Shunsuke Watanabe: “trade secret pitches” in his own words: “I tried three and two worked well. I’m going to keep trying them out without worrying about the results.”
Patrick » 08 December 2009 » In npb » Comments Off
Yu Darvish has signed his 2010 contract. In 2009, the heralded righty went 15-5 with a 1.73 era over 182 innings, taking home the MVP award at the end of the season. In return, the Nippon Ham corporation is bumping his salary up 60m yen ($678k in the currently weak US currency) to 330m yen ($3.729m).
Darvish bumps Hisashi Iwakuma from the top spot as the highest paid pitcher in the Pacific League, though he’ll still trail Central Leaguers Kyuji Fujikawa and Hitoki Iwase for the overall lead. Darvish also crosses the 300m yen mark at a younger age (age 24 season) than any other player in NPB history, though Ichiro took home over 400m yen at age 25.
The NPB regular season concluded in both leagues and the championship series will get under way Friday, October 16th JST. The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, the winner of the Central League and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the winner of the Pacific League will get a bye during the first round.
The Chunichi Dragons and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows will square off in the first round of the Central League Championship series, and the Rakuten Golden Eagles versus the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks will match up in the Pacific League.
With the regular season in the books, the awards for each batting and pitching categories have been determined (Central League and Pacific League winners listed respectively):
Another season of baseball in the books and now the fight for the Championship will begin. It was another exciting year of regular season baseball in Japan as the attendance rose five percent compared to the previous season and the Hanshin Tigers continued their winning ways at the gate, earning the top attendance record for five straight seasons.
With current Boston Red Sox prospect Junichi Tazawa making the jump from the Japanese Industrial Leagues to the Major Leagues, the attention toward Industrial Leagues is increasing as we speak. Also the 2009 Baseball World Cup is set to begin from September 9th and you may have noticed the Japan national team roster is composed of only Industrial League players.
The Industrial League, operated by the JABA (Japanese Amatuer Baseball Association), is explained as a minor league unaffiliated with the Nippon Professional Baseball in the NY Times article, Japanese Are Irked by U.S. Interest in Pitcher. Teams are fielded by company’s operating in Japan, and the Industrial Leagues are treated as amateur baseball with players not receiving salary as a baseball player, but as an employee with the company.
There are two types of team registered for the Industrial League: Corporate teams and Club teams. Every teams registered is listed on Wikipedia. Teams across the nation participate in tournaments and leagues year around. The one currently in the final stage is the 80th annual Intercity Baseball Tournament (Toshi Taikou Yakyu Taikai) and the finals will be played September 1st from 6pm at the Tokyo Dome (Japan time) between Toyota and Honda. Also the first round of the 36th Industrial League National Tournament (Shakai-jin Yakyu Nihon Senshuken) has started its regionals. Other notable tournaments include the 34th All-Japan Club Tournament (Zen-nihon Club Yakyu Senshuken). The history among these tournaments are established and there are plenty of games for teams and players to participate in.
Many current stars in the NPB and some MLB players have taken the Industrial League route to professional baseball. Current Chicago Cub Kosuke Fukudome played as a member of the Nihon Semei (Osaka) and won the Rookie of the year title in the 67th Toshi Taikou Yakyuu Taikai tournament. Japanese MLB pioneer, Hideo Nomo,is a former industrial leagues player as well. NPB stars such as Michihiro Ogasawara (Yomiuri Giants), Yasuyuki Kataoka (Seibu Lions), and Hitoki Iwase (Chunichi Dragons) are couple other players with Industrial League experience.
Even though the Industrial Leagues play a role in developing future NPB and possible MLB players, the existence of many teams have become an issue due to current business environment in Japan. If the parent company is struggling to make a profit, the existence of a baseball team for the company would always be a candidate for a budget cut. Industrial League powerhouse teams like Nissan had no choice, but to fold due after this season due to the parent company having financial problems.
In order for Industrial Leagues to survive and to reduce the financial responsibilities for some companies, talks are on-going to merge some of the tournaments and to reform the structure of the league. Sanspo recently published a lengthy article on the topic in Japanese. The recent change in Japanese political leadership could have an effect on the Industrial Leagues and its participating companies and this will be an issue we should all keep an eye on.
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
Tokyo Yakult Swallows
$23.77M
71
Norichika Aoki,$ 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.
Staying: Hitoki Iwase, Byung-Gyu Lee, Maximo Nelson, Wei-Yin Chen, Tomas de la Rosa
Trending: downward
Synopsis: Chunichi lost three major contributors from it’s 2008 team, and so far hasn’t replaced any of them with a veteran signing. They still have a deep team, but will play 2009 without a veteran ace or middle-lineup slugger. Chunichi’s foreign additions for 2009 are of the discount bin variety, rather than established performers.
This information has been out there long enough for me to link to an English source.
Hitoki Iwase, who earlier in the offseason declined to file for free agency, signed a four-year deal to remain with Chunichi. His salary in the first season of his contract will pay him 430m yen ($4.73m at today’s exchange rate), with salaries to be renegotiated yearly afterward. But according to Iwase, money wasn’t the driving issue:
”I realized that I am not cut out to pitch overseas,” said Iwase. ”I originally joined this club because I liked it and the environment suits me. I’m determined not to let the team down and to make sure that I fulfill my role in games we can win next year.”
Given the weak market for MLB relievers this season, Iwase did well financially, at least for the first year of his contract. We’ll see how the deal looks in a few years. Iwase will be in his late 30’s by the time the deal ends, making him likely to be a lifelong Dragon.
Nothing official has been announced, but it looks like Chunichi Dragons closer Hitoki Iwase will decline to file for free agency and remain the team. Sanspo, Nikkan Sports, Sponichi and several others are all running a nearly identical report in which Iwase comments, “It’s not decided when we’ll talk to the team, but inside there’s practical part of me”.
I wonder if his confidence took a hit after his poor performance in the Olympics. Or maybe he realizes that he’s coming off a sub-par season (by his standards) and doesn’t like what the market will bear for him. Iwase earned a little over $4.3M in 2008, so a move to MLB wouldn’t necessarily have gotten him a big raise. I’d also suggest that Iwase is more valuable to Chunichi than any other team, as the team lost Fukudome last year and is likely to lose Kenshin Kawakami. Keeping Iwase also allows Kazuki Yoshimi to move into the starting rotation full time.
Nothing is official until a contract is signed, but Chunichi is reportedly preparing a multi-year deal for their star closer. Last year they let him choose between a 1-year and 4-year contracts, so it’ll be interesting to see if they show the same flexibility this time around.
I’ve been piling up random bullet points for over a month now, so rather than sift threw ‘em I thought I’d throw them all out there and let you decide what’s interesting.
Japanese Articles
Chunichi is preparing a multi-year offer for closer HItoki Iwase. I think the Dragons’ offer could actually be comparable to the offers he’ll get from MLB teams.
The SoftBank Hawks’ billionaire owner Masayoshi Son attended three Hawks games this year, the last of which was on Sept 28.
Wow — lots of the links I had saved up here are no longer valid, making this a pretty underwhelming collection. Not much to show for the reading I did over the last month.
*dou-age: ceremonially tossing someone up and down, traditionally done at the end of the season to retiring players, and the pitcher who gets the last out in a championship-clinching game.