NPB Tracker

Update: Kawakami’s agreement with Chunichi is for one year and JPY 30m ($390k), reports the Mainichi Shimbun. An official contract and press conference are set for Jan 31 in Okinawa.

Multiple reports out of Japan are saying that former Atlanta Brave Kenshin Kawakami is negotiating with the Chunichi Dragons. Among the reports, the Asahi Shimbun reports that a basic agreement is in place and an announcement is due in the next few days, while the Mainichi Shimbun adds that Chunichi offered a one-year deal at a “low budget.” Kawakami won 112 games for Chunichi between 1998 and 2008 before heading to Atlanta as a free agent.

With spring training a mere two weeks away, NPB teams are largely done making offseason roster moves. But Buster Olney’s observation that there are a number of established MLB players that are still available on the free agent market got me wondering if any would be fits in Japan. Here’s what I came up with:

• Kosuke Fukudome — There has been surprisingly little discussion of a Fukudome return in the Japanese media, the only rumor of note being that Hanshin was considering him as a replacement for Matt Murton, who they successfully re-signed.
• Kenshin Kawakami — Kawakami’s name has been similarly absent in the Japanese media this offseason. The only news I’ve seen on him is from his personal blog, saying he’s begun working out and hasn’t decided on a team for 2012 yet. It’s reasonable to assume that most NPB rotations would benefit from having him around.
• Dan Johnson — Johnson played for Yokohama in 2009, and was solid aside from a .215 batting average. Since then, he’s returned to US with the Rays organization, where he’s played well in Durham but been overmatched in Tampa Bay, and developed a penchant for clutch home runs. He does enough things well to be of value to an NPB team.
• Derrek Lee — Had they not already signed Josh Whitesell, Lee might have been a first base match for Lotte, an organization that once employed his father and uncle (Leon Lee and Leron Lee). Derrek spent part of his youth in Japan.
• Marcus Thames — Thames has appeared on NPB team’s foreign player candidate lists in the past, but surprising he’s only gotten one previous mention on this site. Power was the rarest skill in Japan last year, and Thames has shown plenty at both the 3A and MLB level.
• Bill Hall — Hall is something of a personal favorite; I thought he would have a better MLB career than he’s had. He still has at least two solid strengths – a power bat and a strong throwing arm – that match up with teams in need of third base help (Yokohama?).

… this time lefty reliever Yoshihiro Doi on a minor league contract (via Nikkan Sports).

Doi is an interesting case. He qualified for free agency after the 2010 season and immediately headed to the Western Hemisphere, an endeavor that was totally overlooked on this site. According to Nikkan Sports, Doi didn’t find any takers among MLB and Mexican League teams, and although he passed an Indy League tryout, he wound up spending 2011 on the shelf with knee visa problems. This year he hired agency IBC NY to represent him, and caught on with Baltimore. He’ll join former Chiba Lotte Marine Ryohei Tanaka in the O’s system.

Doi is 35 and hasn’t shown much over the last few years, but kudos to him for sticking to his guns and finding an opportunity. Taking my usual glass-half-full view, he’s lefthanded and had enough skill to hang around NPB for 12 years, so that’s something. Here are links to his stats and stuff.

I’ve got a couple of player personnel notes to pass along, via Sponichi.

• Softbank has announced the acquisition of righty Reynel Pinto. The big righty gets a one-year deal worth JPY 70m ($910k) plus incentives. I expect him to be in the mix for a rotation spot in Fukuoka.
• Yomiuri is working on a deal with outfielder John Bowker and expects to have a deal announced within a few days. The Phillies have already granted Bowker his release, so I’d assume a deal just needs to be signed.

And a bonus bullet point that I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet:

• Yokohama DeNA has signed Gio Alvarado, who spent the last two years with Hiroshima. Gio should add a modicum of stability to the DeNA’s rotation.

Nikkan Sports has reported that Norichika Aoki has completed a workout for the Brewers. The trial lasted for 75 minutes, and included catch, long toss, batting practice and base running. Eight members of the Brewers’ organization, including GM Doug Melvin and field manager Ron Roenicke, were present for the workout. Apparently there were no comments from anyone involved immediately following the workout.

Milwaukee’s negotiating window with Aoki expires on January 17th.

For more on Aoki, check out TokyoSwallows.com‘s excellent English-language write up of his status.

I really wanted a list of 11 things, but I could only think of ten things I wanted to include, so here we go… the top ten events from 2011.

10. Hideki Irabu commits suicide

Obviously a very sad event and something I wish didn’t have to be on this list.

9. The Central League MVP award goes to… a setup man

Chunichi’s Takuya Asao, to be specific.

8. Mass departure of veterans to MLB

Yu Darvish, Hisasahi Iwakuma, Tsuyoshi Wada, Wei-Yin Chen, Norichika Aoki, Hiroyuki Nakajima and Munenori Kawasaki are MLB-bound, though only Wada has signed so far. In with the new…

7. That whole thing with Yomiuri and former GM Hidetoshi Kiyotake

Shortly after the season, there was a bust-up between (now former) Yomiuri GM Kiyotake and chairman Tsuneo Watanabe, over Watanabe’s meddling in coaching personnel decisions. I didn’t write about this one at all, so I’ll rely on the Japan Times’ run down of it. The row eventually led to Kiyotake’s dismissal, which is a shame because he did a pretty good job with the Giants, setting up an effective development program and poaching mostly the right guys from other NPB teams.

6. Softbank wins its first Japan Series since buying the Hawks from Daiei, immediately suffers pitching exodus

Softbank’s years of consistent competitiveness were finally rewarded with its first Nippon-Ichi since 2003, when the team was still the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. Then three-fourths of its core rotation hit the road, with Tsuyoshi Wada joining the Orioles and Toshiya Sugiuchi and DJ Houlton departing for Yomiuri.

5. Chunichi dismisses the manager that oversaw the most successful period in team history, Hiromitsu Ochiai

Apparently five Nippon Series appearances in eight years wasn’t good enough. Worst baseball decision in franchise history?

4. The new, standardized NPB ball renders wood cylinders known as baseball bats largely useless

I don’t think I did a post dedicated to the new ball, but it was a big enough story for the NY Times to cover. Six starting pitchers finished with sub-2.00 ERAs, plus Hirokazu Sawamura and Shohei Tateyama right behind at 2.03 and 2.04 respectively.

3. DeNA buys Yokohama, immediately injects some life into the franchise

I haven’t written about DeNA yet, but there is more buzz and excitement around the BayStars now than there has been since the Bobby Rose days. Hopefully it translates into competitive baseball at Yokohama Stadium.

2. Yu Darvish finally moves to MLB via the posting system

1. The Great Tohoku Earthquake

Hopefully this goes without saying, but like the Irabu item, I wish this one wasn’t on the list. While the earthquake was probably the single most devastating event in 2011, it was still only one of many significant events in a turbulent year. I hope 2012 will bring global recovery and a greater level of peace.

After a little discussion about Norichika Aoki on an earlier post, I thought I’d break down the speedy outfielder’s case in a little more detail. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

The case for:

• Was among the best hitters in Japan from 2005-2010, four times hitting .340 or higher (via npb.or.jp/eng)
• Strong plate discipline mostly survived the new ball
• Continued to make contact in 2011, career low strikeouts
• Speed doesn’t slump
• Rangey in the field, led Japan’s center fielders with a 2.45 range factor in 2011 through July 20 (via Baseball Lab)

The case against:

• Performance decline in 2011 — from a career-best .358/.435/.509 to a career worst .292/.360/.358 (via Pro Yakyu Data Freak)
• No power with the new ball; perilous drop from 44 to 18 doubles from 2010 to 2011
• Weak throwing arm
• 22.9% of his hits in 2011 were infield singles (according to Pro Yakyu Nuru Data Okiba)
• In 2011 he hit .382/.452/.520 in 115 plate appearances against Yokohama, padding his stats by bashing Japan’s worst pitching staff (also via Pro Yakyu Nuru Data Okiba)
• “Aoki’s plate discipline seems to have regressed” — me, August 5, 2011.

I’ve flip-flopped on Aoki as a prospect quite a bit this season, though I haven’t written much. I was extremely bearish early on, and had kind of written him off as a prospect, then I came around a bit to a more glass-half-full view. Now I’m backing off a bit a again. I think the specific numbers that I’ve keyed in on paint a rather negative picture.

I think Aoki has enough transferrable skills to be a useful MLB player, but there some real limitations to his game, most notably his lack of power. I still think my Juan Pierre comparison is not such a bad one, with the caveat that Aoki probably won’t get enough playing time to rack up 200 hits like Pierre was doing in his prime.

A couple of hot stove notes for the evening…

• Sanspo reports that Milwaukee started negotiations with Norichika Aoki in in the backup player range, around $1-1.5m. Additionally, since the Brewers lack a scouting presence in Japan, they intend to work Aoki out at their Arizona facility before making a decision on him.
• Sports Hochi reports that Hideki Okajima is in the final stages of negotiations with the Yankees on a minor league deal with a non-roster camp invite. Hochi cites a source familiar with situation as saying the two sides could “reach an agreement as soon as around the New Year.”
• Sponichi reports that Softbank is working on acquiring lefty Reynel Pinto. Pinto would be a rotation candidate for the Hawks, who have said goodbye to starters Toshiya Sugiuchi, Tsuyoshi Wada and DJ Houlton this offseason.
• Also via Sponichi, The Chiba Lotte Marines have announced that they have signed Josh Whitesell. Whitesell spent the last two seasons with Yakult.

The Yakult Swallows have finally announced the acquisition of outfielder Lastings Milledge. Milledge gets a salary of JPY 45m (about $570k at today’s rate) plus performance bonuses, and a club option for a second year. He’ll wear number 85 for the Birds.

The suspense is finally over, and we know that the rights to negotiate with Yu Darvish are the exclusive property of the Texas Rangers, at least for the next 30 days.

I’m too lazy to actually write a paragraph so here are some thoughts in handy bulleted list format.

• I’m a little surprised that Texas cracked the Daisuke Matsuzaka line with their $51.7m bid, but not surprised that they only surpassed it by a little. I always found the rationale that “Matsuzaka got $51m, Darvish is better, therefore… $60m for Darvish?” to be simple minded.
• I think Darvish will sign with the Rangers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t.
• One perhaps underrated adjustment for Darvish to make (assuming he signs): the Rangers are two time zones away from the rest of their division. The entire country of Japan fits in one time zone.
• I wonder if the Fighters will sign a foreign starter to take Darvish’s roster spot. Seibu forgettably signed Jason Johnson to replace Matsuzaka.
• Nippon Ham’s risky pick of Tomoyuki Sugano, and subsequent failure to sign, in this year’s draft looms a bit here. Having him around would have cushioned the blow of (probably) losing Darvish a bit.