NPB Tracker

I touched on the ikusei (training) system at the end of my 2009 NPB Team Payroll Ranking piece, but how exactly does that system work?

The number of contracted players each NPB team is allowed to carry on its roster is 70. Previously, if teams wanted to carry more than 70 players, they invited players as practice players (players who could not participate in regular season games, but were allowed to practice with the team). However the system came to an end when teams were using the system to their benefit and inviting as many promising players as possible.

After the the system was discontinued, NPB teams were in need of another development system, with the number of amateur teams and industrial league teams diminishing and players losing opportunities to play.  That is how the ikusei player system was born. So let me touch on how the ikusei player system works…

• Teams with more than 65 players on the books are allowed to utilize the system
• Ikusei players are only allowed to participate in a Ni-gun(Minor League) game and only five players per team are allowed to play
• Ikusei players may change status to a contracted player by end of July, but foreign players over the age of 26 are only allowed to transfer by the end of March
• Ikusei players will wear a three-digit number and if the status changes, the player also needs to change its number to a one or two-digit number
• Ikusei players may be included in trades until the end of July

Since the establishment of the ikusei system there have been couple success stories…

• The first ikusei player to play in a NPB game was Michitaka Nishiyama of the Softbank Hawks
• Tetsuya Yamaguchi (Pitched for Japan in WBC 2009) of the Yomiuri Giants earned the first victory as a player coming from the ikusei player system
• Former Major Leaguer Norihiro Nakamura signed with the Chunichi Dragons as a ikusei player in 2007 and finished the season as the MVP of the Japan Championship Series
• 29 year-old Yuuki Tanaka, who signed as an ikusei player with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows was promoted on May 11. The winner of 23 career NPB games will be attempting his comeback after being released by the Orix Buffaloes in 2008
• Hayato Doue, who had signed with the Red Sox prior to 2008 but couldn’t get a work visa, is currently with the SoftBank Hawks after being promoted from an ikusei player at the start of the 2009 season. Doue was taken with the last pick of 2008 ikusei draft

Currently there are 49 total ikusei players on the 12 NPB teams, with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants having 12 under contract (As of May 12, 2009).

Little known fact: other than baseball the sport I follow most closely is ice hockey. And although my current home team, the San Jose Sharks, choked miserably in the playoffs again, my original hometown team, the Chicago Blackhawks, has qualified for the Western Conference Finals. So now is a great time to remind my fellow hockey fans that the Blackhawks have one of the best team songs in all of sports — Here Come the Hawks. You can get the mp3 of the regular version here and the instrumental here.

Here’s what the Yankees saw when they watched Yu Darvish last week.

Note that this velocity chart is in a groovy new javascript format. I’m hoping to add some interactivity to it over the next couple of weeks. This one is kind of the proof of concept, once I see that things are working I’ll jump back on to my schedule. I’ve looked at this chart in Firefox and Chrome, but not much in IE, so if anyone sees any issues please let me know.

Update: hover over each object on the chart and enjoy the effects.

This is a call for expertise from NPB Tracker readers. I’m interested in learning more about the following two topics:

• the current state of baseball in Brazil
• the Netherlands’ Honkbal Hoofdklasse league

I don’t know of any English-language resources, except for the excellent mister-baseball.com for the latter topic. If any readers out there know about these topics and wouldn’t mind sharing your knowledge with the site, please leave a comment or shoot me an email at npbtracker@gmail.com.

Sports Hochi ran a piece the other day saying that the Yankees had three scouts watching Yu Darvish make his shortest start of the season, a seven-inning performance in Nippon Ham’s 10-1 win over Orix. Darvish didn’t have his best stuff, topping out at about 91mph, but still held the Buffaloes to one run on four hits.

Obligatory repeating of myself: Darvish is five years away from free agency and has repeatedly denied any interest in moving to MLB. I find it interesting that that doesn’t stop the scouts from watching him though. The Yankees sent Gene Michael to Japan last year to check him out, so they’re obviously interested in acquiring him down the road. Maybe this persistance will pay off.

Let’s take a look at how actively teams are spending on foreign players. Each NPB team is allowed to only have four foreign players on its 25-man roster, but there is no organizational limit on foreign players. Many teams choose to hold more, and allow them to compete for a roster spots. As you can see in the rankings, many teams are unable to maxmimize the foreign player slots on their 25-man roster.

Out of 39 foreign players on NPB 25-man rosters, 13 have previous experience in Japan with a different team. In-season additions like Jose Ortiz for the Softbank Hawks and Scott McClain by the Hiroshima Toyo Carp are two recent examples of this,  showing how teams are more likely to take a risk on a player that knows Japanese baseball rather than looking for new talent overseas.

 

 * NPB rosters as of May 6, 2009

I’ve come across several news sources saying that former Chiba Lotte Marine Ryohei Tanaka has signed a minor league deal with the Orioles. I find this strange as the news was widely reported during the offseason. I guess it’s official now.

The only one that offers any new information is this Mainichi report that says that Tanaka will spend May at the Orioles’ extended spring training facility in Sarasota, and then join 1A Aberdeen in June.

Ken Takahashi put up a good line in his MLB debut:

Mets fans — how’d he look?

My profile on Takahashi can be found here.

This is pretty good — Tom Hanks is going to throw the first pitch at Yomiuri-Chunichi game on May 8th at the Tokyo Dome. Hanks commented, “I’ve loved baseball since I was a kid. I’m really looking forward to meeting the WBC winning manager, Tatsunori Hara. I’m going to try to throw a strike right down the middle” (translation of a translation). Hanks will be in town to promote the Japan release of Angels and Demons.

If the stars align you’ll be able to check out the game right here on NPB Tracker.

Note: the 2014 revision of this post is here.

What great timing — just after we published the 2009 NPB Payroll Ranking, the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association announced their 2009 average salary numbers. The 738 players’ (not including foreign non-union players other than Chen Weiyin from the Chunichi Dragons) average salary for the 2009 season amounts to 3793K yen, which is 4.5 percent higher than the previous season.

The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants lost the top spot after holding the highest average salary for 14 consecutive seasons. The Hanshin Tigers earn the crown for the first time since the numbers began being published in 1988. The reason for Tigers reaching the top is that they have the highest Japanese paid player in Tomoaki Kanemoto and the main players on the roster earning at the 2M range. The runner-up is the Softbank Hawks and, suprisingly, in third place is the Yomiuri Giants. The Hiroshima Toyo Carp are in the last spot for the second year in a row. As most foreign players are not included in these numbers, it’s really the average payroll for the Japanese players on each team.

* Note: these figures have been converted to US Dollars on May 3rd.