Baseball in Japan & Around the World
Remember Chris Resop? The Jiji Press reports that he’s left the Hanshin Tigers and returned to America to recover from pain in his right (throwing) elbow. He doesn’t have immediate plans to return to Japan.
Resop signed a deal through the end of the 2009 season with Hanshin in June of 2008. He hasn’t pitched for the top team at all this year and is unlikely to get another shot with the Tigers.
I’m finishing up a post on Daisuke Matsuzaka’s very public bust-up with the Red Sox front office, but it’s not quite done yet. For now, here’s a translation of Matsuzaka’s latest comments for the Nihongo-impaired.
On finishing up his discussion with the front office
We’ve had exchanges on the phone but it was good to be able to meet face to face. Our misunderstanding has been resolved. Going forward I’ll be able to train thoroughly. We’re certainly going in a good direction.
On meeting with the pitching coach (John Farrell) for over one hour
Because I the environment I grew up in was in a different culture, our opinions were bound to collide. Until now, we’ve had meeting on top of meeting to get to a good answer. While we’re both holding ill feelings, we won’t be able to combine our strengths, and I don’t think I can take the mound under those circumstances. It was a huge relief.
Going forward
I don’t know how long I’ll remain in Fort Myers (camp grounds) but I’m feeling good. Although I don’t like stretching this out, I want to train without rushing, and supress my desire to return soon.
On the lessons taken from this incident
I thought I understood (American) culture, but I didn’t really. I want to communicate more with various people. Not just about baseball, I have a lot to learn about personal matters.
The Hanshin Tigers will be looking to expand their player search to the Dominican Republic, where opponents such as the Chunichi Dragons and Tokyo Yomiuri Giants have had recent success finding sukketo. The Tigers have had trouble with their recent sukketo acquisitions and will revamp their international scouting in hopes of finding the next Tony Blanco (Chunichi) or Wirfin Obispo (Yomiuri).
Adding younger players from the Dominican will be a cost effective strategy in the long-run, as Wirfin Obispo was signed as an ikusei player earning close to the league minimum. Developing ikusei players could allow the Tigers to avoid spending hundreds of thousands to millions to a risky veteran players, only to have them fail to meet expectations. Kevin Mench is a recent example of this.
The Tigers have already researched the strategy of their rival teams and they have been sending scouts to the United States for next season. If they decide to go the Chunichi way of developing players, the Tigers might be sending players to the Domican Winter League. In recent years, the Tigers have been sending their young players to the Hawaii Winter League, but since the league dissolving the Dominican Winter League would make sense as an alternative.
Another strategy for investment is developing a Tigers Academy similar to the one Hiroshima has developed, or strengthen an existing relationship with by investing in its facilities and operations. The Tigers had attempted to build a path in Dominican Republic with their acquisition of Esteban Yan in the 2006 off-season. The Tigers should be in search of new ways to compete and not fall into the vicious circle that kept them in a ten year drought of lower-division finishes in Central League between 1993 and 2002.
Looks like the Cardinals have cut bait on lefty Katsuhiko Maekawa. Maekawa was ineffective in 39 3A innings, walking 32 batters against 33 strikeouts.
The Cards pulled Maekawa off the scrap heap after an uninspiring career in Japan and problems with the law.
With the success from Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters’s Konkatsu Seat, a second team, the Chunichi Dragons will attempt to follow the trend hosting a Konkatsu event in mid-September. The team will partner with a travel agency and a wedding reception company to organize the event, “Chunichi Dragons de Konkatsu.”
The Dragons will take another step in thier Konkatsu event partnering with different organizations and make it a full day event. Participants will be taken to a wedding reception room from Nagoya Station on a bus for ice breakers before the game. The party will be headed to the ballgame afterwards with a similiar program to the Fighters’s event, and after the game the event will head back to the wedding reception room with the popular mascot Doala joining as well.
Surveys will be given to the participants beforehand to match people with similar interests, favorite players, and their personalities to make this a successful event. Teams following the act will do the best to “differentiate” from the previous ones and with two teams creating a konkatsu event for thier fans more may follow to join the trend. The game of baseball has come a long way in Japan, but who would’ve thought that it would be a place where a future couple meet? I have to give props to the Nippon Ham Fighters for making the first attempt and succeeding in starting a new trend that may continue.
If interested people may be able to apply here.
It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve actually written about baseball. Let’s get up to speed with a few bullet points.
Japanese Stories:
English Stories:
Junichi Tazawa is getting his first start at Fenway Park — though it might not be what you think. According to Sponichi, Tazawa will get the call for Pawtucket in Futures at Fenway, a 3A game the Red Sox hold annually at the MLB stadium. The game will be on August 8.
Tazawa was quoted as saying, “being able to pitch at Fenway Park will be a good experience. I’ll probably be nervous but I’m looking forward to it”.
“K” signs and boards are commonly seen at ballparks around the United States, but until now, uncommon in Japan. NPB fans will be able to see the same at Fukuoka Yahoo Dome starting this week. The board will be placed along the first base line and a “K” will be added every time a SoftBank Hawks pitcher records a strikeout. Surprisingly this will be the first time an NPB team has permanently placed a “K” board.
A SoftBank spokesperson states, “Batters are able to receive an award (hitting an advertisement board/ceiling), so we decided the pitchers should be able to obtain something as well.” If a pitcher breaks the team record set on April 6th, 2008 by Shota Ohba recording 16 strikeouts in a game, the pitcher will receive 100-man yen ($10,000) worth of gift certificates.
In the first half, the SoftBank Hawks led the league with 657 total strikeouts. If strikeout shows by pitchers increase that should bring a positive for a team staying in the playoff spot and be a spice for some individuals. Ohba states, “100-man yen is pretty big. Of course I will go for it.”
If the prize acts as an incentive for high-strikeout performances, we can expect that to have an effect on a pitching staff aiming to keep its team in a playoff position.
Compared to the many moves and much rumbling near the MLB trade deadline, the deadline in NPB ended quietly. There was a total of one trade during the 2009 season which was Taiyo Fujita being traded from Hanshin to Seibu for Keisuke Mizuta, a minor move where both teams filled supporting roles.
The numbers after the trade…
As you can see from the numbers both players have made minimal impact with their new teams. Rather than teams looking to add the last piece for a championship run near the deadline in the MLB, it’s more of two teams allowing their player to join a team with more possibilities. More teams look to add a suketto as seven foreign players were added by teams since the 2009 season started. However they tend to give chances to players that have already experienced the NPB culture as they feel comfortable adding an experienced player during mid-season where time for adjustment is limited.
Some players added during in-season…
The number of teams might limit the number of trades in the NPB (12 compared to MLB’s 30), but a culture of trading players are relatively new and there has been limited number of “blockbuster” trades in the league. The one that comes up to mind is a swap between Hayato Terahara for Hitoshi Tamura, a trade between a former first-round draft pick and a home run king.
The trade deadline is a big event for everybody involved in the MLB and headlines evolve daily with rumors and potential deals. It creates stories and news that people talk about around the water coolers and peoples’ interest increases during the period of time. It should not be a bad thing for the NPB if people start engaging talks about the game and trades becoming more of a common business. However the difference in the culture of the games allows the transactions after the season starts to be limited and with only 12 teams and six of them facing each other about 20 times a season, it’s extremely difficult for teams deal players that might hurt them in the future.
Norichika Aoki is being moved from center to left field due to the poor defense of the team in the last two games. The Tokyo Yakult Swallows have the least errors in NPB, but committed three errors during their last two losses. Manager Takada states, “We have been pretty good defensively, but the defense miscues hurt. So do the misses which will not be recorded on paper.”
Manager Takada quotes regarding Aoki, “It’s not worth commenting. Not hitting the ball well could affect the defense. He usually does not emotionally commit himself to defense, but he needs to do his job. He is a player that is capable of doing it.”  After the game, the decision was made immediately to move Aoki to left from field.
This will be the first time Aoki will start a game in left during the season. In his rookie season, he came in to play the position twice and also played the position in seven of the nine games during the World Baseball Classic. An in-season conversion is rare and manager Takada says, “It might be a good thing for him mentally.”
The anger of the manager reached to a point where he changed the position of the team leader and we shall see if the manager pulling the trigger three games into the second half of the season will have a positive effect on the team. Aoki is hitting .308 (4-13) with HR, 3RBI and 2R in the first three games in the post All Star break. The Tokyo Yakult Swallows are currently in 3rd place trailing the league-leading Tokyo Yomiuri Giants by 4.5 games.
