NPB Tracker

It’s spring training, and that means pitchers are refining their arsenals. Here are some of the guys that are working on new pitches this spring:

• Hiroki Kuroda: changeup
• Toshi Yamaguchi: curve
• Yuki Saito: cut fastball
• Ryota Igarashi: slider
• Hideki Okajima: “split-change”
• 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.”
• Hitoki Iwase: sinker
• Yuya Ando: changeup
• Tetsuya Utsumi: cut fastball
• Kazuhito Futagami: forkball
• Norihito Kaneto: knuckleball
• Casey Fossum: forkball
• Takumi Akiyama: forkball
• Yusei Kikuchi: had been working on a forkball, but now putting it aside

We’ll have to wait and see what from this list survives to see game action.

The previously reported Naoyuki Shimizu deal to Yokohama is now complete. In an obvious salary dump, Lotte sends Shimizu across the Tokyo Bay in return for pitcher Takumi Nasuno and catcher Toshio Saito.

The question now is, will we see Lotte shed any more payroll? Hanshin was interested in Shunsuke Watanabe…

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?

19 Year-Old Yuuki Karakawa is inching toward the status of being the face of the Chiba Lotte Marines. His voice will be used as the announcement inside the Keisei Shuttle Busses that run from the train stations to the stadium on game days.

From the spring of 2006, the Keisei Busses used voices of Chiba Lotte Marines, Bobby Valentine, Shunsuke Watanabe, and Toshiaki Imae. The face of the franchise each have their turns and now the baton will be passed to the young pitcher Karakawa.

Front office personnel states: “Not only this year’s record, but looking back from last years stats is a big part. He is a home grown player and we hope he continues to succeed.”

Teams can sometimes be hesitate in giving young players the spotlight too early in their career, but the Chiba Lotte Mariners seem confident that Karakawa will not be pressured, and will continue to make him the center of their marketing strategy.

Young fireballer Masahiro Tanaka and submariner Shunsuke Watanabe faced off on April 14 in a great pitcher’s duel. Tanaka got the best of Watanabe, but Shunsuke held Rakuten at bay despite allowing 12 baserunners in seven innings of work. And they couldn’t have been more different in their approaches. Tanaka was routinely in the mid-90’s with his fastball, and only threw three pitches below 80mph, while the submarining Watanabe didn’t touch 80 the whole game. Have a look at the velocity charts to see the difference between the two.

click images to view full size

Here’s a clip of Tanaka striking out Shoitsu Ohmatsu to end the game.

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.

Only a few articles I’d like to share today, and all of them are in Japanese:

• Found a new Marines blog this evening. I didn’t even read the entry, I just like the pictures of Shunsuke Watanabe ptiching: particularly this one and this one.
• Orix Slugger Kazuhiro Kiyohara formally announced his retirement, on his 41st birthday before an away game against his first team, Seibu. “I really appreciate being able to celebrate my birthday in my last season at Seibu Dome,” said Kiyohara.
• Chunichi Dragons relief ace Kazuki Yoshimi is doing a rehab stint in the minors and gearing up for a return to the top team. He went down with arm pain on July 21, and his return would be a boost the the Dragons.
• Yakult pitcher Dicky Gonzales made his first appearance in nearly two years on August 17, giving up 4 runs in 5 innings pitched. I’m actually a bit surprised that Yakult stuck with Gonzales, who is coming off elbow surgery. It’s a rarity for a Japanese team to show that kind of commitment to a foreign player.
• Yomiuri Giants outfielder Alex Ramirez has met the service time requirements for free agency. He’s under contract with the Giants for next year, so he won’t be a free agent, but he will no longer count against the foreign player limit. Ramirez becomes the third player, after Taigen Kaku and Tuffy Rhodes to shred his foreign player status under the service time exception.
• Hiroshima Carp Manager Marty Brown has returned to America temporarily due to the sudden death of his mother. My condolences go out to Marty and his family.

Up next for NPB Tracker: an Olympics summary, a look at high pitch counts in Japan, and English-language blogs of NPB players.