NPB Tracker

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Question for users of the NPB Live page: do all the channels work regularly? I only tend to watch on the weekends.

19 Year-Old Yuuki Karakawa is inching toward the status of being the face of the Chiba Lotte Marines. His voice will be used as the announcement inside the Keisei Shuttle Busses that run from the train stations to the stadium on game days.

From the spring of 2006, the Keisei Busses used voices of Chiba Lotte Marines, Bobby Valentine, Shunsuke Watanabe, and Toshiaki Imae. The face of the franchise each have their turns and now the baton will be passed to the young pitcher Karakawa.

Front office personnel states: “Not only this year’s record, but looking back from last years stats is a big part. He is a home grown player and we hope he continues to succeed.”

Teams can sometimes be hesitate in giving young players the spotlight too early in their career, but the Chiba Lotte Mariners seem confident that Karakawa will not be pressured, and will continue to make him the center of their marketing strategy.

Here’s an interesting rumor: Sanspo is reporting that Hanshin wants to acquire Seibu’s GG Sato. I would be pretty surprised if this happened, not only because I don’t know if Sato is expendable for the Lions or if Hanshin is willing to give up what it would take to him, but also because only Sanspo is reporting this. Sanspo is probably the most gossipy of the sports papers I pay the most attention to, so I’ve learned to take this type of news from them with a grain or two of salt.

Still, I’m putting it up here because it begs a question of my more knowledgable readers: has a “blockbuster” trade ever happened in-season in NPB? Of the very few recent in-season trades I can recall off the top of my head, none have involved regular players. Can anyone think of one?

Meanwhile, Craig Brazell has gone 6/14 in his first four games with Hanshin, three of which the Tigers have won. I got to see a couple of his at bats over the weekend, and looked remarkably comforable at the plate considering he was just off the plane and had been in the Northern League. Even been for Hanshin is that the Brazell replica jersey is flying off the shelves at the Koshien Tigers Shop. Of the 22 player jerseys available, only Brazell’s is selling out.

Sponichi has more on Kazuo Fukumori — according to their most recent report, the Rangers are going to bit the bullet on whatever they still owe the righty and release him outright. Assuming he clears waivers he’ll be free to negotiate with NPB teams. Sponichi is speculating that a return to Rakuten is likely, which makes sense as manager Katsuya Nomura has been complaining about his bullpen all season.

Junichi Tazawa appears to be adjusting nicely to American baseball, posting a 2.67 era with 63 strikeouts in 67 innings so far at double-A Portland. To get a little more insight into how Tazawa’s performing, I contacted Portland Press Herald sports writer Kevin Thomas with a few questions.

Kevin covers baseball for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. He first reported on spring training games for the St. Petersburg Times in 1978. He wisely moved to Maine in 1994 and now writes about the Portland Sea Dogs and Boston Red Sox—when he’s not coaching Little League baseball.

Kevin’s blog can be found on mainetoday.com.

Kevin Thomas: Very well. He makes very few mistakes with his pitches, meaning that he keeps the ball low. He is already one of the best pitchers in the Eastern League this year.

KT: He said the windup helped his fastball, but he initially had trouble staying consistent with his breaking balls. But he seems to have adjusted and his commanding his breaking balls just fine.

KT: The way he stays poised no matter the situation. In fact, he seems to get better with runners on base.

KT: All pitchers at this level need to remain consistent. That said, he is mixing up his pitches very well, throwing the fastball for strikes, and setting up his slider, curves and split-finger.

KT: The Red Sox have several good starting pitchers in the minors, including Clay Buchholz and Michael Bowden in Triple-A Pawtucket. I would rank Tazawa right behind them, and I expect he will join them this season in Pawtucket.

NPBT: Thanks Kevin!

日本語翻訳中

Hideki Irabu won his first appearance for the Long Beach Armada, striking out six in six innings.

Reports out of Japan put his hardest fastball at 92 mph, and Sanspo has plenty of pictures if you’re interested.

Randy Johnson won his 300th game on Thursday, proving everyone who said we wouldn’t see another 300 winner after Tom Glavine wrong.

Lets look back at Johnson’s phenomenal career through his appearances in the old US-Japan Nichibei Series, which used to take place in November of even-numbered years.

1990

Johnson vs. Hiromitsu Ochiai

Johnson vs. Koji Akiyama

Johnson vs. Akinobu Okada

Interestingly, Ochiai and Akiyama are now managing NPB teams, and Okada ran Hanshin for five years. Note that Johnson is pretty wild here, and is inconsistent with his follow through. Still, none of the hitters look good against him.

Now let’s fast forward ten years, to 2000.

2000

Johnson vs Hideki Matsui

Johnson vs Tsuyoshi Shinjo

Johnson vs Norihiro Nakamura

Interestingly, all of these guys played in the majors in the years following this series. Johnson looks a lot more mature as a pitcher and a lot more fluid with his mechanics. He made Shinjo look like a fool in that at bat, though Shinjo was actually pretty good overall in the series.

Remember Kazuo Fukumori? Kinda? The other day I stumbled across a Chunichi report on his whereabouts from a couple weeks ago.

The inconsistent righty has failed to make much of an impression with Texas, and according to the report, now the Rangers are looking to send him back to Japan. Texas GM Jon Daniels was quoted as saying “we’d like to transfer Fukumori’s rights to a Japanese club. We’ve already communicated the direction we’re taking to Fukumori through his agent”. Daniels reportedly shopped him to other MLB teams but couldn’t find any takers. I don’t think he’ll have much better luck from NPB teams unless Fukumori can prove he’s healthy.

According to the same report, Fukumori is training in Arizona. He’s coming back from a herniated disk that he had operated on last autumn. 

In other news, Seibu is looking for bullpen help with closer Alex Graman on the shelf. They’ve been looking at US minor leaguers and are sending someone to Korea this month to look at prospects. I suppose Fukumori could be a fit if he’s healthy.

Fan Voting for the Mazda All-Star Game 2009 has begun. Fans are able to vote online, at ballparks, in convinience stores, at Ticket PIA booths, in about 200 book stores around Japan, and at one of the 69 service areas on highway roads. Voting is open until June 21st.

The games will take place on July 24th and 25th with the first game at the Sapporo Dome (home of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters) and the second game being at the new Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium (home of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp). There will be a home-run derby event before each of the games and fans will be able to vote on the players participating in the derby as well.

Restrictions have been put in place in recent years due to an unfortunate problem in the fan voting system which occured in 2003 known as the Kawasaki Matsuri. An online movement to vote for injured player Kenjiro Kawasaki made him the number one vote getter in the Central League ahead of then Hanshin Tigers ace Kei Igawa. Because of this incident, the All-Star voting has been restructured and now registration is required to vote online. Some rules fan who may be voted on have been included, such as pitchers who have pitched more than ten innings and appeared in five or more games, and fielders who have appeared in more than ten games with at least twenty at bats.

Besides from the fan voting and managers’ votes, the players have a say in the All-Star game as well. Players are able to vote who they would like to play with or who they would like to see in the event. Players and coaches are not allowed to vote for players on their own teams.

The practice uniforms for the All-Star Game has been introduced. The two colors of red and blue both demonstrate the home colors of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the two home teams hosting the 2009 All-Star Games.

Here’s maybe a minute’s worth of entertainment. Should be playable whether you can read Japanese or not. Just click ‘game start’ to play and then left click to swing.