NPB Tracker

It’s been a busy week for me… so this downtime is the perfect opportunity to introduce a couple of NPB Tracker-sanctioned pro yakyu sites.

• Takeshi Yamasaki’s recent blast off Yasuhiko Yabuta reminded me that Gen of yakyubaka.com fame has built a home run database for this season. Tokyo Dome appears to be playing to its reputation as a hitter’s park.
• I got an email last week from a guy who’s developed a batter-by-batter game simulator, which includes NPB teams. NPB and MLB teams are grouped together, so you can simulate match ups between teams from the two leagues. Here’s a shortcut to a Nippon Ham-Yomiuri simulation to check out.
• Finally, this one game my way via Twitter. A group of gamer yakyu fans (including a couple of names I recognize from JapaneseBaseball.com) have published an extremely thorough English guide to the PlayStation game Pro Yakyu Spirits. I haven’t played the game, but this looks like a great resource for anyone who wants to check out the game but doesn’t have the requisite language skills. And for the record, my favorite NPB video game is Powerful Pro Yakyu.