NPB Tracker

A couple of notes to pass along as we head into the weekend…

• The Hanshin Tigers have some interest in the recently non-tendered Hideki Okajima. Team director Shoji Numazawa explains, as quoted in Sansop:  “Will we look into him? Yes. Because, you know, he’s a pitcher. It’s not that we don’t have interest. But as I’m always saying, we’re not going to have a bidding war with the Majors. He’s a pitcher so we have some interest. And then there’s money and his age and things. But to say we have no interest would be a lie.” Hanshin has been done a lefty since injuries claimed the career of Jeff Williams a couple years ago. Casey Fossum wasn’t able to fill his shoes in 2010.
• The Yokohama BayStars have signed pitchers Brandon Mann and Clayton Hamilton, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Mann and Hamilton have mostly toiled in the lower minors, and worked out for Yokohama back in October
• Sponichi has reported that Yakult has a basic agreement with Korean pitcher Young-Soo Bae.

After an on-again-off-again sort of negotiation, Chang Yong Lim has agreed to a deal that will keep him in the Yoyogi area of Tokyo. The headlines are calling it a three-year, 1.42 bn yen deal, but read a little more carefully and you’ll see that it’s really a two-year, 750m yen deal, with a mutual option for year three.

Yakult is reportedly now going after pitcher Young-Soo Bae, of the KBO’s Samsung Lions.

I thought Yakult might be a possible landing spot for Marc Kroon, but that’s a lot less likely with Lim returning. At this point, Rakuten seems like his best shot at a closing job in 2011.