The 2009 season is in the books, and the MVPs go to Yu Darvish in the Pacific League, with Alex Ramirez receiving the honor for the Central League. Darvish earns the award for the second time in his career and Ramirez obtains the award for the second straight season.
The Rookie of the Year award is received by Tokyo Yomiuri Giants outfielder Testuya Matsumoto, the first time in 51 years that two players from the same team received the RoY in consecutive years (Giants reliever Tetsuya Yamaguchi took the prize last year). The Pacific League award goes to reliever Tadashi Settsu of the Softbank Hawks.
The Best Nine Awards have also been announced and the winners are as follows:
The number of contracted players each NPB team is allowed to carry on its roster is 70. Previously, if teams wanted to carry more than 70 players, they invited players as practice players (players who could not participate in regular season games, but were allowed to practice with the team). However the system came to an end when teams were using the system to their benefit and inviting as many promising players as possible.
After the the system was discontinued, NPB teams were in need of another development system, with the number of amateur teams and industrial league teams diminishing and players losing opportunities to play. That is how the ikusei player system was born. So let me touch on how the ikusei player system works…
Teams with more than 65 players on the books are allowed to utilize the system
Ikusei players are only allowed to participate in a Ni-gun(Minor League) game and only five players per team are allowed to play
Ikusei players may change status to a contracted player by end of July, but foreign players over the age of 26 are only allowed to transfer by the end of March
Ikusei players will wear a three-digit number and if the status changes, the player also needs to change its number to a one or two-digit number
Ikusei players may be included in trades until the end of July
Since the establishment of the ikusei system there have been couple success stories…
The first ikusei player to play in a NPB game was Michitaka Nishiyama of the Softbank Hawks
Tetsuya Yamaguchi (Pitched for Japan in WBC 2009) of the Yomiuri Giants earned the first victory as a player coming from the ikusei player system
Former Major Leaguer Norihiro Nakamura signed with the Chunichi Dragons as a ikusei player in 2007 and finished the season as the MVP of the Japan Championship Series
29 year-old Yuuki Tanaka, who signed as an ikusei player with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows was promoted on May 11. The winner of 23 career NPB games will be attempting his comeback after being released by the Orix Buffaloes in 2008
Hayato Doue, who had signed with the Red Sox prior to 2008 but couldn’t get a work visa, is currently with the SoftBank Hawks after being promoted from an ikusei player at the start of the 2009 season. Doue was taken with the last pick of 2008 ikusei draft
Currently there are 49 total ikusei players on the 12 NPB teams, with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants having 12 under contract (As of May 12, 2009).
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.
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.
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.
The other day, I read in Sanspo that 2008 Central League Rookie of the Year Tetsuya Yamaguchi played in the American minor leagues. I knew that he was the first former instructional player to win an RoY, but I figured he was from the independant leagues or something and didn’t bother to research it further. But it turns out that Yamaguchi played three seasons in the Arizona system, never rising above rookie ball.
The irony is that he won the award for the Yomiuri Giants, so they directly benefited from having a returning Japanese player on their team. Maybe they’ll re-think the returnee rule later on.