Draft Storylines: Results
The draft has come and gone, and thanks to a late night in the office I got to follow it live a little bit. I’m not going to write up the whole thing, because Deanna has already done an excellent job of that. Instead, let’s take a quick look at where the guys I’ve written about landed:
Hisayoshi Chono:Â Backed off his demand to be selected by the Giants at the last minute; was subsequently selected by the Chiba Lotte Marines. We’ll see if he signs.
Yi-Jie Hsiao: Selected by Hanshin with their first round pick. Hsiao was actually Hanshin’s third “first” choice, but they lost out on their first two.
Krissada Shirakura:Â Not selected. It’s on to the industrial leagues, or perhaps a pro league outside of Japan for Shirakura.
Son-Hyon Shin:Â Taken by Hiroshima in the fourth round.
Rafael Fernandez:Â As expected, snagged by Yakult with an instructional player pick.
Yoshinori Yamarin:Â Not selected, even as an instructional player. Will he sign a minor league deal with the Braves?
Hayato Doue:Â Drafted with Softbank’s final instructional round pick.
Junichi Tazawa: NPB teams respected his wishes not to be drafted. I thought someone might take a flier on him with a late-round pick, but it didn’t happen.
One unfortunate result of the draft is that the excellent Draft de Anbo site is down. The site slowed down to a crawl during the draft, so I guess they violated their host’s traffic policies. The site is still down, but I hope to see it back soon.
30/10/2008 at 10:09 pm Permalink
hey, thanks.
sorry I didn’t see your posts about the foreign players! I have no internet at home and pretty much won’t until I go back to America so I have had trouble keeping up with news and blogs. Good to find out more about them (I’ll correct the spellings and add the details when I have a chance, hopefully).
Yeah, I was a little sad nobody picked Tazawa just to spite him. If Chiba could pick Chono despite his “kyojin shika nai” attitude, why not? (BTW… I wonder if Bobby will try to work some of his Bobby Magic like he did with Ohmine-kun a few years back.)
31/10/2008 at 5:01 am Permalink
Yeah, I was a little sad nobody picked Tazawa just to spite him.
Not trying to be rude, but what difference would it made? All it would been is childish and not in the team or the player’s interest, as Tazawa has already made his intentions clear he doesn’t want to play in NPB at this moment and it be a wasted pick that could be used to further improve that team, isn’t that the whole idea of the draft?
31/10/2008 at 10:27 am Permalink
I kind of side with Deanna on this one. Since most teams drafted fewer than the maximum of 10 players, choosing Tazawa wouldn’t have been a wasted pick in that it prevented the team from drafting another player. I think it would have been worth considering, because you never know what’s going to happen. It’s probably better that he wasn’t drafted though, as now everyone can move on.
01/11/2008 at 4:27 am Permalink
I’m sorry that I’m so consistent on the Tazawa issue, but I’m only this consistent because this is what I believe in strongly. I believe that there is some teams out their would draft him to just spite him and some to help them. Also, I concerned that if a team drafts him and the establishment bashes him enough he’ll decide to stay out of coercion. Though if he stays that’s his predicament, but I feel it would be out of coercion. Finally, I agree its the best he wasn’t drafted so we didnt have to go through a long nasty process. Keep the good work, I really do love the blog despite my persistence on Tazawa.