NPB Tracker

http://www.npbtracker.com/data/jpでご覧ください。

Here’s a fun diversion from our usual business of Japanese baseball: the moribund Edmonton Oilers have signed Swedish forward Linus Omark away from the KHL. Edmonton drafted Omark in the 4th round back in 2007.

Despite a casual interest in European hockey, I first heard of Omark when everyone else did — last year when his creative shootout goal hit YouTube. I’ve seen more of Omark since, and he really is a clever player, and a lot of fun to watch. I’m looking forward to seeing how his game translates against more physical players on the smaller NHL rink. Here are some clips, enjoy!

My work on NPB Tracker has afforded me the opportunity to contribute to some top-notch baseball publications. I’d like to take a moment here to plug them:

• Rotowire.com: a couple months ago, I mentioned my contribution to Rotowire’s 2010 Fantasy Baseball Guide. I’ve also been providing subscriber-only player updates to Rotowire.com for about a year, and this season I have a spot on the Rotosynthesis blog. If you partake in fantasy sports, this is a great resource. My work can be found here.
• FanGraphs.com: I hope this introduction will be unnecessary, but Fangraphs has become perhaps the top destination for sabermetric analysis on the web. As with Rotowire, I recommend checking out the whole site, but here’s my author page.

It is my great pleasure to contribute to both of these sites, and I hope you’ll make them regular stops on the ‘Net.

We now return to regularly-scheduled programming…

Last weekend in Hiroshima, Yomiuri coach Takuya Kimura was hospitalized after collapsing during a pre-game “sheet knock” exercise. On April 7th (JST), he died of subarachnoid hemorrhaging. Kimura was 37 years old and was in his first season as a coach, having retired as an active player after last season.

Kimura finished his playing career with the Giants and started with the Fighters, but I’ll remember him best from his time with the Carp, where he played while I was living in Japan. He was an all-around solid player who played a number of positions well, a trait he become more famous for with the Giants. Daily Sports has a few photos, including one of him catching for the Giants in a game last September.

It’s been a rough year for NPB with the losses of Hiroyuki Oze, Shigeru Kobayashi, and now Kimura. Let’s hope that we won’t get any more of this type of news for a long while.

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-28: Hanshin Looking to Import More Pitching: The Central League season hasn’t e… http://bit.ly/ct0dbS #
• Darvish Offers First Hint at MLB Interest: Just as soon as I publish my latest “don’t expect Yu Darvish in MLB any… http://bit.ly/amMuG2 #
• Ichiro takes bp righthanded, hitting a rag ball. http://bit.ly/akwjpn #
• Opening Weekend Notes: Alright, so NPB is officially in season… here are some observations from the games this wee… http://bit.ly/dpslv2 #
• Ichinoseki Lands in Belgium: Remember Shota Ichinoseki, the Aomori University pitcher who looked overseas as a fal… http://bit.ly/dyuoZW #
• Stults' deal with Hiroshima: approx. $700k plus bonuses http://mainichi.jp/enta/sports/news/20100401k0000m050020000c.html #
• Hiroshima Adds Stults; Hanshin to Acquire Standridge: Eric Stults’ is indeed heading to Japan, with the Hiroshima … http://bit.ly/aHiudP #
• Darvish Responds: The always insightful passerby left a comment latest Yu Darvish post, pointing us to the heralde… http://bit.ly/ckMn6D #
• H. Takahashi has made the Mets' opening day roster, probably as a middle reliever. (according to Sanspo) http://bit.ly/9X7dV5 #

The always insightful passerby left a comment latest Yu Darvish post, pointing us to the heralded pitcher’s unfiltered thoughts on the latest round of MLB speculation. In a blog post titled “A Certain Sports Paper“, Darvish himself has responded to what Sponichi published.

Here’s my translation:

“I want to make a brief statement,

Recently, a certain sports paper is making noise about the majors or something, but that’s really unfortunate.

Basically my “climbing the staircase step by step” comment was about my technique. (even that writer understands)

It’s too bad it was doctored like that.

That’s all.

It’s unfortunate.”

I always welcome peer review of my translations, and this time is no exception.

I’m going to let this speak for itself for now.