The Pacific League opener is nearly upon us. Here are a couple of storylines I’ll have my eye on this year:
Have the Yokohama BayStars done enough to contend for a playoff spot this year? — Yokohama added 12 new players this offseason, most of whom are veterans intended to help the 2010 club. Will it be enough to compete for a third place finish? My gut feeling is that Yokohama’s pitching is still a little lacking, but if they get a bunch of career years… you never know.
Shane Spencer… Lew Ford… Kevin Mench… Matt Murton? Have the Hanshin Tigers gotten it right this year?
Are the Rakuten Golden Eagles Pacific League title contenders this year? The Eagles finished second last year despite predictable regression from Hisashi Iwakuma, a mediocre bullpen and some major lineup gaps. Have they plugged enough holes to win the Pacific this year?
Can either Hanshin or Chunichi unseat Yomiuri as the Central League champion? The Kyojin-gun has a three-year stranglehold on the Se-League. Is this a new dynasty or do the Tigers or Dragons have enough to knock ‘em back? Or even Yakult?
What will Yu Darvish do this year? Will he mundanely post a fourth straight sub-2.00 era, sub-1.00 whip season? Will he throw a no-hitter?
How much of Yusei Kikuchi will we see at the top level this year? He’s already been penciled in to the ni-gun rotation to start the season.
The Pacific League opens on March 20. I’ll try to do some kind of live chat, so stay tuned for details.
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.”
In the year and a half or so I’ve been writing posts called “NPB Bullet Points”, I’ve never written about actual bullets. Thanks to Chunichi Dragons pitcher Maximo Nelson, that changes today.
Nelson was arrested for violating Japan’s weapons control law a couple of days ago when passing through security for a domestic flight. It turns out that he had a single bullet in his carry-on luggage. Nelson explained what happened at his apology press conference: “In the Dominican, I had put away about 50 bullets in that bag. When I was coming to Japan, I had planned on clearing out all the bullets and bringing that bag, but there was one left. I didn’t notice it.” I was wondering why that wouldn’t have triggered security already, but Nelson had an explanation for that: “at the time I came to Japan, I had that bag inside a suitcase I checked with the airline. Also when I traveled to Okinawa, it was with the luggage the team collected and delivered. So it didn’t get caught in the inspections.”
Nelson bowed deeply and seems to be apologetic. It seems like the team is conducting its own investigation, but it doesn’t look like this will cost Nelson his spot with the Dragons. In Sports Hochi article, manager Hiromitsu Ochiai was quoted as saying “this experience was awful, but from this point on do your best.”
According to the Yuma Sun by way of Nikkan Sports, Eri Yoshida was drafted out of the Arizona Winter League by the Golden League’s Chico Outlaws. Yoshida has a deal to play this season with Mie of the Japan Future Baseball League, and is going to talk her options over with her parents.
A great nugget from the previously referenced Yoshida article is that Ila Borders, who played Indy ball in the late 90’s had and failed a tryout with the Kintetsu Buffaloes in 2000. I had never heard that before.
College pitcher Yuki Saito, in the States training with his Waseda University team, was given the opportunity to throw off the mound at Dodgers Stadium. Nikkan Sports also picked up on the attention Saito is getting from SF Giants scouts John Cox and Shun Kakazu. That is the same Shun Kakazu that worked with Bobby Valentine’s Chiba Lotte Marines.
Giants rookie Hisayoshi Chono, who I’m skeptical of, is off to a great start this spring, going 14/32 over his first eight games.
This isn’t normal NPB Tracker news, but a couple weeks ago Taiwan’s Brother Elephants signed Canadian Ryan Murphy. To me, this is notable because Murphy spent the last two years in Holland’s Honkbal Hoofdklasse, and has experience in Australia as well.
It’s the first week of February and pouring rain in the Bay Area, but NPB spring training camps are kicking into full gear. Here are some news and notes from around the league. All of the below articles are in Japanese.
Let the wear and tear begin: new Chiba Lotte Marine Takumi Nasunothrew a 300 pitch bullpen session the other day, bringing his total for the four days he’s spent in camp to 646. In what Sponichi referred to as “Bobby-free” Lotte had six pitchers throw over 200 pitches on Feb 5. The article explains that this was in contrast to Bobby Valentine’s practice of limited bullpen sessions to 20 minutes at a time. I have to question the wisdom of working pitchers like that this early in camp, after several years of getting more rest under Valentine.
Chiba Lotte also signed former Hanshin infielder Makoto Imaoka after a brief trial in camp. Imaoka gets a 15m yen salary for 2010.
Having so far failed to attract any offers, 38 year-old infielder Toshihisa Nishi is planning on working out in front of MLB scouts in the near future.
Chunichi rookie Ryoji Nakata, who was already chunky at 115 kg, has put on 3 kg since getting into camp.
Kyuji Fujikawa has finally signed for 2010, getting a 400m yen salary. Kyuji paid his own way ｔhrough camp up to this point.
And finally, Brandon Siefken of Japan Baseball News is kicking off a monthly newsletter in April. Each month’s issue will include a spreadsheet of statistical data. You can get the full details here and subscribe here.
Oakland signed NPB Tracker favorite Lenny DiNardo. I’m glad he’s back in the Bay Area and hope to see him with the A’s this year
Another personal favorite, Shingo Takatsu, signed with the Sinon Bulls in Taiwan. Takatsu wants to be the first pitcher to record a save in NPB, MLB, KBO, and Taiwan’s CBL
Colby Lewis signed with the Rangers
Dan Johnson returned to the Rays
SoftBank and Hiroshima will continue to look for pitching through spring training
Did I miss anyone?
Other News
MLB and NPB are discussing holding a global world series between the champions from the two leagues. It doesn’t seem as close as initially reported, but I would love to see this happen. More later…
Having failed to get any NPB offers, former Orix Buffaloe Katsuaki Furuki is moving into the ring and becoming a figher
Yusei Kikuchi has begun working out for his first pro spring training. And believer or not, he’s walking on air
2009 went by super fast. Here are my top ten events in Japanese baseball for the year that was.
10. Koji Uehara, Kenshin Kawakamisign with MLB teams; Yomiuri, Chunichi don’t notice. Uehara and Kawakami both signed with MLB clubs early in 2009, meanwhile, their former teams finished 1-2 in the Central League, with Yomiuri taking the Japan Series Championship.
9. Tuffy Rhodes hits 450th NPB home run. Tuffy continued his remarkable comeback in 2009, reaching 450 homers early in the season. A healthy 2010 will see him reach 500.
8. Rakuten makes first ever post season appearance as Katsuya Nomura retires. Rakuten to reached the second round of the playoffs in their fifth year of existence and appears to have a bright near-term future. Nomura restored his legacy with Rakuten after arguably failing to revive Hanshin and his wife’s ugly tax fraud problems.
7. Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium opens. Japan’s first new stadium in years opens to rave reviews, and while the Carp look competitive at times, they ultimately slump to a fifth-place finish.
6. Yusei Kikuchi stays in Japan; gets selected by only six teams in draft. After a lengthy cross-Pacific courting process, Kikuchi gave into social pressures and choose to stay in Japan and enter the NPB draft. After speculation that he could get picked by 10 or 11 teams,he winds up getting taken by six, with the remaining six teams grabbing other players uncontested. He eventually signs a max contract with Seibu.
5. Hideki Matsui wins World Series MVP. Matsui leaves NY in style with a dominant World Series performance, despite not starting any of the games played in Philadelphia.
4. Bobby Valentine leaves Marines. Bobby V goes back to Connecticut after a successful six-year run with Chiba Lotte, in which he turned around a moribund franchise and became one of the finest advocates for Japanese baseball in the West.
3. Yomiuri wins first title since 2002. It took seven years for Yomiuri to win a Japan Series post-Matsui. The Giants won three times in his ten-year Giants career (1994, 2000, 2002).
Seibu Lion’s manager Hisanobu Watanabe has suggested that his plan for Yusei Kikuchi might be to have the highly-touted lefty start his pro career in middle relief. The Lions already has a starting rotation which consists of 2009 Sawamura Award winner Hideaki Wakui, a proven young starter in Takayuki Kishi, and also former major leaguer Kazuhisa Ishii. Unless Kikuchi shows his ability to be part of the rotation during spring training, the plan, barring injuries, may be that he will start his professional career from the bullpen.
This comes from the concern that Kikuchi could overwork himself if he pushed to hard to start the season in the rotation. What the manager and the baseball world really want to see at the start of the spring training is a healthy Yusei Kikuchi.
2. Don’t neglect the fundamentals
Watanabe already gave Kikuchi a practice menu written by the training coach and he believes that building the basis of his body will lead to successful pitching.
3. No special treatment
“Ichi-gun on opening day? I have no answer for that. I am not going to put him on the roster because he can just pitch. He needs to show results during spring training.”
Long before Yusei Kikuchi entertained eight MLB suitors, before Junichi Tazawa rattled the cage by skipping NPB to sign with the Red Sox, before MLB teams first took note of Yu Darvish, before Daisuke Matsuzaka attracted $51m in posting money, before Hideo Nomo ‘retired’, before Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese player to reach the majors, before Walter O’Malley tried to acquire Shigeo Nagashima, there was Eiji Sawamura.
November 20 marked the 75th anniversary of Sawamura’s famous one-hit loss to the touring team of American all-stars. Sawamura, then 17, struck out Hall of Famers Lou Gerhig, Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, but surrendered a solo home run in the 7th to Gerhig, which was all the Americans needed to win 1-0.
The Americans responded to the loss by trying to sign Sawamura. There are various retellings, but the story goes that a Pirates scout asked Sawamura to “autograph” a contract. Connie Mack also tried to acquire him for the A’s, perhaps in a more above the board way. Sawamura refused and eventually went pro in Japan, but died in World War II. the Sawamura Award was established by NPB in 1947 (pre-dating the Cy Young Award).
The word “sempai” (先輩) roughly translates to “one who came before” or “senior”, like an older kid at school, or Nomo to Matsuzaka. Prepend it with a “dai” (大), meaning “big”, and you get “daisempai” (大先輩), as in someone who went to the school school, but graduated long before you even started. In a sense, Sawamura was the earliest predecessor to all the players I mentioned in the first paragraph.
Yusei Kikuchi is officially a pro. The young lefty has inked his first contract with the Seibu Lions. Unsurprisingly, Kikuchi gets the max deal: 100m yen (about $1m) signing bonus, a 15m yen ($150k) first year salary, 50m yen ($500k) in performance bonuses.
Kikuchi will wear number 17. Word is that he’ll be in camp with the top team next spring, and have a special training program.
Here are some unorganized, rapid-fire notes about yesterday’s draft. Some of these are my own observations, others are from the media.
In the end, ‘only’ six teams went after Yusei Kikuchi in the first round. Still impressive, but not exactly an unprecedented number. It seemed that the other teams used the distraction of Kikuchi to nab the guy they wanted.
Despite this being considered a thin draft, the only player that was selected by more than one team in the first round was Kikuchi.
The one team that should have been in on Kikuchi, but wasn’t, was Yokohama, who took slugger Yoshitomo Tsutsugo with their first pick. This looks like a case where the team allowed the appeal of taking the local kid outweigh the choice that really best fit their needs (pitching).
I think Hiroshima made a great first round pick in Takeru Imamura, and then followed it up with strong picks with Shota Dobayashi, Hisashi Takeuchi, and Hayato Shoji. I could just be biased towards fame though; Takeuchi is a well-known college pitchers and the other guys were noted Koshien performers. Shoji put a lot of mileage on his arm at this year’s Koshien.
Hisayoshi Chono finally wound up with the Giants.
Fat, short first baseman Ryoji Nakata got taken in the third round by Chunichi. He’ll need to get into shape as a pro, and even then I still think he looks more like a pinch hitter than a starter.
Honda hurler Takao Suwabe was annoyed at not being picked until the sixth round, and might not sign because of that.
In more tear news, Kenta Imamiya wept for joy at being selected by his local SoftBank Hawks in the first round.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Shuichi Furukawa, Yutaka Ohtsuka, and Yosuke Okamoto do as pros.
I was wondering why Akihiro Hakumura wasn’t drafted, but it turns out he’s going to college rather than the pros.
Former Braves farmhand Masayoshi Tokuda was not taken by the Carp, despite ‘passing’ their tryout.
A couple other non-picks I was slightly disappointed with were Michiya Minato and Shogo Akiyama. Admittedly I haven’t seen much of either of these guys, but they both seem to have good pitchers’ frames, decent velocity and command issues (particularly Akiyama on the last point). I was hoping to see if they’d develop as pros.