NPB Tracker

The news about Hanshin’s list of offseason acquisition targets is flying fast and furious. It kind of reminds me of this old Onion article. Here’s what I’ve seen so far.

Via NPB Free Agency…

• Shugo Fujii (Nippon Ham) — this probably makes the most sense of any of these acquisitions. Fujii wouldn’t make the Tigers a championship club on his own though
• Hiroyuki Kobayashi (Lotte) — another rather low risk, medium reward type

Via Trade…

• GG Sato (Seibu) — coming off a career year
• Shunsuke Watanabe (Lotte) — can’t see Lotte moving him, but would be interesting to see how he adjusts to the Central League
• Nagisa Arakaki (SoftBank) — one of my favorite pitchers, but has been hurt for the last two years

From Korea…

• Brad Thomas (Korea, Hanwha Eagles) — former Nippon Ham Fighter
• Rick Guttoromson (Korea, Kia Tigers) — Sports Hochi reported on him and Thomas
• Kim Tae-Gyun (Korea, Hanwha Eagles) — Matt tipped me off to this info on Kim
• Lee Bum-Ho (Korea, Hanwha Eagles) — Matt also pointed out that if the already last-place Hanwha loses all these guys, they might as well field a him of himself, me and Shinsano

Possible MLB Returnees…

• Hideki Matsui (NY Yankees) — has been speculated over since the summer, seems like Matsui will get chances to stay in MLB
• Masahide Kobayashi (ex Cleveland Indians) — makes sense, I wonder if they went after him during the season
• Kenji Johjima (Seattle Mariners) — reports in the Japanese media say that he has an escape clause in his contract allowing him to return to Japan. Cot’s knows nothing about this. Hanshin is said to be prepared to offer 500m yen annually (about $5m), so for this to work Joh would have to take a pay cut, and the Mariners would have to not convince him to stay
• Akinori Iwamura (Tampa Bay Rays) — saw some speculation about this a week or two ago, Iwamura didn’t say much other than that he would go where he was evaluated the most highly

There are also reports that Hanshin is going to be looking to the US market as usual, but I haven’t seen any legitimate names published yet. Hanshin sent team president Nobuo Minami to the States this season in an effort to learn how to evaluate US-based players. In the process, he had his picture taken with Bobby Cox, and met with the GMs of the Braves, Yankees, Mets, as well as front office personnel from the Red Sox.

What do NPB fans think? Would any of these moves make Hanshin the team to beat next year?

It’s been one of those weeks, but the world of baseball carries on.

Japanese Articles:

• Waseda University pitcher Yuuki Saito is showing a little support for Yusei Kikuchi: “Kikuchi? The Majors, right. I think it’s a good idea. He throws fast and has good movement and control of is breaking pitches. He’s younger but I’m pulling for him. He really has his own way.” Saito was widely thought to be the first Japanese player to test jumping directly from amateur ball to the Majors, but Junichi Tazawa beat him to the punch.
• You might have picked this up on our Twitter feed already, but Keiichi Yabu isn’t quite ready to throw in the towel yet. The 40 year-old hung out Stateside for a while after the Giants cut him from Fresno, but he’s back in Japan now, with plans to return in October to work out for MLB clubs. Yabu has come off the scrap heap once already, so maybe he’ll get another shot.
• Stephen Randolph picked up his fourth win for the Yokohama BayStars. He’s done pretty well so far and at this pace I think he’ll get an invitation to return next year.
• Sponichi is becoming the first sports publication in Japan to publish an edition specifically intended for kids. Why am I mentioning this here? Because children’s books are a great way to learn Japanese, even as adults. I wish this would have been around when I was really learning Japanese.
• Jon Heyman’s mention of Hideki Matsui made it back to the Japanese media.
• With the independent Kansai League struggling to survive, female knuckleballer Eri Yoshida is going to get a start in an effort to draw out a few fans. Her manager wants to get at least three innings out of her.
• According to baseball sources, MLB’ers Brett Tomko and David Dellucci could look to Japan after this season.

Lastly, this isn’t NPB related, but my favorite player as kid growing up in Chicago was Harold Baines. In a backwards kind of way, this hilarious Onion article points out how underrated he was.

Sanspo and others are reporting that Daisuke Matsuzaka is expected to make his return to the Red Sox on September 8th vs the Orioles. Matsuzaka has been training in Florida for the duration of his stay on the DL and should return to Boston with an attitude adjustment. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next in the saga; look out for more on that here in the future.

In other Red Sox news, Junichi Tazawa is getting another MLB start, this time against the Yankees on August 22.

My posts (1, 2) on flaws with MLB draft (and by association, the NPB draft) elicited some interesting and occasionally impassioned responses.

After writing those original posts, I came across some interesting ideas put forth by writers whom I read regularly. Here are a couple of the more interesting ones:

Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus speculates that we might see a more controlled draft in the future:

Said one exec, “Look, Bobby Abreu can’t find a job and then signs for $5 million. While 16-year-old are getting signed off sandlots in the Dominican for $3 and $4 million? That’s the kind of thing that’s going to get the union going,” he added, while predicting than during the next bargaining session, once the players figure out what they want, them giving into financially harnessing the signing system for both draftees and international players will be what they use for leverage.

There are also some indications that both sides might not be willing to wait for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, as multiple sources have indicated that the reason for Bryce Harper’s early entry into college in order to be eligible for the 2010 draft revolves as much around his desire to sign within a system with no limits, rather than being subject a more controlled draft that could be in place sometime down the road.

Jim Allen of the Daily Yomiuri seems to favor more of a universally free system:

[Junichi] Tazawa was able to choose the club he thought was the best fit for him. A Japanese who aspires to take his game to the highest levels here has to negotiate with the team assigned to him through NPB’s draft. By going to America, he could choose from among different options.

Draft apologists say the system is necessary to maintain competitive balance, which it has. But its purpose from Day 1 was to cheat amateurs of the right to sell their own services to the highest bidder.

In most markets, this would be considered contemptible. It’s an indictment of the baseball business that depriving people of their rights is standard operating procedure in MLB and NPB and acceptable to the fans.

Commetor Crawdad of the Orioles Hangout, had my favorite response to my original post:

What might work better would be that teams pay into a draft bank. The bank receive money in a progressive format where teams that take in more money than others pay more to it. Each team is allotted 35 slots and those slots have a cost fixed to them that decrease.

For instance:
1 slot at 5MM
1 slot at 2.5MM
1 slot at 1MM
1 slot at 0.5MM
1 slot at 0.3MM
15 slots at 0.05MM
15 slots at 0.015MM

Players can sign with any team and if a player exceeds the slot in terms of MLB performance, MLB pays dividends out to the players until they reach arbitration.

So there is impetus for change and ideas being articulated. I hope we see a more free, fair system sometime in the future.

The title pretty much says it all: if Orioles pitcher Koji Uehara makes it back from the DL this year, it will reportedly be in the bullpen, limited to one or two innings of work. For his part, Uehara says that he’s going to “prepare for next season with the intent of starting”.

Uehara hasn’t spent a full season as a starter since 2006, as I touched on in the profile I wrote of him last year. He clearly wants to continue as a starter but at this point I have to wonder if he’s not better suited to the ‘pen, because of his health.

The difference in the philosophy of pitch counts in the MLB and the NPB is an area where pitchers from Japan need to adjust when they make the jump to the big leagues. The nature of pitch counts remains a hot topic around MLB and the topic has been addressed recent in interesting articles such as The countdown to 100 pitches by Tim Kurkjian and Pitch counts an overrated stat by Hal Bodley.

100 pitches is acknowledged as the magic number around the league and younger pitchers are protected by organizations from an early stage at their career. Even though some NPB managers have implemented the 100 pitch count philosophy it is not rare to see pitchers go the distance in an effective outing surpassing the magic number. Recent outings from Yuuki Karakawa throwing 153 pitches (9.0 innings, 9H, ER) and Naoyuki Shimizu (7.2 innings, 11H, 4ER) pitching 144 pitches illustrates how teams and players are not shy about increasing their pitch counts.

The difference in the philosophy of pitch counts between the two countries comes from number of reasons, of which I will only touch on a few. The beauty of finishing the game as a starter is indoctrinated from an earlier stage, especially dramatized in the National High School Tournament at Koshien Stadium. The legendary three days at the Koshien Tournament for current Boston Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka has been well publicized here in the United States with his 17 inning, 250-pitch complete game followed by a relief appearance the next day and his no-hitter performance in the final of the tournament. It will be interesting to see how the pitchers in the Koshien Tournament evolve with the number Major League-minded players increasing in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Another difference between pitchers in the two leagues is how much pitchers throw during spring training, before the season starts. MLB pitchers tend to pitch every other day or have a routine schedule throwing from the mound to prepare for the start of the season. However in the NPB, there are pitchers who start the camp in full-mode, throwing 100 to 200 pitches from the mound on a given day and coming back the next with even more. Throwing a large amount of pitches before the season starts results in a routine for the pitchers and that makes it easier to throw over 100 pitches during the season.

The last point to make here is the difference in the schedule and number of games. NPB pitchers will typically make fewer starts over the course of the season than MLB pitchers, who spend the longer season of traveling around a country that is several times bigger than Japan. That requires the teams to schedule stretches with 20 straight games, compared to NPB which has a more flexible schedule with more off days. Then there are times when teams can have extra inning games which last until a winner is decided, as opposed to  NPB, where games end in a tie after 12 innings. These are practical differences that affect the usage of pitchers in each country.

Japanese pitchers coming over to the MLB need to adjust to the philosophy of pitch counts here in the States, but that is obviously not the easiest thing to do as we all know that routine is important for an athlete. Coming to a different country and then adjusting to a new routine is something that only certain players can do, looking at the results from past players. Even for a pitcher such as Yu Darvish, hyped as the next big star if he ever makes the jump, adjusting to the new routine will be the key for him. So far in 2009, he has pitched a total of 153 innings in 19 total starts averaging 8.05 innings per game. He has thrown seven complete games including two shutouts and you rarely see him leave the mound before hitting 100 pitches.

As long as the nature and philosophy of pitch counts differs in the two countries, adjustments will be required for NPB veterans jumping MLB and both sides need to be aware of that reality in order for both sides to succeed.

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.

So Aroldis Chapman has defected from Cuba. With all the hype around Chapman during the WBC, I thought a defection was inevitable, but I didn’t see it happening this year. It will take Chapman a little time to apply for asylum and set up a domicile somewhere, but we should see a bidding war emerge over the next couple months.

Prior to the WBC, I would have said that if Chapman were to defect this year, his contract offers would have exceeded the four-year, $32m deal that Jose Contreras got from the Yankees back in 2002. But now that we’ve seen him look mortal against Japan’s WBC lineup of contact hitters, learned that Cuban League numbers aren’t that great, and found out that he might be five years older than previously believed, I have my doubts. Chapman’s first MLB contract will make him a richer man than I’ll ever be, but I think his first MLB deal will make him only about $20m richer than me.

For another dose of reality on Chapman, I turn to Cuban baseball expert Peter Bjarkman, who wrote bearish article about Chapman after he defected:

Chapman definitely has his negatives, foremost among them a demonstrated lack of strike-zone control, a one-pitch arsenal, and an inconsistent Cuban League performance over four National Series campaigns. Hurling for a Holguín club that made this year’s post-season and has been largely a middle-of-the-pack outfit during Chapman’s tenure, the southpaw flame thrower has won only slightly more than half his decisions (24-21), though he did enjoy his best season (11-4 and a league-best 130 Ks in 118 innings) this past winter. He has twice topped the 100 K mark but never approached Maels’s record-setting standards. Chapman is definitely more a raw “thrower” than a savvy “pitcher” and numerous questions surround his abilities to master the finer details of his craft.

One of the things that makes this situation unique is that it’s happening post Information Revolution. Thanks to the Internet and WBC, we, as consumers, have learned more about Chapman than perhaps any other hyped Cuban defector. Will that help his market value? There’s no way we can really know for sure. I think we’ll see that the Internet hype will have the biggest impact on the fans’ expectations of him.

I’ve occasionally wondered why Japanese clubs don’t make more of a play for top Cuban talent. In theory, NPB teams should be able to go after Cuban players without them having to defect. Katsuya Nomura joked about this during the WBC: “we probably can’t get him (Chapman). Would it be okay to ask Castro?”.

Joking aside, Nomura actually has brought Cuban players to Japan: national team stars Antonio Pacheco and Orestes Kindelan played for him in the early 00’s on the Shidax Industrial League team. During the same period, Omar Linares played for Chunichi at the NPB level. The difference, of course, is that Chapman is young and entering his prime, which Pacheco, Kindelan and Linares were all winding down their careers. But still, none of the three had to denounce their Cuban citizenship and all were able to return to Cuba after playing in Japan.

So maybe this means we’ll get to see Pedro Lazo or Yulieski Gourriel in Japan at some point. I hope so, because it doesn’t seem like either one will ever defect, and I’d love to see what they can do at a higher level of competition.

I’m participating in a fantasy baseball league this year, at the invitation of Tim Dierkes. It’s the first time I’ve tried fantasy baseball, and while the time I have for it kind of waxes and wanes, I try to look at it every day or two.

One of the guys I’ve had on my roster all year is Mark Buehrle. Today I logged into the fantasy site a bit later than usual, and noticed that Buehrle had a start today, but was on my bench. I quickly moved him into a starting position, and was rewarded with a perfect game. My only regret is that I didn’t see the game. I was off by a couple of time zones.

I’ve never gotten to see a no-hitter all the way through, even on TV. I came close when Jonathan Sanchez threw one a couple of weeks ago for the Giants, but was stuck at work. And those of you who joined me last weekend saw Hanshin’s Atsushi Nohmi take a no-no into the 7th, only to give up a single to Alex Ramirez. Maybe someday.