NPB Tracker

Junichi Tazawa is getting his first start at Fenway Park — though it might not be what you think. According to Sponichi, Tazawa will get the call for Pawtucket in Futures at Fenway, a 3A game the Red Sox hold annually at the MLB stadium. The game will be on August 8.

Tazawa was quoted as saying, “being able to pitch at Fenway Park will be a good experience. I’ll probably be nervous but I’m looking forward to it”.

Couple of player acquisitions to pass on here…

• Yokohama has picked up perennial non-roster invitee Stephen Randolph. Yokohama has been looking to add pitching all year, and tried to get Ryan Sadowski back in June. Randolph, who was born in Okinawa, has a 5.52 era in 155 career MLB innings. He hasn’t been effective at AAA this year.
• Hiroshima has signed pitcher Dioni Soriano to an ikusei contract. Gwynar found out that Soriano had been playing in the Island League this year. I wasn’t able to dig up much beyond that, but I did find his page on a Facebook clone. We’ll see if Dioni turns out to be as good as the last Soriano the Carp had.

With the player acquisition deadline nearing (July 31 JST), we should see one or two other acquisitions.

According to multiple sources out of Japan, Junichi Tazawa has been promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket and will make his first appearance with the team on July 29. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a September MLB call-up.

You can read up on Tazawa’s time in Double-A here.

So Aroldis Chapman has defected from Cuba. With all the hype around Chapman during the WBC, I thought a defection was inevitable, but I didn’t see it happening this year. It will take Chapman a little time to apply for asylum and set up a domicile somewhere, but we should see a bidding war emerge over the next couple months.

Prior to the WBC, I would have said that if Chapman were to defect this year, his contract offers would have exceeded the four-year, $32m deal that Jose Contreras got from the Yankees back in 2002. But now that we’ve seen him look mortal against Japan’s WBC lineup of contact hitters, learned that Cuban League numbers aren’t that great, and found out that he might be five years older than previously believed, I have my doubts. Chapman’s first MLB contract will make him a richer man than I’ll ever be, but I think his first MLB deal will make him only about $20m richer than me.

For another dose of reality on Chapman, I turn to Cuban baseball expert Peter Bjarkman, who wrote bearish article about Chapman after he defected:

Chapman definitely has his negatives, foremost among them a demonstrated lack of strike-zone control, a one-pitch arsenal, and an inconsistent Cuban League performance over four National Series campaigns. Hurling for a Holguín club that made this year’s post-season and has been largely a middle-of-the-pack outfit during Chapman’s tenure, the southpaw flame thrower has won only slightly more than half his decisions (24-21), though he did enjoy his best season (11-4 and a league-best 130 Ks in 118 innings) this past winter. He has twice topped the 100 K mark but never approached Maels’s record-setting standards. Chapman is definitely more a raw “thrower” than a savvy “pitcher” and numerous questions surround his abilities to master the finer details of his craft.

One of the things that makes this situation unique is that it’s happening post Information Revolution. Thanks to the Internet and WBC, we, as consumers, have learned more about Chapman than perhaps any other hyped Cuban defector. Will that help his market value? There’s no way we can really know for sure. I think we’ll see that the Internet hype will have the biggest impact on the fans’ expectations of him.

I’ve occasionally wondered why Japanese clubs don’t make more of a play for top Cuban talent. In theory, NPB teams should be able to go after Cuban players without them having to defect. Katsuya Nomura joked about this during the WBC: “we probably can’t get him (Chapman). Would it be okay to ask Castro?”.

Joking aside, Nomura actually has brought Cuban players to Japan: national team stars Antonio Pacheco and Orestes Kindelan played for him in the early 00’s on the Shidax Industrial League team. During the same period, Omar Linares played for Chunichi at the NPB level. The difference, of course, is that Chapman is young and entering his prime, which Pacheco, Kindelan and Linares were all winding down their careers. But still, none of the three had to denounce their Cuban citizenship and all were able to return to Cuba after playing in Japan.

So maybe this means we’ll get to see Pedro Lazo or Yulieski Gourriel in Japan at some point. I hope so, because it doesn’t seem like either one will ever defect, and I’d love to see what they can do at a higher level of competition.

In a blog post, Bobby Valentine has officially put the last nail in the coffin of any hopes that he’d return next year:

And most importantly, I came to feel that for me to leave the team at the end of the 2009 season is best for the Shigemitsu family and for the Chiba Lotte Marines, and so I wanted to make this announcement about the decision as soon as possible.

[…]

Please view this announcement as my determination to make Chiba Lotte Marines baseball fun once again, for our fans and for each member of the team. I have always felt victory was shallow–and true victory was impossible–if the attempt to gain it was not fun. This year has not been fun for anyone who truly loves the Chiba Lotte Marines, so I will make a renewed effort to make this 2009 season the most fun that it can possibly be, and one that we will all remember and cherish for our lifetimes.

(read the whole post here)

Why make this announcement now, given that the team has already announced that they aren’t bringing him back? I suppose this is a way for Bobby to make a statement on his own terms. It’s also a message that the fan-lead, grassroots efforts to convince Lotte management to bring him back probably aren’t going to work, and that he just wants to focus on baseball for the rest of the year.

Looks like Hideki Irabu is planning on hanging around beyond this season. According to Sponichi, the big righty is looking to continue his comeback in Japan and could join an independent league team as soon as September, after his Golden League season is over.

Irabu has put up a seemingly respectable 3.87 era in eight Golden League starts, and shown a fastball that has reportedly reached about 93mph with a hard forkball. Word is that his right knee, which caused him to retire in the first place, also isn’t bothering him.

Irabu’s agent, Don Nomura, has reached out to NPB teams including Irabu’s former teams Lotte and Hanshin, and Nomura’s stepfather’s Rakuten. An anonymous representive from an un-named team was quoted as saying “he wasn’t a match for the points we need to improve, but I felt his drive”. NPB has a player acquisition deadline of July 31, which essentially closes the door on him playing with an NPB club this season.

It’s interesting to see Nomura in the news again. Nomura has faded out of the spotlight in recent years, but he was once a Scott Boras-like figure who played a central role in bringing Irabu, Hideo Nomo, and Alfonso Soriano to MLB.

As Ryo mentioned in his report on Game 1 of the All Star series, Yu Darvish took a line drive off the bat of Alex Ramirez to the shoulder, and left the game after one inning of work. Sanspo has 1 2 3 pics of the aftermath.

While the rest of the All Stars headed down to Hiroshima for game 2, Darvish stayed in Sapporo to have his arm x-rayed and mri’ed, and was diagnosed with a bruised right (throwing) deltoid. According to Nippon Ham’s team trainer, there isn’t any internal bleeding and aren’t any broken bones, and he’ll resume playing catch as the pain subsides.

I’m participating in a fantasy baseball league this year, at the invitation of Tim Dierkes. It’s the first time I’ve tried fantasy baseball, and while the time I have for it kind of waxes and wanes, I try to look at it every day or two.

One of the guys I’ve had on my roster all year is Mark Buehrle. Today I logged into the fantasy site a bit later than usual, and noticed that Buehrle had a start today, but was on my bench. I quickly moved him into a starting position, and was rewarded with a perfect game. My only regret is that I didn’t see the game. I was off by a couple of time zones.

I’ve never gotten to see a no-hitter all the way through, even on TV. I came close when Jonathan Sanchez threw one a couple of weeks ago for the Giants, but was stuck at work. And those of you who joined me last weekend saw Hanshin’s Atsushi Nohmi take a no-no into the 7th, only to give up a single to Alex Ramirez. Maybe someday.

I first learned of Bruce Baskin’s World Baseball Today radio program and website when he left a comment on my post on world baseball from earlier in the year. I checked out the site and was immediately impressed by the breadth of the content. I contacted Bruce with some questions about the state of baseball around the world today, and he was kind enough to share his insight.

NPB Tracker: Can you describe your website, podcast and radio show?

Bruce Baskin: World Baseball Today has primarily been a radio program on Radio Miami International since 2007. WRMI is a 50,000-watt shortwave station that can reach listeners on all continents when weather conditions are right, and they’ve been running WBT Sunday mornings at 10:30 Eastern since Day One. The show is also repeated 2-3 times later in the week, depending on how their schedule goes. WRMI’s owner-GM, Jeff White, is president of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters, and he’s been super to work with. It’s been a really nice fit.

The WBT blog and podcasts have both been pretty ancillary, to be honest. Once I’m done producing the radio program and mp3 it to Miami, I’ll post the text on the blogsite and upload the program audio to the podcast site, although I’ve been having “issues” with Podbean, which is the server for the podcasts, and I haven’t been able to make the program available
for online listeners. Really kind of frustrating.

NT: What sources do you use to gather the information for your site? Do you have English-language sources for all these leagues?

BB: Most of my sources have been in English, although I do use Google translations from time to time… sometimes THOSE need translating as well. I go through MLB.com’s story archives for major league news, MILB.com for stories from the Mexican League and, surprisingly, the Caribbean winter leagues… they really cover those well. I’ve found BaseballdeCuba.com to be a good source for the Cuban National Series, although sometimes you have to do a little digging for stuff.

There are a lot of good sources for baseball in Asia: JapaneseBaseball.com, NPBTracker.com and JapanBall.com are all good for stories about the Central and Pacific Leagues, and JapaneseBaseball.com is a good starting point for news from South Korea and Taiwan, too. There are also three good blogs I use. EastWindupChronicle.com is a good one, and there’s also TaiwanBaseball.com and KoreaBaseball.com. I’ve found the Baseball Philippines website to be informative, although it’s a little incomplete and runs behind sometimes.

For European baseball, there’s a very good “one-stop” website called Mister-Baseball.com that I use almost exclusively for stories from the leagues there. It’s an absolute dream for anyone tracking all the national leagues over there.

NT: Where are we seeing baseball growing in popularity?

BB: I’m not sure there’s any one place where the game is really exploding, but it seems to be growing fairly quickly in Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Thailand have decent national teams, and I know there’s a lot of interest in building the game in Vietnam and Cambodia. I have to admit I was surprised at how well Pakistan and Sri Lanka did in the Asia Games earlier this year because cricket is THE big sport in both places. This is one region where baseball could do something in the next few years.

I think there’s a slow but steady growth in Europe, although soccer is by far the biggest sport pretty much everywhere. The two wins over the Dominican Republic by The Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic were huge for European baseball, but I’m not sure that’s translated into a growth spurt.

There are some MLB teams opening academies in Brazil, so that might be a place to keep an eye on, too. There are some great athletes down there.

NT: Conversely, the Internet is making information more available than ever before. Are we seeing an increase in interest in international baseball from American fans?

BB: I think there’s been some increase in interest, but Americans are pretty insular when it comes to sports and culture. For instance, sports fans will watch the biggest events, like soccer’s World Cup or Olympics basketball, but that hasn’t translated into those same people following English Premier League soccer or pro basketball in Spain or Italy, for instance. Generally speaking, if the USA isn’t directly involved in something, we don’t tend to pay attention.

The World Baseball Classic is potentially a terrific showcase for international baseball, but you seem to hear almost as much complaining and criticism of the WBC as you do praise among Americans. I’ve felt for a while that if the WBC were whittled down to a one-week midsummer tournament exclusively in American ballparks, interest would grow in it. Right now, it’s a little bit long for American fans, and having it during spring training seems to offend some people, including baseball people. I am no fan of Bud Selig, but I applaud his desire to see the WBC succeed. As a fan of the sport, I love the WBC.

NT: Where is the next source of international talent?

BB: There’s a lot of effort to develop talent in Europe, and I think we’re starting to see MLB teams get more involved with tryout camps and short-term academies over there. I’ve mentioned Southeast Asia as a potential breeding ground, and there’s plenty of room to grow the game in places like South America and the Indian subcontinent. The difficulty baseball faces right now is that in these countries, they’re dealing with raw athletes and not ballplayers because people don’t generally grow up playing baseball.

I’m very interested in seeing how those two young pitchers the Pirates signed out of India do, because that’s a country of over a billion people with a total mania for another bat-and-ball sport, cricket. Baseball and cricket are obviously two different sports, but they share some very basic elements.

I have to admit I’m not very optimistic about mainland China’s chances of becoming a baseball hotbed. There has been a lot of time, effort and money spent trying to develop baseball there, but it doesn’t seem to be catching on. They’re already demolishing the two stadiums used for baseball in the Beijing Olympics, and I don’t foresee the government getting behind the sport…and if the Chinese government ain’t behind something, it ain’t gonna succeed.

NT: What are your favorite leagues to follow as a fan?

BB: You know, I’ve kind of gotten into Baseball Philippines a bit over the past couple of years. The BP website is a little incomplete and inconsistent at times, and it was really hard to track them last fall, but I love the passion Jonas Terrado has in his game accounts. He cares, and it shows. I’ve enjoyed following guys like Vio Roxas, Vladimir Eguia and the Laurel brothers (Jay and Matt). The Philippines has a lot of potential in baseball. It’s a country with over 100 million people and baseball’s a fairly popular sport there. I’ve thought the American military presence there for so many decades should’ve led to baseball’s growth in the same way it’s grown in other countries we’ve occupied in the past, but it just hasn’t worked out.

Another place whose leagues I enjoy following is Mexico. Only place in the world where pro baseball is played year-round, and there’s a great history of the sport there. I spent two years writing about Mexican baseball online with a column called “Viva Beisbol,” and I was really surprised how popular it became. Overwhelmed, actually, because “Viva Beisbol” was just a creative outlet for me on the OurSportsCentral.com website and I had zero expectations in terms of public interest. However, there were about 6-7 other websites that picked it up and carried it, including the Mexican Pacific League’s official website. To this day, that’s probably the biggest honor I’ve ever gotten in writing or broadcasting.

NT: What’s next for World Baseball Today?

BB: Ironically, I’m getting back into Mexican baseball in August. I’ve decided to sort of revive “Viva Beisbol” as a radio program called “Baseball Mexico” on WRMI, and it will replace “World Baseball Today” on Sunday mornings.

It was a tough choice to make because I’ve had fun covering all the different leagues that are out there, but I’ve gotten frustrated because the nature of WBT has made it an “inches deep, miles wide” type of program. A lot of what I’ve been doing with WBT has been somewhat redundant because I’m giving out information already available to fans online, and my past experience with “Viva Beisbol” indicates a lot of interest among Americans in Mexican baseball, especially people in border states like Texas, Arizona and California.

This doesn’t mean I’ll stop following baseball in other leagues. I want to see who wins the Pacific League pennant in Japan, whether Puerto Cruz runs the table during the playoffs in Spain, and what kind of numbers Roberto Petagine ends up with in Korea.

NT: Thanks Bruce!

Seibu has officially announced the acquisition of Jonah Bayliss from the Blue Jays. He’ll wear number 42 in Saitama, and no financials were announced.