NPB Tracker

Update: It’s now official that Germano won’t return to SoftBank in 2010. A team official said he wants to play in America next season.

The last thing we heard about Jose Contreras was that the SoftBank Hawks had decided to prioritize keeping their own free agents, but could turn to the veteran Cuban if negotiations stalled or (later on) an injury occured.

It looks like it didn’t take long for the former shoe to drop, at least part of the way.

SoftBank’s negotiations with Justin Germano have indeed stalled, and it now appears that he won’t be back in Fukuoka for 2010. This, of course, fuels speculation that SoftBank could immediately turn to Contreras to back fill for him. In any event, the presence of Contreras certainly gives SoftBank some additional leverage.

Contreras’s son Kevin, who is hoping to take part in an exchange program and play baseball at Fukuoka’s Yanagawa high school,  is behind the prospective move to Japan. The Hawks, who play their home games in Fukuoka, would certainly be the most convenient destination for Jose if exchange program works out.

Contreras has been in Japan with his family since November 25th, and has so far taken his son to visit his prospective high school, met sumo wrestler Kotoshogiku, and thrown for a SoftBank scout. The family plans to take in a few sites before returning home on December 7th.

A few weeks ago, when the news of Jose Contrera’s prospective move to Japan broke, I speculated that SoftBank and Hiroshima would be the two most logical destinations, given their proximity to the school his son wants to attend.

Take SoftBank off the list, at least for now, citing roster space problems, and uncertainty about where they would use him. SoftBank is working to retain import pitchers Brian Falkenborg, DJ Houlton and Justin Germano. Keeping all three would make a spot on the top roster pretty tough for anyone else to get. SoftBank acknowledges though, that Contreras could become an option in the event of an in-season injury, and Nikkan Sports suggests they could take another look at the Cuban veteran if current negotiations falter.

So Aroldis Chapman has defected from Cuba. With all the hype around Chapman during the WBC, I thought a defection was inevitable, but I didn’t see it happening this year. It will take Chapman a little time to apply for asylum and set up a domicile somewhere, but we should see a bidding war emerge over the next couple months.

Prior to the WBC, I would have said that if Chapman were to defect this year, his contract offers would have exceeded the four-year, $32m deal that Jose Contreras got from the Yankees back in 2002. But now that we’ve seen him look mortal against Japan’s WBC lineup of contact hitters, learned that Cuban League numbers aren’t that great, and found out that he might be five years older than previously believed, I have my doubts. Chapman’s first MLB contract will make him a richer man than I’ll ever be, but I think his first MLB deal will make him only about $20m richer than me.

For another dose of reality on Chapman, I turn to Cuban baseball expert Peter Bjarkman, who wrote bearish article about Chapman after he defected:

Chapman definitely has his negatives, foremost among them a demonstrated lack of strike-zone control, a one-pitch arsenal, and an inconsistent Cuban League performance over four National Series campaigns. Hurling for a Holguín club that made this year’s post-season and has been largely a middle-of-the-pack outfit during Chapman’s tenure, the southpaw flame thrower has won only slightly more than half his decisions (24-21), though he did enjoy his best season (11-4 and a league-best 130 Ks in 118 innings) this past winter. He has twice topped the 100 K mark but never approached Maels’s record-setting standards. Chapman is definitely more a raw “thrower” than a savvy “pitcher” and numerous questions surround his abilities to master the finer details of his craft.

One of the things that makes this situation unique is that it’s happening post Information Revolution. Thanks to the Internet and WBC, we, as consumers, have learned more about Chapman than perhaps any other hyped Cuban defector. Will that help his market value? There’s no way we can really know for sure. I think we’ll see that the Internet hype will have the biggest impact on the fans’ expectations of him.

I’ve occasionally wondered why Japanese clubs don’t make more of a play for top Cuban talent. In theory, NPB teams should be able to go after Cuban players without them having to defect. Katsuya Nomura joked about this during the WBC: “we probably can’t get him (Chapman). Would it be okay to ask Castro?”.

Joking aside, Nomura actually has brought Cuban players to Japan: national team stars Antonio Pacheco and Orestes Kindelan played for him in the early 00’s on the Shidax Industrial League team. During the same period, Omar Linares played for Chunichi at the NPB level. The difference, of course, is that Chapman is young and entering his prime, which Pacheco, Kindelan and Linares were all winding down their careers. But still, none of the three had to denounce their Cuban citizenship and all were able to return to Cuba after playing in Japan.

So maybe this means we’ll get to see Pedro Lazo or Yulieski Gourriel in Japan at some point. I hope so, because it doesn’t seem like either one will ever defect, and I’d love to see what they can do at a higher level of competition.