NPB Tracker

Update: Added some details from Nikkan Sports.

Sanspo has gotten a hold of Yusei Kikuchi’s meeting schedule over the rest of the month, leading up to the draft. Here’s the breakdown:

Oct 16: meetings with Hanshin, Seibu, and Orix
Oct 17: Chunichi, Yakult, Nippon Ham, Chiba Lotte, Hiroshima, Rakuten and others
Oct 19: begin meeting with MLB clubs
Oct 20: Cleveland Indians, others
Oct 22: conclude meetings

Nikkan Sports lists the MLB clubs stopping by as the Giants, Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Rangers, Mariners and Indians. With the 12 NPB clubs, that gives us a total of 19 teams that will meet with the young lefty. The Kikuchi camp appears to have accommodated NPB requests in some regards; the NPB teams are getting a chance to talk with him first, and Kikuchi himself will take part in the meetings rather than relying solely on Sasaki-kantoku. Kikuchi did not pander to the request of holding off meeting with MLB clubs until after the draft.

This is a pretty unusual situation in NPB, I can’t think of another draft prospect who’s been handled quite this way since the current draft rules were installed (maybe someone will remind me). It kind of makes me wonder if the NPB teams will collude to allow Kikuchi be drafted by the team that he wants to play for, just to keep him in the league.

The NPB regular season concluded in both leagues and the championship series will get under way Friday, October 16th JST. The Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, the winner of the Central League and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the winner of the Pacific League will get a bye during the first round.

The Chunichi Dragons and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows will square off in the first round of the Central League Championship series, and the Rakuten Golden Eagles versus the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks will match up in the Pacific League.

With the regular season in the books, the awards for each batting and pitching categories have been determined (Central League and Pacific League winners listed respectively):

Batting Average: Alex Ramirez, .322 (Giants) & Teppei (Golden Eagles), .327

Home Runs/RBI: Tony Blanco (Dragons), 39/110 & Takeya Nakamura (Lions), 48/122

Stolen Base: Kazuki Fukuchi (Swallows), 42 & Yasuyuki Kataoka (Lions), 51

ERA: Wei-Yin Chen (Dragons), 1.54 & Yu Darvish (Fighters), 1.73

Wins: Kazuki Yoshimi (Dragons)/ Shohei Tateyama (Swallows), 16 & Hideaki Wakui (Lions), 16

Strikeouts: Colby Lewis (Carp), 186 & Toshiya Sugiuchi (Hawks), 204

Saves: Hitoki Iwase (Dragons), 41 & Hisashi Takeda (Fighters), 34

Another season of baseball in the books and now the fight for the Championship will begin. It was another exciting year of regular season baseball in Japan as the attendance rose five percent compared to the previous season and the Hanshin Tigers continued their winning ways at the gate, earning the top attendance record for five straight seasons.