Braves Sign Yamarin
The story of Yoshinori Yamarin, which I followed a bit around draft time last year, has come to a conclusion with the young pitcher signing a minor league contract with the Braves. Sanspo has the details in Japanese, complete with a picture of him in a Braves hat that appears to be two sizes too small. Yamarin went unselected in last October’s NPB draft, but reportedly reaches 92 with his fastball, and has some projectability at 6″1, 187. He’s certainly not nearly as polished as Junichi Tazawa, and will begin his Braves career in an instructional league in Australia.
26/01/2009 at 4:48 pm Permalink
Will the Braves get a Left Fielder out of Japan that possesses the 5 tools the Braves are seeking?
27/01/2009 at 11:43 am Permalink
Not this offseason.
27/01/2009 at 6:48 pm Permalink
Any sense of why NPB teams passed on him?
Seems worth drafting–did they avoid him out of Tazawa-esque fear he’d go to MLB anyway?
He’s going to be the first post-Tazawa player to suffer from the three-year ban recently voted on by NPB teams. Who’da thunk it would’ve happened so quickly?
27/01/2009 at 8:32 pm Permalink
NPB drafts only go for about 7 rounds (with 12 teams), and the league only has 1 minor league tier, so many potential pros go undrafted, and this is a major issue that NPB has to solve if it wants to retain domestic talent.
27/01/2009 at 8:56 pm Permalink
Actually it’s 10 rounds, but many teams don’t draft 10 players. Teams have an organizational roster limit of 70, so they will sometimes opt not to select players in the later rounds. Simon is correct that this is an issue for the competitiveness of NPB.
Yamarin actually preferred to play in NPB, and worked out in pre-draft camps last autumn, but there were no takers. According to this Hochi report, he’s getting a $20k bonus and $850/month salary, so they aren’t paying him like a blue chip prospect. I can’t imagine NPB actually enforcing the Tazawa ban on Yamarin, but who knows.