Yusei Kikuchi completed his high school career and decision time is drawing near. He declared for pro turning in his draft application on October 5th, which he may start talking with teams from the following day. It was first believed he will only talk to couple MLB teams, but he changed his mind and has decided to talk with all teams that shows interest. Sponichi states Kikuchi’s side is planning to start talk with teams from the 13th Japan time. Manager Hiroshi Sasaki will be in charge of all talks as Kikuchi’s class schedule will not be able to create equal time availability for all teams. (for more, please see Yakyu Baka’s full article on Kikuchi’s press conference)
As more than 20 teams from NPB and MLB combined are thought to be interested, it is stated that he will start talking with one team at a time beginning with NPB teams. A Nikkan Sports article lists that NPB teams other than the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants (who have decided to go with Hisayoshi Chono) and Baystars, Carp, and Hawks are thought to be using their first-round pick for Yusei Kikuchi.
MLB teams listed in the same article that are believed to be interested are the Dodgers, Yankees, Giants, Cubs, Braves, Twins, Mets, Mariners, Rangers, Indians, Tigers, and the Phillies. The list seems to be growing every minute.
A big decision which could change the structure of amateur baseball in Japan is in Kikuchi’s hands. This is just the first stage of his decision… NPB or the MLB. After following this story for until now, my big decision at the same age to come to the United States for undergraduate studies seems just a little bit lame.
Hiroshima’s most recent loss eliminated the team from playoff convention, thus preventing manager Marty Brown’s automatic one-year extension clause for making the playoffs from kicking in. So Marty is done after the season, and next year the Carp will be managed by former shortstop Kenjiro Nomura.
Marty spent four seasons running Hiroshima, a time that saw the Carp generally more competitive than Yakult and Yokohama but still unable to crack the A-class. I thought the Carp were on their way up after finishing 69-70-5and missing the playoffs by two games last year, but they were not able to sustain that performance this year.
This is purely speculation on my part, but I could see Marty returning to the Cleveland organization, where he managed at 3A prior to joining the Carp.
Yusei Kikuchi’s Hanamaki Higashi has lost in the Kokutai Tournament, so now it’s time for the coveted young lefty to make what is certainly the biggest decision of his life to this point. Kikuchi has kind of gone back and forth with his decision, and the media has collectively interpreted his words however they’ve wanted to, so we don’t really have any more of an idea what he wants to do they we did a month ago. To me he seems like a normal 18 year-old kid who isn’t quite sure what he wants to do. I’m glad I wasn’t an international media subject when I was 18.
Having said all that, Kikuchi’s manager Hiroshi Sasaki was quoted in Nikkan Sports the other day as saying “I think he’ll make Japan his main choice and listen on the Majors”. Per the above paragraph, I’ll take that with a grain of salt, but there has been some talk of Kikuchi declaring eligible for the NPB draft and still negotiating with MLB teams. I have to think that MLB teams would back off if he gets drafted.
It’s been widely reported in the Japanese media that over 10 MLB teams have watched Kikuchi. I’ve actually kind of lost track of all of them, but the Texas Rangers seem to be among the most interested.The Rangers have been scouting Kikuchi since the spring, and had Asia Pacific scout Jim Colborn present at the Kokutai to watch him. Sponichi quotes Colborn as saying, “this last tournament is ending, and I would definitely liked to ask Sasaki if I could meet with him. For that, we can prepare an offer. Team president Nolan Ryan is of course watching video of him. He also wants Kikuchi to become a member of the Rangers” (translation of a translation). Remember that Texas also had the top dollar offer for Junichi Tazawa last year.
Aside from that, the newest interested party I’ve seen that hasn’t cropped up in the US media yet is the Astros. Sponichi again quotes Ed Wade: “I hear he’s 50/50 on coming to the Majors. If it turns out that he wants to come to the majors, we’d look into acquiring him.”
Here’s a developing story: a couple of weeks ago, a baseball source indicated to me that Dominican prospect Rafael Depaula is considering starting his professional career with a Japanese club. Depaula is considered a top prospect, but the rub is that he’s currently barred from signing with an MLB club due to irregularities found in his age investigation.
Depaula, 17, is a righthanded pitcher who compliments a mid-90’s fastball with a change up and slider. A brief video of him shows clean mechanics, and a commentor at River Ave Blues was kind enough to hand-translate a Spanish-language article about him (or you can check out the machine-translation). I asked Ben Badler about Depaula’s status as a prospect, and he confirmed to me that he would command a healthy bonus even if turned out to be older than 17.
So is Japan a viable option for Depaula? Aside from the foreign player limit hurdle (which is significant) I don’t see why not. The Hiroshima Carp have certainly brought a number of guys over from their Dominican Academy, and we’ve seen the Giants have some success developing Wirfin Obispo. Yakult also occasionally bring young players over from Brazil, though we have yet to see any of them really stick with the top team. And we do see NPB teams go toe-to-toe with MLB clubs over top amateur talent from Taiwan.
This story has the potential to become an interesting counter-point to the Yusei Kikuchi situation. We’ll keep an eye on it.
I’ve interrupted my self-imposed hiatus to launch my Data project into Beta. You can check it out at www.npbtracker.com/data. This is a beta release, so expect more functionality to come over the next few months, and don’t be shy about reporting problems and making suggestions.
As mentioned a couple months ago, Yu Darvish has made his appearance on CNN and fans are able to watch and read his feature online. There are three segments to the clip touching on his on-field presence and off-the-field personality. He also answers the question that everybody in the baseball world wants to know, will he come to the Major Leagues?
Japanese players in the States tend to get caught in the midst of cultural and language differences, and their personalities frequently get overlooked. It’s great to see a player of Darvish’s caliber getting exposure outside of his on-the-field performance and fans getting a chance to know his personality. Within the last couple days, there were articles published on the personalities of Japanese players in the American media and it’s nice to see different sides of the players getting exposure in the American media. On that note, I recommend checking out these articles from the Boston Red Sox website: Sox set standard for Japanese players and from USA Today: Opposites Griffey, Suzuki click, bring glow to ’09 Mariners.
Japan ended its run in the 2009 Baseball World Cup finishing 2-5 in the second round. The United States remained the only undefeated team in the second round.
vs. Mexico: 9-2, Win
vs. USA: 4-2, Loss
vs. Chinese Taipei: 3-1, Loss
vs. Canada: 3-2, Loss
vs. Italy: 6-4, Loss
vs. Australia, 5-0, Loss
vs. Netherlands Antilles: 10-1, Win
The offensive leader of the second round  was OF Sho Aranami (Toyota) hitting .429 (6-14) with two doubles, five walks, and four runs scored playing in six games with four starts. He ranked 2nd in the second round with a .579 on-base-percentage. OF Ikuhiro Kiyota started in all seven games averaging .414 (12-29) with two doubles, HR, 5RBI, 3BB and 5R. He finished with the second most hits in the entire round.
The pitching remained consistent for Japan in the second round posting a 2.98ERA in seven games. The pitching staff of Japan struck out the most in the second round with 80. They held the opponents to .191 batting average. The defense showed their discipline with only three errors, the least in the round in seven games. RHP Tomohisa Ohtani (Toyota) was impressive with a 0.71ERA throwing 12.2 innings and allowing eight hits, a run and a walk with 12 strikeouts. LHP Atsushi Tanaka (Panasonic) ranked 2nd with 16 strikeouts posting a 2.38ERA in 11.1 innings pitched.
The tournament will continue with eight teams remaining and the schedule can be seen here.