NPB Tracker

The Hiroshima Carp are looking to import some righthanded power in veteran slugger Scott McClain. Negotiations are reportedly going well and McClain is expected to head across the Pacific in May.

McClain is kind of a story of perseverance; he hit his first MLB home runs last year with the Giants at age 36. He has some NPB experience, having spent parts of four seasons with the Seibu Lions in the early 00’s. The Carp had pretty good results with their last veteran suketto acquisition (Alex Ochoa) and McClain figures to be a solid addition to their lineup.

First bullet points of the new year… let’s get started.

Japanese Articles

• The Tadahito Iguchi rumor mill is heating up a little. According to Nikkan Sports by way of Sports Nifty, the Chiba Lotte Marines are prepared to start the negotiations at 2 years, 400m yen ($4.4m at the current exchange rate).  The article speculates that they could go a little higher as they have the diasppointing Julio Zuleta’s 260m yen ($2.86m) annual salary coming off the books.
• Nikkan Sports reports that Daisuke Matsuzaka will be training with his former team, the Seibu Lions in preparation for the World Baseball Classic. Matsuzaka will train with Seibut at his own request.
• Nippon Ham manager Masataka Nashida has announced that Yu Darvish will be his opening day starter. Not really news, but it’ll be a tight schedule with the WBC wrapping up shortly beforehand. In the same breathe, Nashida said that he wants to face Hanshin in the Japan Series this year.
• Yomiuri Giants reliever and 2008 R0Y Tetsuya Yamaguchi will be doing his pre-camp training in Arizona at the Fischer Sports Gym, where Randy Johnson works out in the offseason. In other training news, Yakult reliever Ryota Igarashi is also heading to Arizona to train at the same gym Nomar Garciaparra uses.
• The Hiroshima Carp have been flooded with a deluge of orders for their new uniform.

English Articles

• The Saitama Seibu Lions are changing their look that’s suited them pretty well over the years. Simon isn’t a fan, and I have to say neither am I.
• Deanna racked up quite an impressive pile of ticket stubs in 2008.
• 2008 Sawamura Award winner Hisashi Iwakuma signed a 3-year, 1.1bn yen ($12.1m) deal with the Rakuten Eagles. This is a rare case of a top player getting a multi-year deal prior to reaching free agency in Japan.
• Jim Allen has a couple of players to watch in 2009.

Like many teams before them, the Hiroshima Carp are taking their stadium move as an opportunity to refresh the their image with a new uniform design. Nice simple design, doing away the pinstripes of the old version. Looks good to me, aside from “Carp” script on the home uniform looking a little plasticy. For fun, here’s a look at the team’s 70’s era uniforms, and a CG video tour of the new ballpark.

Yokohama isn’t moving to a new stadium, but could definitely use an image change after years of being the Central League’s doormat. The BayStars’ new uniforms are clearly inspired by what they’ve been wearing for interleague games for the last few years. Like Hiroshima, they’ve ditched the pinstripes on their home uniform, but added them to their road grays, which aren’t really gray at all. I can’t say I’m a fan of the collar on the home uniforms but I do like the road version.

Four Japanese Articles to share today:

• Add the Softbank Hawks to the list of NPB teams interested in Nelson Cruz. It turns out that Softbank was trying to get Cruz last summer at the trading deadline, which I speculated about a few weeks ago. The Hawks are also interested in Padres reliever Brian Falkenborg.
• Indians GM Mark Shapiro expects the bidding for Junichi Tazawa to reach $7M. The Indians are not interested in Tazawa, nor are the Yankees or Diamondbacks.
• Shingo Takatsu is hoping to play another year in Korea. Shingo saved 8 games with an 0.86 era in 18 games for the Woori Heroes this season.
• The Hiroshima Carp’s new stadium will be known as Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium Hiroshima. Kind of a mouthful, I wonder if they could’ve just gone with one “zoom”.

After a short break from writing, I’m back with a few highlights from my weekend reading. I’ve been enjoying Sanspo’s Baseball Photo Ranking lately.

The next big piece of content I have on tap for NPB Tracker is (surprise) an essay on the Junichi Tazawa situation. Look out for that in the next day or two.

Japanese Articles:

• Construction of the new Hiroshima Citizen’s Stadium is underway, and you can follow its progress on this blog. Thanks to Erik Schullstrom for the link.
• Nippon Ham Fighters starter Ryan Glynn has a 28-inning scoreless streak going.
• Who says Japanese players don’t play hard? Here’s a shot of Yakult’s Masakazu Fukukawa taking out Yomiuri’s Shigeyuki Furuki on a slide into second base.
• Yokohama’s teenage righthander Atori made his first career appearance and hit 94 mph on the gun.
• The Eneos Industrial League team will be travelling to Brazil to play a seven-game exhibition series with Brazil’s national team to commerate 100 years of Japanese immigration to Brazil. I think this is great, I’d love to see baseball expand more deeply into Brazil.
• Obligatory Junichi Tazawa item: here’s a blogger who couldn’t care less if Tazawa skips NPB. “A guy who wants to go to the Majors can go. That’s it.” Well said.
• Hanshin has won a number of games in walk-off fashion recently, here are some YouTube clips of the team’s win on Sept 11: Jeff Williams shuts down Yakult in the top of the ninth, K’ing Norichika Aoki for the final out, Shinjiro Hiyama and Ikuro Katsuragi start the comeback, Akihiro Yano ties the game, and Makoto Imaoka wins it.

English Articles:

• Wayne Graczyk gives us a little insight into what makes fireballing Giants closer Marc Kroon tick.

Going with all Japanese articles for today’s bullet points, since I haven’t really read anything in English for the last couple of days.

Japanese Articles:

• A Japanese blogger has set up a site to protest Senichi Hoshino’s prospective involvement in next year’s World Baseball Classic. The movement seems to be spreading, as banners like this and this are beginning to appear elsewhere in the Japanese blogoshpere. Update: The campaign won’t have to continue on very long as Hoshino has already said he won’t accept the job if it’s offered.
• The Hiroshima Carp will be be wearing throwback uniforms from the team’s late 70’s/early 80’s golden age. Carp Blog has a pic and good graphics in general.
• Chunichi Dragons blog Negative Dragons reported that 2nd baseman Masahiro Araki will not excercise his right to become a free agent and stay in Nagoya. Sponichi reported the same news the following day. I’ve updated the 2009 NPB free agent list.
• At the risk of stoking the flames: scouts from six major league teams including the Yankees watched Yu Darvish shut down the Lions on Sept 9 (English Box Score courtesy of JapaneseBaseball.com). I guess this is what Gene Michael was doing in Japan. Sanspo re-iterated that “Darvish has not expressed any intent of going to MLB and is affectionate toward his team, but MLB teams won’t leave him alone“.
• Chunichi pitcher Hitoki Iwase become the first NPB closer to record four consecutive 30+ save seasons.

Question for bullet points readers: do you enjoy the Japanese content or the English content more? What topics do you find most interesting?

English articles only today, and a fairly random collection.

• The Softbank Source at JapaneseBaseball.com reports on the Hawks’ most recent game.
• Japanese Baseball Cards commemorates Ichiro’s 3000th hit by posting a card from his beardless days.
• Deanna celebrates Masa Yamamoto’s 200th victory (!!!!).
• I happened across an account of a fan’s first visit to a live NPB game.
• Also found this entertaining Hiroshima Carp blog.

Well, not really, but a number of foreign player signings were announced today.

The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles have announced two signings: former Nippon Ham slugger Fernando Seguignol and 3A pitcher Marcus Gwyn.

Seguinol joins his third team in Japan. He stunk in 2002 with Orix; spent 2003 in 3A, then joined Nippon Ham and proceeded to have a dynamite season in ‘04. He regressed a little bit each until Nippon Ham finally cut him loose after last season. Marcus Gwyn appeared in three games last year for the Angels, but hasn’t had much success above 2A ball.

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows picked up former Hiroshima Carp pitcher Sean Douglass. Douglass spent 2006 with Hiroshima, and 2007 on the shelf with an injury. Yakult tried him out last fall, but decided to pass. “I have confidence,” Douglass commented, “I want to give the team a chance to win when I pitch.”

And finally, Hiroshima pulled Jim Brower out of the Astros’ system. Brower has spent parts of nine seasons with MLB teams. He was actually pretty good with the Giants in ‘04.

Japan’s trading deadline & foreign player acquisition deadline is the 31st, so we’ll find out in the next day or two if any more transactions are coming up.

Mixing up the English and Japanese again. Most of these links are English though.

• Wayne Graczyk reminisces about 1995 and Hideo Nomo’s rookie season. This is a good read.
• Japan national team manager Senichi Hoshino complains about ridiculous extra-innings format that will be used in the Olympics. Aaron at East Windup Chronicle dissects the format a bit.
• Orix has surprisingly moved into 4th place in the Pacific League. They’re 2.5 games behind Softbank for the 3rd and final playoff position.
• Deanna from Marinerds, etc took a trip to Hiroshima to take in a Carp home game. I’ve always wanted to see Hiroshima Civic Stadium, but the one time I was in town the Carp were on the road. I’m hoping to check out the new stadium someday though.
• Softbank demoted Michael Restovich.
• Former Fukuoka Daiei Hawk Rich “Goose” Gossage is going into the Hall of Fame. Rich spent part of the 1990 season with Daiei, going 2-3 with 8 saves and a 4.40 ERA while striking out 40 in 47 innings (wikipedia has more, in Japanese). After leaving Japan, Gossage spent four more years in the Majors. He becomes the second NPB veteran to get elected into the MLB Hall of Fame, following Larry Doby.