NPB Tracker

Looks like the Baystars are in the market for a corner infielder. The team has announced that it will have infielders Wes Bankston, Chris Nowak, and Oscar Salazar in camp on a tryout basis. Longtime third baseman Shuichi Murata departed for Yomiuri this offseason, and prospect Yoshitomo Tsutsugo has had a rough go at the hot corner on the farm team.

In other news that is only tangentially related, former BayStar Hiroki Sanada is headed to the US for tryouts. Yokohama granted Sanada his release after he failed to attract any posting bids.

The Seibu Lions have released statements from Hiroyuki Nakajima and team president Hajime Igo (thanks yakubaka.com — couldn’t read that one).

Nakajima:

“Although it’s very regrettable that we failed to agree on a contract, I appreciate the Saitama Seibu Lions for allowing me to be posted, and the New York Yankees for bidding on me.”

Igo:

“Nakajima pursued his Major League dream, but unfortunately he couldn’t realize it at the point. With a feeling of renewal, in the 2012 season we’d like to have him contribute to a Japan championship as a core member of the Saitama Seibu Lions.”

Along with Hiroki Sanada, we’re now 0-2 on postings this year, with Norichika Aoki and Yu Darvish pending.

Not much time to write today, but there’s still a lot going on. If you to chat about what I said about Yu Darvish, or Tsuyoshi Wada’s deal with Baltimore, please leave a comment.

And another minor bit of news: the Yokohama DeNA BayStars have granted Hiroki Sanada his release, so that he may pursue an MLB deal. Sanada was posted unsuccessfully last week.

The posting period for Yokohama DeNA BayStars reliever Hiroki Sanada has quietly come and gone, with no MLB teams submitting a bid. This wasn’t exactly a surprise, for reasons explained earlier. Sanada is the third NPB player posted to fail to draw a bid following Akinori Otsuka in 2002 and Koji Mitsui (twice) in 2009.

Here’s one I didn’t see coming: according to the Jiji Press, Yokohama has agreed to post righthanded reliever Hiroki Sanada. This will be Yokohama’s first usage of the posting system, as previous BayStars alumni Kazuhiro Sasaki and Takashi Saito moved MLB via free agency.

I don’t expect Sanada will be a hot commodity on the posting market this offseason. He’s never been a strikeout machine, but he dipped to just 18 over 49 innings of work in 2011. That may be explained by a drop in velocity. But more importantly, I doubt he drew much scouting attention over the course of the season, as few would have anticipated him being posted. As such, he’s probably headed for a minimal posting fee and a minor league contract.

As a side rant, this is exactly the kind of player the posting system works against. If Sanada were a free agent, he could fly to Arizona and throw a few bullpen seasons for scouts and potentially find a fit for himself. Instead, he’ll have to hope that a team that has already seen him chooses to bid during the four days they are allowed to.