NPB Tracker

This one is about is about as under-the-radar as it gets — according to ChuSpo, the Mets have agreed to sign Japanese teenager Taiki Kawasaki to a minor league contract. Kawasaki is a 17 year-old left handed pitcher who had been training at Julio Franco’s baseball academy in Florida. The Osaka native left Japan after finishing junior high school in April 2008 with the hopes of catching on with an MLB organization. In his time in Franco’s academy, Kawasaki has grown from 177cm, 66kg (5’10, 145) to 185cm 77kg (6’1, 170), and added velocity to his fastball, which now averages around 140kmph (about 87mph). An older report mentions that Kawasaki has a slider and curve as well.

I couldn’t find any English info on this signing, but this ESPN Deportes article from last year mentions Kawasaki’s presence at Franco’s academy. Franco will reportedly travel to Japan in mid-October to officially announce the signing.

The Yokohama BayStars have routinely had the worst pitching staff in Japan the last few years, and word from Sponichi has it that they’ll be looking to re-import some help from the States this off-season. Said an unnamed member of the ‘Hama front office: “we’re two or three starters short, and getting a pitcher who can close is a point to improve on. We’re seeing if we can use any of the Japanese pitchers who are playing in America.” Ironically, this is the team that wouldn’t take Satoru Komiyama back after he returned from the Mets.

Sponichi mentions Tomo Ohka, Yasuhiko Yabuta, and Masahide Kobayashi as guys the BayStars could look at. Ohka spent time with Yokohama early in his career, but requested and was granted his release to pursue a shot at the Majors. Two other names I’ll throw out are Kei Igawa, who would have to take a pay cut to return to Japan (among other things, see comments), and Takashi Saito, who is much more of a wildcard — he’d need to be non-tendered, and he’s also performed much better in the States than he did in Japan.

Over the last several months, we’ve posted several introductory pieces to Japanese baseball. I’ve aggregated them under one tag, Japanese Baseball Primer.

Here’s what we have so far:

• Inside the Industrial Leagues
• Ni-gun baseball
• The Meikyukai
• The Hall of Fame and Museum
• Inside the NPB Draft
• Agents in Japanese Baseball
• Independent Leagues in Japan
• The Ikusei System

These posts cover topics beyond the professional league and beyond the game on the field and are great for anyone who wants to learn more about the culture of baseball in Japan.

In Japanese:

• Amid rumors of his retirement, Hanshin has released infielder Makoto Imaoka. Reportedly no other teams are interested in picking him up. Imaoka was a big time contributor to Hanshin’s Central League championships in 2003 and 2005, so if this is really the end of the road for him it’s a shame for him to go out this way.
• Jeff Williams has headed back to the States for arm surgery, but wants to return to Hanshin for next season: “the decision was made about a week ago. Of course I want to avoid surgery and it’s not something I want to do, but I think surgery is the direction we’re going in. My goal is take the mound in a Tigers uniform again next season.” Despite Williams’ productive seven-season run with the Tigers, rumors persist that the team will not exercise their option on his services for next season.
• Sho Nakata set a ni-gun record by hitting his 28th homer of the year for Nippon Ham’s farm team.
• Bobby Valentine’s replacement in Chiba: Marines head coach Norifumi Nishimura.
• Honda won this year’s Industrial League Intercity Championship. Hisayoshi Chono was the top batter.

In English:

• Gen has set up a new blog at yakyubaka.com.
• Yesterday on my morning commute, I happened to tune to NPR, where Michael Krasny was discussing Japan’s recent elections with a panel of experts. My commute is 30 minutes so I only caught half of the program, but it can be listened to online.

Some of you might be following the NPB Tracker Twitter feed. I hope you’re enjoying it. What we’re doing with the Twitter feed is posting quick updates on specific players, mostly players of note to MLB fans. We’re posting a lot of quick updates to Twitter that won’t necessarily make it here.

For those of you that don’t have Twitter accounts, you can still get the updates via this rss feed.

There are a couple of editions of Shukan Baseball that I look forward to each year: the issue on breaking pitches, the series of issues leading up to the draft, and the mid-season issue on foreign players in Japan. I picked up foreign players issue on my last trip to Kinokuniya, and this year’s edition has a photobook of all 908 foreign players who have been on the payroll of an NPB team. Every time I get a magazine like this I learn something new, so here’s a few things from this year’s edition, plus a few of my own.

Jose’s twin Ozzie Canseco spent part of 1991 playing for Kintetsu, but never escaped the ni-gun team, where he hit .271 with eight homers.

Frank Ortenzio’s name was officially registered on Nankai’s roster in Kanji as 王天上 rather than the usual Katakana, which would have been オーテンジョウ or something similar.

Don Newcombe was a star pitcher for the Dodgers in the 1950’s, but played the outfield for Chunichi in 1962. He hit .262 with 12 home runs in 81 games. One of Newcombe’s Chunichi teammates was color-line pioneer Larry Doby.

Matt Stairs played for Chunichi way back in 1993, prior to having any MLB success.

Korean pitcher Cho Son-Min had the longest contract in NPB history, a eight-year deal with the Giants signed prior to 1996. Over the life of the contract he only appeared in 53 games, posting a 2.84 era.

Dave Nilsson played for Chunichi in 2000, so he could represent Australia in that year’s Summer Olympics. He went by “Dingo” during his brief stay in Japan.

Marty Keough played for Nankai in the 60’s; his son Matt Keough played for Hanshin in the 80’s. Now Matt’s son Shane Keough is a minor leaguer in the A’s system — possible third generation suketto?

This isn’t really notworthy, but a guy I really liked when I was living in Japan was Chang Chih-Chia from Taiwan. I thought he’d be a good pitcher for a long time, but weight and injury problems derailed his career. He was back in Taiwan last season, and even though he’s still just 29 years old it seems as though his best days as a pitcher are behind him. BR Bullpen has a chronicle of his rise and fall.

Some pretty good MLB players signed to play in Japan while the players were still striking in 1995: Shane Mack, Kevin Mitchell, Julio Franco, Darrin Jackson. Of course, Mitchell didn’t pan out, but the other guys did okay.

Alex Ramirez’s step-son, Alex jr, had been in Yakult’s farm system while sr was with the ichi-gun team. I didn’t realize that until about a week ago, jr had been with Kochi of the independent Island League.

Japanese Stories:

• Craig Brazell commemorated the birth of his son, Trot, with two home runs in Hanshin’s 9-3 win over Yokohama. Congratulations to the Brazell family!
• Lotte reportedly has some interest in bringing Julio Zuleta back to Japan. Why? Good question — he wasn’t effective his last few years in Japan, and he got himself released from his Mexican League team early in the season. Lotte team management says he would have to pass a tryout get a contract.
• Chris Aguila is headed back to the States at the end of the month and is almost certainly done with SoftBank. He only managed to hit .095 and hasn’t played at ichi-gun since May.
• Yomiuri is considering sending pitcher Norihito Kaneto among others to the Arizona Fall League this year. The team sent a couple of guys to play in the Dominican last winter.
• “Shaggy” Shugo Fujii has qualified for domestic free agency.
• It was a “draw”: Hisahi Iwakuma threw 149 pitches over 10 innings on August 25, but Hideaki Wakui threw 162 over nine. Neither pitcher figured in the decision, which Seibu took in a walk-off in the 11th. The winning Lions stormed the field, Taketoshi Gotoh wearing a mask that is supposed to resemble Barrack Obama.
• Javelin thrower Yukifumi Murakami is reportedly getting a little attention from NPB teams as a pitcher. He supposedly hit 152 kmph (95mph) on the gun in college but maxed out at 142 kmph (87mph) in a recent speed gun competition.

English Stories:

• Gen passes along a Sponichi report saying that Bobby Valentine is getting offers to manage in Korea.
• You know those ESPN commercials that make Buster Olney look like an undercover operative or something? It took me two or three times to figure out what he’s supposed to be saying on the phone in Japanese. It’s “Ichiro! My favorite outfielder!” (“Ichiro! Boku no sukina gaiyashu!”).

Daily Sports has comments from Yusei Kikuchi suggesting that he’s decided on beginning his pro career in Japan: “It’ll be after I consult with my parents and manager, but I’m thinking domestic. In the future I think I’ll go to the Majors if I can, but after building my strength domestically.”

There were some hints on Kikuchi’s direction in yesterday’s news, but it seemed like observers basically took his comments and interpreted what the wanted to hear (Gen comments on this as well). If this most recent revelation is true, I think it’s the right choice for Kikuchi. I’ll go into once the story is confirmed.

Koshien is over, and inevitably the media has turned the spotlight back to the injured Yusei Kikuchi, overshadowing the fantastic finale of the tournament.

Kikuchi has already commented on his future, but before we get to that, let’s take a glimpse into the world of the Japanese media. Check out the contrast between these two headlines, both featured prominently on Yahoo! Japan Sports:

Sports Hochi: “Hanamaki Higashi’s Yu Kikuchi Will First be a Star in Japan! ‘There Are Things Left to Do’.” (花巻東・菊池雄、まず日本の星になる！「やり残したものある」)

Sanspo: “A Japan-US Battle! Hanamaki Higashi’s Kikuchi Wants to go to The Majors” (日米争奪戦！花巻東・菊池、メジャー行きたい)

These two publications have distilled out very different headlines from roughly the same content. Sports Hochi is owned by the Yomiuri media conglomerate, the same corporation that operates the Yomiuri Giants, one of the NPB teams that has been after Kikuchi’s services. So they have a vested interest in a headline like that. Sanspo, on the other hand, is somewhat prone to sensationalism.

With that, let’s look at what Kikuchi actually said.

As quoted in Hochi: “if possible, I feel like I want to go (to the Majors) soon. But to go right away is a big risk. I could build a solid foundation in Japan. But it’s something I’ll consult with my manager and parents on and decide…”

Sanspo has the same statement, but followed by “I kind of think I’d like to become a poster boy for high school baseball. Tazawa-san’s self-belief is amazing.” Sanspo also adds, “I know that I’ve been regarded (by big league teams). I want to study the draft system. If I go to the US (now), it will be a problem when I come back to Japan. I want to study that area.”

And the last quote I’ll translate is this one from Hochi: “I finished high school baseball with an injury. It feels like I have unfinished business in in Japan.”

Both articles agree that Kikuchi will decide what to do in about a week’s time.

Meanwhile, Draft Reports compiled some data indicated that Kikuchi appears as a first-round pick candidate for every NPB team except the Giants, who remain locked in on Hisayoshi Chono. I’m not sure I buy that, Kikuchi is clearly a better prospect than Chono. Kikuchi has gotten attention from reportedly more than eight MLB teams, including the Cubs, Yankees, Giants, Dodgers, Braves, and Mets, with reports calling the Dodgers and the Mets the most interested.