see a wave of Japanese major leaguers make their respective ways back to Japan this offseason. I don’t expect all these guys to go back to Japan, but some of them will, and I’ve listed in order of probability of actually returning.

• Kenji Johjima – appears to be headed to Hanshin, perhaps as early as the 25th.
• Masahide Kobayashi – Hanshin, Orix, Yokohama and Lotte have all be mentioned as suitors for KobaMasa.
• Yasuhiko Yabuta – Yabuta’s contract with the Royals quietly expired earlier in the month, and he hasn’t been in the news lately but I’ve seen both Yokohama and Lotte mentioned as interested.
• Ken Takahashi – is weighing a return to Japan against taking another shot at MLB. Hiroshima seems to be the obvious destination.
• So Taguchi — Orix wants to bring Taguchi back to where he spent the first part of his career.
• Tomo Ohka — I think he’d rather stay in 3A than go back to Japan, but there has been speculation that Yokohama would have him back. Ohka started his career by the bay.
• Hideki Matsui – For a while during the summer, it looked like both Hanshin and Yomiuri were going to go after Matsui, but his MLB stock has risen and that talk has mostly died down.
• Akinori Iwamura – Aki has stated that his first preference is to remain in Tampa Bay, but Hanshin is reportedly interested in bringing him in. Since Yakult posted him they should still own his NPB rights, so I’m not sure if that move is feasible.

And as a special bonus:

• Eric Hinske — Hinske wouldn’t be an NPB returnee, but the Hawks are reportedly interested in signing him this year. They had him on their list last offseason as well.

The news about Hanshin’s list of offseason acquisition targets is flying fast and furious. It kind of reminds me of this old Onion article. Here’s what I’ve seen so far.

Via NPB Free Agency…

• Shugo Fujii (Nippon Ham) — this probably makes the most sense of any of these acquisitions. Fujii wouldn’t make the Tigers a championship club on his own though
• Hiroyuki Kobayashi (Lotte) — another rather low risk, medium reward type

Via Trade…

• GG Sato (Seibu) — coming off a career year
• Shunsuke Watanabe (Lotte) — can’t see Lotte moving him, but would be interesting to see how he adjusts to the Central League
• Nagisa Arakaki (SoftBank) — one of my favorite pitchers, but has been hurt for the last two years

From Korea…

• Brad Thomas (Korea, Hanwha Eagles) — former Nippon Ham Fighter
• Rick Guttoromson (Korea, Kia Tigers) — Sports Hochi reported on him and Thomas
• Kim Tae-Gyun (Korea, Hanwha Eagles) — Matt tipped me off to this info on Kim
• Lee Bum-Ho (Korea, Hanwha Eagles) — Matt also pointed out that if the already last-place Hanwha loses all these guys, they might as well field a him of himself, me and Shinsano

Possible MLB Returnees…

• Hideki Matsui (NY Yankees) – has been speculated over since the summer, seems like Matsui will get chances to stay in MLB
• Masahide Kobayashi (ex Cleveland Indians) — makes sense, I wonder if they went after him during the season
• Kenji Johjima (Seattle Mariners) — reports in the Japanese media say that he has an escape clause in his contract allowing him to return to Japan. Cot’s knows nothing about this. Hanshin is said to be prepared to offer 500m yen annually (about $5m), so for this to work Joh would have to take a pay cut, and the Mariners would have to not convince him to stay
• Akinori Iwamura (Tampa Bay Rays) — saw some speculation about this a week or two ago, Iwamura didn’t say much other than that he would go where he was evaluated the most highly

There are also reports that Hanshin is going to be looking to the US market as usual, but I haven’t seen any legitimate names published yet. Hanshin sent team president Nobuo Minami to the States this season in an effort to learn how to evaluate US-based players. In the process, he had his picture taken with Bobby Cox, and met with the GMs of the Braves, Yankees, Mets, as well as front office personnel from the Red Sox.

What do NPB fans think? Would any of these moves make Hanshin the team to beat next year?

Only Japanese articles this morning:

• Aarom Baldiris has become expendable to the Hanshin Tigers, and the team is considering using him in a trade. Baldiris tore up ni-gun but failed to make an impact at the top level during his time with the Tigers. He did endear himself to Hanshin’s fans with his sharp defense and hustle.
• Former Braves farmhand and current Kansai Leaguer Masayoshi Tokuda has passed a tryout with the Hiroshima Carp, which I take to mean that the team will draft him later this month. The linked article says that Tokuda signed a three-year minor league contract with the Braves after college, but I couldn’t find any stats from his minor league career.
• Colby Lewis wants to stay in Hiroshima, stating after his most recent win: “of course I want to return to Hiroshima next year. I want talk contract for the next two months. I want to keep myself in shape.” Hiroshima has lost guys like Andy Sheets and Greg LaRocca to other teams in Japan, so there is some concern of Lewis following suit. Lewis has been outstanding in his two years with Hiroshima and will attract some MLB interest as well.
• Reports persist that Hanshin has White Sox reliever Matt Thornton on their list of acquisition targets for this offseason. The story broke in September, and back then I found it too far-fetched to comment on, and it won’t happen, but it’s still out there. Hanshin figures to be busy this offseason, and is reportedly considering Korean slugger Tae-Kyun Kim as well as Hideki Matsui and now Akinori Iwamura.
• Bobby Valentine has managed his last game in Chiba.
• Former Taiyo Whale Jim Tracy has led his Colorado Rockies to another playoff experience. Prior to taking over for Clint Hurdle, he was considered a candidate for the manager’s seat in Yokohama.
• Tuffy Rhodes will be back for another year with Orix in 2010. He’ll enter the season with a good shot at 2000 careers MLB-NPB hits.

I was about to start some research on how the NPB teams utilize the money gained from the posting fee, but then I came across to the perfect article written by David Waldstein of the New York Times, Seibu Lions’ Porcelain and Plastic Memorial to Matsuzaka: Plush Bathrooms.

It seems easy to say that the Seibu Lions have been the most effective team in utilizing the posting fee with Daisuke Matsuzaka as they won the 2008 Japan Series without Daisuke. On the other hand, teams like the Tokyo Yakult Swallows has not been able to recover after allowing Akinori Iwamura to leave and Hanshin Tigers seem to always be missing the inning-eating starter that they had in Kei Igawa. The Seibu Lions are one of the few teams that have generated a win-win situation using the posting fee system.

So what did Seibu Lions do with the $51 million posting fee (about $25M after taxes)…  According to Waldstein the fee was mainly used to reconstruct their home stadium, the Seibu Dome. The Lions…

• Constructed new concession stands and seating
• Resurfaced the playing field
• Installed an enormous video scoreboard
• Built magnificent bathrooms with electronically warmed toilet seats

The young pitching talents of the Seibu Lions were able to pick things up where Daisuke left and become the NPB Champions for the 2008 season. Even though they allowed their superstar to leave for MLB, the Lions were able to set up a win-win situation in the aftermath. So do you think the Lions were better off posting Matsuzaka to the MLB?

It took a while to find a way to actually watch the game here in the States, but I finally did.

About the game…

• Jung Bong shut Japan down again, indicating that his round one performance was no fluke.
• Yu Darvish was better than the final line makes him look. He was done in in the first (from what I saw of the highlights) by a couple of a couple of booted infield grounders and a weak throw from Norichika Aoki.
• After the first inning, Korea didn’t do much of anything until the eighth, when they let Japan’s pitchers beat themselves with walks.
• Japan got runners on base and generally made contact, but they didn’t get any extra-base hits and didn’t really play the small-ball game. I think that’s what cost them the win more than anything.
• Akinori Iwamura looked like he had no chance against Chang Yang Lim in the last at-bat of the game.
• I wasn’t crazy about Korea planting their flag on the mound at the end. They didn’t win the tournament.

Hindsight is 20/20…

• Tatsunori Hara had the infield positioned for a play at the plate when Korea had the bases loaded in the first. If they had been a double-play depth they would have gotten at least one out on Jin-young Lee’s grounder went for a two-run single.
• I would rather start Munenori Kawasaki than Yasuyuki Kataoka if Hiroyuki Nakajima can’t play, especially since Kataoka is out of position at shortstop.
• What was the point of putting Yoshiyuki Ishihara in for Kenji Johjima, just to pinch hit for him with Shinnosuke Abe after an inning? Johjima got ejected — shame on me for watching with the sound off.
• Minoru Iwata didn’t look sharp — and leaving him in to face the righty looked really bad when Masahiro Tanaka came in and blew the next guy away.

On the live chat…

• The chat thing was a spur-of-the-moment idea, so I didn’t give much notice. If I try this again, I’ll give more notice and hopefully I’ll get to chat with a few of the regulars.
• The chat was pretty well-trafficed, mostly because it wound up near the top of the Google rankings for several variations on “wbc japan korea live”. A lot of people found this site for the first time because of that, and I hope some of them will stick around.
• It took some time to find a good video feed, but I think at least a couple people were able to follow along.
• Some of the comments I got on the chat tested my patience — though the people causing the problems clearly weren’t frequent visitors to this site. I hope everyone will be cool next time we do this.
• I think it was insane for ESPN to show the NIT tournament instead of this.

Japan manager Tatsunori Hara has settled on a WBC roster. Here it is:

Pitchers
Yu Darvish
Takahiro Mahara
Masahiro Tanaka
Hideaki Wakui
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Minoru Iwata
Hisashi Iwakuma
Kyuji Fujikawa
Tetsuya Utsumi
Satoshi Komatsu
Shunsuke Watanabe
Tetsuya Yamaguchi
Toshiya Sugiuchi

Catchers
Kenji Johjima
Shinnosuke Abe
Yoshiyuki Ishihara

Infielders
Hiroyuki Nakajima
Yasuyuki Kataoka
Akinori Iwamura
Michiro Ogasawara
Shuichi Murata
Munenori Kawasaki

Outfielders
Kosuke Fukudome
Norichika Aoki
Seiichi Uchikawa
Yoshiyuki Kamei
Atsunori Inaba
Ichiro

(SI has the AP article as well)

Notable departures are Nobuhiko Matsunaka (achilles problem), Kenta Kurihara (affected by elbow surgery last year), Toru Hosokawa (right shoulder pain), Tsuyoshi Wada, and Takayuki Kishi. Health reasons were not cited for Wada and Kishi.

Overall, the roster looks pretty good to me, though it’s somewhat short on power.The inclusion of Yoshiyuki Kamei makes no obvious sense to me, but I could see him as a defensive replacement/pinch runner. The only other questionable pick I see is Shunsuke Watanabe. He’s been hit or miss in NPB, and as I recall he wasn’t that great in the 2006 WBC.

Not to be outdone by Ichiro, Akinori Iwamura has dusted off his pitcher’s glove and begun working on his repertoire. Sanspo, of course, has the news and a picture. According to the article, he has six breaking pitches, including a cut fastball and a shuuto. No word on whether he can reach 92 with his heater. 

So does Tatsunori Hara have another option for emergency situations? Let’s ask Iwamura: ”there won’t be an appearance. Ichiro-san will go for us (laughter)”.

Time to close out this series with some conclusions. I fear that I may be oversimplifying this a bit, but I’m looking for macro trends with this. These are casual observations, I didn’t do any hard research. 

Check the three previous installments here: 1, 2, 3. 

1. Most of the teams that lost a star to MLB took some kind of a hit in the standings. With the exception of Hiroshima, the teams losing the top 10 players listed below took years to replace the production they lost. Some of the teams still haven’t replaced the production they lost. It’s also important to remember that none of these departures happened in a vacuum; there were other things that affected the performance of each team, but overall the lose of these players has hurt their former teams competitively.

2. The only team that really took a popularity hit after losing a star to MLB was the Giants after losing Matsui. I bought walk-up tickets to a Giants game in 2005, which would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. Of course, while the Giants were down, the Tigers and Dragons were both up and have enjoyed competitive success and popularity since the early part of the decade. SoftBank has been less competitive since losing Johjima, but has not suffered at the gate. The team is actually adding 6000 seats to the Yahoo Dome for next season to help meet demand. 

3. Signing foreign talent to replace departed stars doesn’t seem to work. Teams will often sign foreign players to fill the holes left by departed stars, but when the do so, they’re losing the opportunity to add depth at other positions with those roster spots. I can’t think of an example where a foreign star was a long-term replacement for an MLB bound star. Colby Lewis was great as Hiroki Kuroda’s replacement in 2008, but so was Kevin Hodges a few years ago and he flamed out after a single season.

4. Losing talent to MLB has a trickle-down impact on the smaller market teams. As an example, Hanshin may have been content with their outfield had Shinjo stuck around, but two years after he left they signed Tomoaki Kanemoto away from the Carp to play left field. Kanemoto has gone on to become a legend for the Tigers while the Carp have only recently begun to show signs of life. Hanshin and Yomiuri can spend to fill their holes, while smaller market teams like Hiroshima cannot.

5. On the positive side, stars moving to MLB has opened up (or could potentially open) spots for younger players, in a league where there is no rule 5 draft and blocked prospects and depth guys are seldom traded. We haven’t seen too many cases of prospects jumping in and filling the shoes of the top 10 guys I’ve listed below, but others have stepped in for 11-26.

Overall, I don’t think this trend is killing NPB. Attendance is stable, and Japan Series television ratings were up this year (mostly because the Giants played in it). Many of the players who have made the leap to MLB have actually been pretty successful, which has greatly improved the credibility of NPB overseas. On the downside, the loss of star players has hurt the competitive depth of the affected teams, and led many to question the viability of the league. I seeing the loss of these star players as an “Oakland A’s-ing” of the league — the A’s have gotten by with smart management, an ability to exploit market inefficiencies and a willingness to continually reinvent the team on the field. The A’s style doesn’t translate to the Japanese game completely, but the underlying principles of thrift and creativity are important for a group of teams that generally is not going to compete with MLB financially.

Below is a list of all the players I looked at, ranked in order of how much I think their departure affected their previous team and the league. For me, there are really about three or four classes: Matsui and Johjima, Iwamura through Iguchi, and everyone else. You can possibly put Matsui, Kobayashi and Yabuta in their own class as well, as guys who were quickly replaced but did leave a gap in their absences. 

* I forgot about both these guys when compiling the original lists. Mori was successfully posted and signed with Tampa Bay, but got hurt in his first spring training and was never heard from again. Iriki played in the Mets and Blue Jays organizations, but got busted for PED usage and never reached the Majors. He resurfaced with Yokohama in 2008, but retired after the season.

** I left out Yukinaga Maeda as well.