According to a baseball source, righty Juan Morillo has signed with a Japanese team. I don’t have confirmation on which one, but the Hanshin Tigers are known have had him near the top of their shopping list. After the rumors initially broke, Minnesota added Morillo to their 40-man roster, seemingly keeping him away from NPB, but there was some speculation in the Japanese press that the Twins were trying to drive up their transfer fee.
One of the fringe benefits Hanshin trying to get out of bringing in Kenji Johima is some additional scouting intelligence on pitchers in MLB organizations. Aside from Jeff Williams, Hanshin’s only sustained import success over the last several years has been righty Scott Atchison, who is leaving the team this offseason. After Atchison, Jerrod Riggan was good while he lasted and Darwin Cubillan had his moments, but that’s pretty much where it ends.
Sports Hochi Osaka has a list of candidates Hanshin is looking at, compiled presumably with Joh’s input:
Ryan Rowland-Smith
Chris Jakubauskas
Bobby Keppel
DJ Carrasco
I can’t believe that the Mariners would move Rowland-Smith, but Hanshin has the right idea with him. Carrasco spent a year in Japan with SoftBank and didn’t have a favorable experience, so I’d be surprised if he came back. Jakubauskas and Keppel sound about right.
Sanspo adds a few more names to the list, most of which we’ve seen before:
Brad Thomas
Juan Morillo
Jo Jo Reyes
Wil Ledezma
Charlie Haeger
The only new name on this list is Haeger, who is an interesting candidate. We don’t see a lot of knuckleballers in NPB.
In related news, Hanshin has announced that they are cutting ties with Jeff Williams, Scott Atchison, Kevin Mench and Aarom Baldiris, while moving to retain Craig Brazell and Kai-Wen Cheng. None of this is really news either, except that Williams has come out and said that he wants to return to the team after rehabbing for the next year. He’ll be about 40 if he can return in 2011, but here’s hoping he can come back and end his career properly.
Patrick » 05 November 2009 » In nichibei » Comments Off on 1934 All American Asian Tour
Little-known fictitious fact: today, November 5, is the date in 1955 that Marty McFly travelled back to. So with today being a footnote in fictitious history, I thought it was a good time for a post on some real history.
Rob Fitts, author of Remembering Japanese Baseball and Wally Yonamine’s biography, has just kicked off a new project, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the tour that brought Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and American spy Moe Berg to Japan. Over the next month, Rob will be chronicling the all-star tour, day by day as it happened in 1934. I’m looking forward to the November 20th entry, which should cover Eiji Sawamura’sfamous performance against the American stars.
The Chiba Lotte Marines have reportedly agreed to trade Naoyuki Shimizu to the Yokohama BayStars for pitcher Takumi Nasuno and catcher Shinji Ninuma.The trade has not yet been officially announced.
Shimizu is entering the second year of a two-year contract, and has an opt-out clause to pursue an MLB this offseason. He recently suggested that he’s still interested in testing the overseas market, and dismissed any possibility of leaving Lotte to sign with another NPB club. It will obviously remain to be seen how his contract will play out with a trade — does the out clause remain valid after a trade? And if so, will his preference for Lotte lead him to exercise it after being traded?
In any case, this trade looks like a salary dump for Lotte. I’m not high on Shimizu’s MLB credentials (think Kirk Saarloos), but he’s a decent NPB innings eater, and Lotte would not be getting equal value back in Nasuno and Ninuma. Lotte’s baseball club lost 2.8bn yen ($28m) in 2008, and had a stated goal of getting that number down to 1bn yen ($10m). Getting Shimizu’s 280m yen ($2.8m) for 2010 off the books along with Bobby’s salary will go quite a ways in reducing expenses, though the team will likely take a hit at the gates.
Sanspo is reporting on Hanshin’s import pitching shopping list, and is naming names. Tigers manager Akinobu Mayumi says that Hanshin is after two middle relievers and one starter, to fill in for the departing Scott Atchison and Jeff Williams.
The names we have are:
Adrian Burnside (recently released by Yomiuri)
Brad Thomas (two-year Japan veteran, had been in Korea)
Jo Jo Reyes (Atlanta Braves)
Wil Ledezma (Washington Nationals)
Juan Morillo (Minnesota Twins)
Bob Keppel (Minnesota Twins)
Burnside didn’t appear at all with Yomiuri’s top team this year, so you’d have to figure he’d be a low-risk, low-investment type of signing. Thomas probably fits into the same category.
Reyes is an interesting name. He’s still pretty young, and I had the impression that he was a decent prospect for the Braves at one point. Morillo, as I recall from his time with the Rockies, is a hard thrower with bad command. I don’t know much about the other guys.
Two guys I’d like to see get a shot in Japan, with Hanshin or elsewhere, are Lenny DiNardo and Bobby Korecky. I couldn’t understand why DiNardo didn’t get more of a look in Oakland, when I saw him I thought he could contribute in the bigs (though I didn’t realize he had such a troubling k/bb rate). And Korecky is a guy who I haven’t seen, but has performed consistently well in the minors but never gotten a real shot to last in MLB.
Yu Darvish returned after a nearly two-month layoff to pitch game two of the Japan Series. Though still not at 100%, he pitched well enough to win. The data we have shows that he relied more heavily on his curveball than usual, so let’s take a look at what adjustments he made in his delivery.
This is a very high quality video — the best I’ve seen on YouTube.
Now let’s take a look at some footage from earlier in the season, when he was healthy. The following are clips from Darvish’s July 15 start against the Hawks. I chose the July 15 game completely arbitrarily; I would have rather looked at footage from a more recent start but was unable to quickly locate any on YouTube.
As you can see, Darvish was a lot quicker to the plate in the July 15 game, and was landing harder on his front foot. Darvish also didn’t have that pause a the top of his windup, but he did use it later in the season.
Even without the pause, Darvish looked a lot more deliberate to the plate in game two, had a step back with his left foot, and was softer on his follow through than before. It looked to me like he was twisting his torso a bit more in game two as well.
It speaks to Darvish’s talent that he could come back after almost two months out, with altered mechanics, and shut down Japan’s top lineup.
Yu Darvish returning this season seemed unlikely couple weeks ago, but as time went on, the possibility of a start in the Japan Series become more evident. Darvish returned to the mound to start game two of the Series, and it was his first appearance in a game in 42 days. Given his long layoff, it was difficult to predict what type of shape he’d be in.
Even though Darvish had an extreme amount of time to practice, it was his first in-game situation since September, and the biggest stage of the year. Darvish showed why he is considered one of the best pitchers in the game, showing he can control a game without being 100 percent. He explained in an interview that he tried not to put too much strength toward his left foot and expanded his footing grip. His adjustment was to not to use his injured hip, and focus on using his arm to throw the ball.
Darvish quoted that he will be preparing to throw in Game 7 if necessary and that should be an exciting game if it happens.
The Giants took game one of the Japan Series last night, beating Nippon Ham behind a rather hittable Dicky Gonzales. This is another post I had meant to go to prior to the Series starting, but that’s the way things go some times.
So on to the scattered thoughts and observations…
If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that Gonzales would start game one of the Japan Series, I would have laughed pretty hard.
Deanna and Gen went to their usual levels of detail in covering game one.
Yu Darvish has been out of commission for quite a while now, but he it looks like he’s starting game two for Nippon Ham. Tetsuya Utsumi gets the call for the Giants.
I know a game has already been played so it’s too late to say this, but I like Yomiuri’s roster over Nippon Ham’s. I like Yomiuri’s depth in this series.
On the other hand, the last time Nippon Ham won the Japan Series (2006), Darvish was partnered at the front of the Figthers’ rotation by Tomoya Yagi, who won the Rookie of the Year award that season. After winning in ’06, Yagi promptly faded into injured-list oblivion, and Darvish became the best pitcher in Japan. This year, Yagi made a comeback, posting a 2.88 ERA in 122 innings, and Ham is back in the Series.
It’s interesting to see Nippon Ham playing Yomirui in the Series. Prior to Ham moving to Hokkaido, the Fighters shared the Tokyo Dome with the Giants, and seemed to be operating in Yomiuri’s shadow. It seemed like the Fighters used to frequently sign ex-Giants, but the only notable example I can think of is Hiromitsu Ochiai. Once the Fighters moved to Hokkaido and got out from under the Giants’ shadow, they got competitive.
I missed a chance to post on this earlier, but I’ll do so now — when Nippon Ham eliminated Rakuten from the Climax Series, it marked the (latest) end to manager Katsuya Nomura’s career. I wouldn’t call myself a Nomura fan, but he is certainly a character, and as such I suppose this picture of him putting away his uniform for the last time is a little sad. After Nippon Ham’s win, both sides honored Nomura with the traditional celebratory douage (click the link if you don’t know what that is). This is, I think, an important distinction for Japanese baseball from American baseball. Nippon Ham won the game and the series, and it was very much their day, but the winning players and Nippon Ham fans still celebrated Nomura after the game.
I don’t think I’ll be up to watch the game tonight, so if anyone checks it out on justin.tv, please click the ‘watch later’ link, and paste the url into a comment.
Nakamura wasn’t a high-profile draft prospect, so I headed over to Draft Reports to get the scoop on him. Nakamura has got a big frame at 195 cm, 89kg (6’5, 195lbs), and throws from a three-quarter delivery. His heater tops out on the gun at 149 km/h (92mph), but he mostly sits at about 140 km/h (86 mph) with both his fastball and slider. He also has a curve, forkball, and shuuto. Looking at his stats, he shown an ability to strike his college competition out, but walks have been an issue.
Sponichi says that the Indians’ goal is to get him in shape in Rookie Ball, and then give him a look at Single-A after a couple of months. An official contract is expected in November.
