NPB Tracker

I’m briefly stepping out of hiatus mode to pass along a tidbit that I heard this afternoon from an extremely reliable source. The Softbank Hawks, fresh off losing Brad Penny, offered Toronto $1m for the rights to sign righty Jesse Chavez, only to be rebuffed by the Blue Jays. The deal would have paid Chavez $3m over two years. I asked Chavez’s agent Paul Cobbe about the deal, but he only offered a “no comment”.

Chavez has bounced between 3A and the Majors since 2008. The Blue Jays have him in their 3A rotation, where he’s posting very solid numbers despite pitching for hitter-friendly Las Vegas.

I guess at this point, I’ll call a spade a spade. It’s been a month since I’ve been able to put together any content for the site, and it’s not clear when I’ll be able to again. I’m considering my writing activities to officially be on hiatus, with no particular timeframe in mind. NPB Tracker has had it’s schedule gaps in the past, but I’m pleasantly surprised that I’ve made it nearly four years without taking a serious break.

Happily, the things keeping me away from writing are good. Neither my motivation to write nor my enthusiasm for Japanese baseball has diminished. NPB Tracker will return; it could be weeks or months, but the site will be active again someday. And I’ll still be on Twitter.

For the third consecutive year, my friends at Rotowire invited me to contribute to their annual Fantasy Baseball Guide. Given my schedule constraints over the offseason, my Rotowire article wound up being the most complete analysis of all the Japanese MLB newcomers for this season.

Of the three articles I’ve contributed to Rotowire, I think this one is the best, so I hope you’ll check it out. Rotowire’s 2012 Fantasy Baseball guide is on newsstands across the US now, or can be purchased online.

Time for a little scrutiny.

Following his spring debut, Yu Darvish made the following comment about the double he surrendered to Padres outfielder Will Venable:

　－－二回に大きな当たりを打たれた。

「乾燥も風もある。普通より伸びているが、そんなに捉えられたという感じはしなかった」

Note that that comment is in Japanese.

The hit in question was a long double, which Venable hit off the center field batter’s background at the Padres facility in Peoria. I didn’t see the game, but have been to that stadium and that would have been a well-hit ball. Here’s the official translation.

“The air is dry in Arizona and the wind was blowing out, so no, I don’t think he hit it squarely.”

This raised an eyebrow or two, including Venable’s.

It’s easy for me to say how I would have translated that, because I’m sitting here in front of a laptop thinking about it. I’m not sure if I would have come up with the right thing to say on the spot, in front of 150 reporters. Actually it’s totally reasonable to assume I would have made numerous mistakes in that situation.

Nonetheless, I’ll provide my translation later on when I have a little more time. But for the Nihongo-inclined out there, how would you have translated Darvish’s statement?

Edit: My translation would be…

“The air is dry and there’s the wind. The ball flies farther than normal, but it didn’t feel like he got me that badly.”

I don’t envy the job of Darvish’s translator.

I missed this when the news first broke last week, but Hideki Okajima is headed back to Japan, to play for the Softbank Hawks. Softbank officially introduced him in a press conference on March 6th (JST). Okajima brushed off the concerns about his shoulder that led to the termination of his minor league contract with the Yankees, saying “my personal training was okay.” Okajima also added, “while I didn’t think I would be able to play baseball this year, Softbank was the first team that I heard from. There is pressure, but I want to show off what I did in America.”

Okajima has been a personal favorite of mine since his days with Yomiuri. Here’s hoping he performs well with Softbank.

According to Sanspo, Yu Darvish will make his Texas Rangers spring debut on March 7, against the Padres in Peoria. The plan is for Darvish start the game and to throw up to two innings.

Alas, I won’t be in Arizona for spring training this year, so I won’t be able to attend.

There’s plenty of excellent English-language content being authored on Japanese and Asian baseball. Here are links to a few examples.

• Wayne Graczyk of the Japan Times discuss’s the Central League’s consideration of having teams announce their starting pitchers in advance, as opposed to the keep policy of keeping them secret until lineups are exchanged prior to each game. Such a policy shift would put an end to the teisatsu member tactic of inserting a player in the lineup, immediately to be removed once the opposing starter is known.
• John E. Gibson of the Daily Yomiuri has an update on pitcher DJ Houlton, who moved from Softbank to Yomiuri this offseason.
• A message thread on JapaneseBaseball.com lists this year’s KBO foreign players. I occasionally get asked about this, so it’s nice to have this list.
• Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times looks at Yomiuri’s offseason decision to effectively swap Alex Ramirez for Shuichi Murata.
• Upon the news of Marc Kroon’s retirement, Coskrey tweeted a link to his 2009 story about Kroon’s Nippon Series performance.
• JapaneseBaseball.com founder Michael Westbay has been contributing articles to the bible of Japanese baseball, Baseball Magazine. He’s posted his most recent in English to Google+.
• KBO fan Allen Wolf penned an op-ed for the Korean Times, covering the Orioles’ recent infraction over prospect Kim Seong-min. Wolf observes that “The KBO resembles an insecure autocratic regime that is desperately clinging to misguided ways in an attempt to maintain the status quo.”

I’m always on the lookout for new blogs and sources of content on Japanese baseball. If you know of any that I don’t link to, let me know.

While pitchers and catchers are just now showing up to MLB camps, NPB spring training has been in full swing for a couple of weeks. Here’s a collection of random news stories from around the league. All links are in Japanese.

• Chunichi has signed outfielder Victor Diaz, who had been in camp with the team on a try out basis. Diaz has MLB experience with the Mets and Rangers and played in Mexico last season.
• Sumo wrestler Hakuho spent a day in camp with Yomiuri. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
• Hanshin righty Randy Messenger tweeted about a soba restaurant he enjoyed.
• Japan newcomers Scott Mathieson and John Bowker got to try eel.
• A Sponichi report from February 8th indicates that the Nippon Ham Fighters will give Korean lefty Yoon-Hee Nam a tryout. Nam, 24, was a first-round pick of Doosan in 2006, but opted to sign with the Texas Rangers instead. He pitched five seasons in the Rangers’ system, reaching high A in 2010.
• Softbank is working out two young Dominican pitchers, Juan Carlos Paniagua and Wanel Mesa.
• One of the more interesting positional battles (for me anyway) is for Orix’s cleanup spot, where newcomer Dae-Ho Lee is taking on incumbent T-Okada. Lee has the lead in the “huge gut” category.
• NPB legends Masaichi Kaneda and Katsuya Nomura turned up at Yomiuri’s camp. They both have quite an eye for fashion, particularly Nomura.

Coming: Lastings Milledge, Orlando Roman, Kenta Abe, Tatsuo Kinoshita, Itsuki Shoda

Going: Norichika Aoki, Aaron Guiel, Hirotoshi Ishii, Osamu Hamanaka, Ryo Kawashima, Josh Whitesell

Staying: Wladimir Balentien, Tony Barnette, Chang Yong Lim

First a admission: whatever I write here won’t be as good as what you’ll find at TokyoSwallows.com. That site’s entirely in English, so click the link without fear. It was tempting to not write this at all and just stop with that link, but onward I shall press.

Yakult’s offseason boils down to this: Norichika Aoki out, Lastings Milledge in.

In fulfilling Norichika Aoki’s long held wish and sending him to MLB via the posting system, Yakult waved good by to one of the statistically best hitters in team history, but a guy who’s OPS fell from .944 to .718 with the introduction of the new ball. Milledge might not take over center, but he’ll step in to an outfield spot left open by Aoki and should bring a bit more power, a bit less contact, and a bit less defensive prowess.

And that’s pretty much it for offseason moves for Yakult. I thought they could have used another starter, but there weren’t too many on the market. Orlando Roman provides some interesting pitching depth, but he’ll have to beat out Tony Barnette for roster time, as foreigners Milledge, Wladimir Balentien and Chang Yong Lim have secure roster spots. Perhaps that other starter is already on the roster, in the from of improvement from sophomore Yuki Shichijyo, a return to health from Yoshinori, or a return to form from Kyohei Muranaka.

Will the Swallows compete in 2012? They finished second in 2011, but it seemed like they got there by getting off to a hot start, and then playing enough games to hang around for the rest of the year. Instinctively an Aoki-less 2012 Yakult feels similar to Hiroshima, though with more power. Like the Carp, Yakult has front-rotation strength (Yakult has Shohei Tateyama and Masanori Ishikawa), a strong foreign closer (Lim), and some mid-rotation and middle relief question marks. Only the presence of Yakult’s power bats of Balentien, Kazuhiro Hatakeyma and probably Milledge seem to differentiate. So, yeah, it’s a cop-out, but this feels like a middle-of-the-pack roster that could compete with regression from the rest of the league or break-out performances, or could suffer from the inverse.

Yu Darvish’s farewell press conference took place about two weeks ago. I really wanted to translate this while it was still fresh, but I didn’t manage to find the time or motivation until today. It’s been long enough that the link that I got this text from is expired. It looks like Nikkan Sports has a better transcription, but we’ll go with this for now.

So, here we have it, my unofficial translation of Darvish’s farewell press conference. The original Japanese text follows below.

–the reason he decided to move to MLB

 

“The number one reason was that before games, I would hear from my opponents ‘don’t throw that pitch’, ‘I can’t hit that’, and eventually the thought that ‘I’m not having fair matchups’ stuck. The environment in Japan suits me the best. I was really torn about it, but I felt that I had to move to play baseball at a higher level.”

 

–his goal

 

“I want to become a pitcher that anyone in the world can call number one.”

 

–his impression of the Rangers

 

“Starting with the front office, the manager and players, and the fans are all tremendous warm, and I think it’s a team that resembles Nippon Ham.”

 

–on his enthusiasm for the Rangers’ drive to another World Series appearance

 

“I don’t know how the games progress in the Majors, so I can’t just say we’ll win, but if I do what I have to do and put up my best results, I’ll be happy.”

 

–message to the (Nippon Ham) fans

 

“When I joined the team in 2005, I immediately did that thing (the underaged smoking incident during his camp in his rookie season) but the fans welcomed m warmly, and I renewed my efforts. I’m grateful to have had your constant support for seven years. If it wasn’t for everyone I wouldn’t be here today. I’ll never forget these seven years, and do my best, and I’ll be happy if I can come back here in the end.”

And here’s the original text, in case I made any translation mistakes.

－－メジャー挑戦を決めた理由は。

◆一番の要因は、相手から試合前に「この球投げないでよ」「もう打てない」と聞いて、だんだん「フェアな対戦をしていないのではないか」と引っかかった。日本の環境は一番合ってる。だいぶ悩んだが、野球をやる上で場所は変えなきゃいけないと思った。

－－目指す投手は。

◆世界中の誰もにナンバーワンと言ってもらえる投手になりたい。

－－レンジャーズの印象は。

◆フロントの方をはじめ、監督や選手、ファンの方々もすごく温かくて、日本ハムに似ているチームだと思った。

－－悲願のワールドシリーズ制覇への意気込みは。

◆メジャーの試合がどう進んでいくかもわからないので簡単に優勝とは言えないが、やることをやって一番いい結果になればうれしい。

－－ファンにメッセージは。

◆２００５年に入団して、いきなりやっちゃいまして（１年目のキャンプで未成年ながら喫煙が発覚）、温かく迎えてくれたことで頑張りに変えられた。７年間、支えられっぱなしでありがたい限り。皆さんがいなければ今日僕はここにいない。この７年間を忘れず頑張って、最終的にここに戻って来られたらうれしい。