In the 18 months that this site has been live, my content has consisted of:
news
scouting information
analysis
data
the occasional off-topic post about Japan, technology or hockey
It’s a new year and a great time to get a sense of what NPB Tracker readers are looking for, so feel free to let me know what you like best about the site.
As I’ve alluded to a couple of times, I returned last week from a trip to Japan (a brief moment of which was captured by Deanna). I haven’t gone into a lot of detail on my own background with Japan, but I began studying Japanese over 10 years ago in college, and lived in the Osaka area for a couple years in the early 00’s. Now that I visit on an semi-regular basis, I find my trips to Japan to be a blend of light culture shock and familiarity, depending on how long I’ve been away. This time, it’s been a busy three years since my last visit, and here’s what I noticed:
Japan’s mobile phone ecosystem is still way ahead of the US’s. Apple’s iPhone is available in Japan, and it’s a market leader, but there are far more competitive offerings from Docomo and au than we anything we have here in the States.
The Back to the Future II-ish Mitsubishi i has apparently been rolling in Japan since 2006, but I don’t remember ever seeing one on the road before this trip.
Despite its age, I saw a favorite car oddity of mine, Toyota’s WiLL vi, continuing to occupy Japanese streets.
After all these years, the more subtle differences are what catch me off-guard. It’s things like train ticket machines with animated characters that bow to you; the menus in coffee shops being placed on the counter, rather than posted behind the server; and placing your money in a dish rather than handing it to the cashier that really reminds me that I’m in a foreign country.
I fell asleep watching NHK’s Kohaku music program on New Year’s Eve. That show is meant to be a pretty big deal, but the live studio audience always looks bored to tears when they are shown on tv.
Daisuke Matsuzaka? “No good, too fat,” in the words of a distinguished baseball fan I happen to know.
We’ll return to regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow. And as an official announcement, I’ve joined Fangraphs, so look out for more there.
Patrick » 19 January 2010 » In mlb prospects » Comments Off on The Market for Takahashi
For the second year in a row, we have a lefthander named Takahashi looking for an MLB job. We could have had two, but Ken decided early in the offseason to return to Hiroshima. So here’s the latest on Hisanori:
Offer the weekend, multiple sources reported that Takahashi revealed that he had a major league contract offer, but didn’t say which team it was from. This report from Sports Hochi says that the Angels had been interested, but I think they may be overthinking Takahashi’s Hideki Matsui connection.
Sponichi just published a report saying that there’s a growing possibility that the Orioles will make Takahashi an official offer in the next few days. Baltimore has another former teammate, Koji Uehara, under contract.
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).