NPB Tracker

Not to be outdone by Ichiro, Akinori Iwamura has dusted off his pitcher’s glove and begun working on his repertoire. Sanspo, of course, has the news and a picture. According to the article, he has six breaking pitches, including a cut fastball and a shuuto. No word on whether he can reach 92 with his heater. 

So does Tatsunori Hara have another option for emergency situations? Let’s ask Iwamura: “there won’t be an appearance. Ichiro-san will go for us (laughter)”.

You might remember a post I did last year that had a link to Ichiro pitching in the 1996 NPB All-Star Game. Ichiro came out and immediately hit 90 on the TV gun on his first warm-up pitch, and then induced a soft grounder from pinch-hitter Shingo Takatsu.

Nearly 13 years later, Japan WBC manager Tatsunori Hara has, perhaps unintentionally, prompted Ichiro to return to the mound by suggesting that using him in emergency situations is a possibility in this year’s tournament. In his workout on the 7th, he skipped batting practice and worked out as a pitcher. He threw 56 pitches off the mound at Skymark Stadium, throwing fastballs and forkballs. Word is that he hit 147kmph (92mph) with his fastest pitch. Ichiro said he wants to throw a little bit harder.

Sanspo has a series of photos of his work out: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Hara isn’t used to managing games that go beyond 12 innings, which might explain the idea of using a position player as a pitcher. Ichiro would probably be the most credible pitching candidate among the fielders in this year’s WBC. However far-fetched it might be, we might see Ichiro pitch in a competitive game this year.

Admit it Cubs fans – you liked Kosuke Fukudome at first. He came roaring out of the gates, and the Northside faithful united in celebration of their new import star with hachimakis and t-shirts featuring the Asahi flag and “Fukudome” written in katakana. The hype was so great that Sports Illustrated even deemed him worthy of  cover appearance, thus assuring both he and the Cubs would suffer from the associated jinx (which one prescient Cubs fan tried unsuccessfully to prevent).

Then, Fuku went into a slump in the early summer, the novelty wore off and the honeymoon period was over. As the summer progressed, so did Fukudome’s struggles, drawing the ire of the Cubs fans and getting scapegoated after the Cubs’ latest postseason choke job. Fukudome wasn’t the only one responsible for the Cubs tanking in the playoffs, but to be fair, he did vastly underperform the expectations that came with his contract. 

Why was he so bad in the second half? You could probably point to a number of reasons — better scouting on him for the rest of the league, inadequate translation services, difficulty adjusting to the more demanding travel and game schedule, late affects of his 2007 elbow surgery, or some of each. I would put travel forward as a concern; Fuku had an .825 ops at Wrigley despite the late-season booing, versus a .655 ops on the road. Lou Pinella may want to rest him a bit on roadtrips in the upcoming season.

For his part, Fukudome has spent quite a bit of his offseason training with his Chunichi Dragons coaches in Japan. Nikkan Sports quoted him as saying, “I have some things that don’t fit with the way of doing things over there [America]”. He’s currently training with his 2002 batting coach, Kyosuke Sasaki and took 300 swings in the batting cage the other day. Clearly there are adjustments for him to make, and Fukudome must be hoping that Sasaki can help him regain some of his 2002 form, when he robbed Matsui of the Central League Triple Crown by winning the batting title.

I get WGN here in the Bay Area, and I got to see the Cubs a couple of times while he was slumping last season. I noticed two things about Fukudome that appeared to be problematic: 1) gotta shorten up that swing 2) pitchers were backing him off the plate by throwing hard inside; he needs to stand his ground. The one encouraging thing was that in the few games I watched, he wasn’t chasing bad pitches. 

It’s been speculated that the additions of So Taguchi and Ken Kadokura on minor league were partially motivated by the struggles of Fukudome. Honestly, it’s hard not to draw that conclusion, but I think it’s unlikely that either one will have a material impact on Fukudome’s performance. Taguchi seems like the more likely of the two to help — he’s been in America for seven seasons and has gone from being a guy that couldn’t make a big league roster to being a useful role outfielder. The problem is that he’s behind Reed Johnson and Joey Gathright on the depth chart, and both of those guys are younger and were more productive in 2008 than Taguchi. I like the Kadokura acquisition as a low-risk baseball move. I think we’ll see him in the majors for the Cubs at some point this year but he’ll be adjusting to MLB life himself.

So it’s a do or die year for Fukudome. I could see him hitting .298 with 45 doubles, but I could also see him having another sub-par year.

When I was a kid, I had a subscription to Baseball Digest and read it cover to cover every month. Shukan Baseball has since superceded it as my baseball reading of choice, but I still have fond memories of the big pile of Baseball Digests that I racked up back in Illinois. 

I found out recently that the magazine is stepping into the Infomration Age this March. You can get an early start by bookmarking their boilerplate page at baseballdigest.com and also checking out their page on Facebook.

In his Japan career, Koji Uehara mostly got by with a fastball and forkball, while also mixing in a cutter and shuuto. For the start his Orioles career, the control specialist is shoring up his repertoire with a couple new pitches. The first is a changeup. “It’s got good movement. I’m going to use it in games,” said Uehara of his change. Later adding, “even if I can’t miss bats with it, it’ll be good if I can upset the batter’s timing. I’m planning to use it”.

More noteworthy, however, is Uehara’s new spike-curvey pitch of his own creation. Uehara’s never really thrown a curveball much — 1-2 times per game in Japan, though I don’t remember ever seeing him throw one. He’s calling his new creation a “one finger curve”, which he grips with his middle finger only. You can clearly see the grip in this Nikkan Sports photo of him working on this pitch. Said Uehara of the grip: “if I apply my index finger, I can’t use my middle finger and the ball doesn’t break. So I arrived at this grip.” The idea is to throw with a speed and break in between a traditional curve and a slider. Uehara also committed, “my form is still loose, but I want to use the pitch”.

Commenting on the MLB ball, Uehara said: “the Japanese ball is less slippery and easier throw. But the breaking pitches really move”.

Uehara is currently working out with Houston infielder Kazuo Matsui, and working on adjusting to the MLB strike zone and building up his stamina. Uehara heads to camp with the O’s from February 15.

Looking to reinforce it’s pitching staff after Takashi Saito and Hiroki Kuroda opted not to participate, Japan has added MLB relievers Hideki Okajima and Masa Kobayashi to it’s provisional WBC roster. Lotte infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka and one of my favorites Hayato Terahara were among the other notables added in the most recently announced roster.

And of course, the WBC will afford international fans the opportunity to see Yu Darvish and Norichika Aoki live against top level competition. Mainichi has the complete provisional roster published in Japanese, but I haven’t found the latest version in English. I’ll translate Mainichi’s later tonight if an English version hasn’t shown up by then.

NPB players also appear on provisional rosters for Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela, and Panama.

Update, Jan 19 8:11 am: According to 47news, Iguchi to Lotte is a done deal, and will be announced on the 20th. Other sources say the deal is close but not done.

I didn’t post this when it was new, but it’s been widely reported that Tadahito Iguchi will decide his destination on the 20th, which is either tomorrow or later today depending on which timezone you happen to be in.

Bobby Valentine’s Chiba Lotte Marines very publicly made Iguchi a three-year offer, and cleared out second base for him by releasing the incumbent Jose Ortiz. Despite this, Iguchi hasn’t given up on an MLB contract, but given that the market for 2nd basemen (Orlando Hudson) has been so weak, his best financial offer is likely to be in Japan.

While I’ve got the Cubs fans here… anyone remember when the North Siders fired Kosuke Fukudome’s translator last year?

Ryuji Araki has found a job doing translation and pr for the Nippon Ham Fighters. Previous translator Ken Iwamoto, who had worked for Trey Hillman, is moving into team director position and evaluating foreign player acquisitions. I’ve read a couple of interviews with Iwamoto and he seems like an interesting guy.

Reading that first article may shed a little light on why the Cubs are making a little more of an effort to acquire Japanese players this offseason. Another thing they could try is hiring Shigetoshi Hasegawa as bullpen coach or something. He definitely speaks English and Japanese fluently.

Multiple sources have proclaimed that Kenshin Kawakami has signed with Atlanta. The Braves were my pick for him when free agency opened. Glad I got one right.

I don’t have time to write at the moment, but I will chip in this new information that Sponichi thinks he got a 3-year, $24m deal. I haven’t seen the dollar figure anywhere else yet, and Sponichi is writing this in uncertain terms, so we’ll see how acurate it turns out to be. More later.

All right, now I have a little time to write…

So to begin, Kawakami’s signing is getting a bit more press in the Japanese media. Here’s a sampling of articles from Nikkan Sports:

• Braves Manager Bobby Cox Evaluates Kawakami Highly
• Uehara Departs for America in a Red Jacket (photo included)
• The Braves have been in the National League Since it’s Establishment in 1876
• Where is Braves Signee Kenshin Kawakami from?
• Kawakami Agrees with Braves, Will Officially Announce Perhaps on the 12th

I didn’t read most of those articles, but there are the links. I wonder if Uehara would have made it in if he hadn’t worn a red jacket.

The question that I get most frequently on Kawakami is whether his numbers have been inflated by the big stadium he pitched in and the outstanding defense he had behind him. And the answer is, yeah, anyone would. That said, his k and bb rates have been consistent over the years, and better than Kuroda’s for the last few seasons. Jim Albright’s translations come out favorably as well. I like the move to NL as well, and the Braves seem to do pretty well with their pitchers.

Of course, it will remain to be seen whether his stuff generates as many strikeouts as it did in Japan, whether he can adjust to pitching on four days’ rest rather than five, and how he adjusts to a new country, language, and longer distances to travel. Uehara will, of course, have the same challenges.

I found out about Koji Uehara’s signing with the Orioles the same way everyone else did, via the incomparable mlbtraderumors.com. I think much of the Japanese media found out the same way I did, as there was a raft of reports referring to the same Baltimore Sun article that Tim linked to. 

In an ideal environment — National League, non-hitters’ park — he could be a midrotation innings-eater because he’ll allow so few baserunners. In the American League, he’d be more of a fourth starter, but would have to have some luck keeping the ball in the park to keep his ERA under 4.00.

I actually think that Uehara will be susceptible to baserunners because he’ll be around the plate so much. More troubling is that the HR ball was unquestionably his weakness in Japan, and he’s going to the most HR-friendly park in MLB. On the other hand, he’ll have two good outfielders behind him in Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, which suit his flyball tendencies. And even though he got rocked in his last appearance in the Japan Series, prior to that he put together a string of seven excellent starts. 

Uehara was one of my favorite guys to watch in Japan and I’m glad he’s finally getting the chance to fulfill his dream of playing in America. I’m looking forward to seeing him play in the States, and seeing if his trademark excellent control translates to MLB success.