So a couple of weeks ago, I asked for some feedback on the site, specifically what you all would like to see more of.
I’m going to make a couple of tweaks for 2010, and here’s what I’ve come up with:
focus a little more on depth, rather than breadth
more content about on-the-field play
a little more coverage of amateur baseball (I’m interested in this topic beyond Japan)
less regurgitation of news from the Japanese media
mix things up with a few more off-topic posts
So that’s what’s ahead. The reason I’m posting this is that I’m hoping that having this public in some sense will force me to hold myself to this, even though that hasn’t exactly worked with my to-do list.
As an aside, Gary Garland has included a link to NPB Tracker on his site’s homepage. Gary’s work was among my influences for starting this site, so it’s really cool to get a nod from him. Gary, if you’re reading, thanks!
This spring I’m making my print debut, in the Rotowire 2010 Fantasy Baseball Guide. The magazine has won a host of accolades, and personally it’s an honor to be in the same publication as writers like Jeff Erickson, John Sickels, and Will Carroll. I hope you’ll check it out.
In the 18 months that this site has been live, my content has consisted of:
news
scouting information
analysis
data
the occasional off-topic post about Japan, technology or hockey
It’s a new year and a great time to get a sense of what NPB Tracker readers are looking for, so feel free to let me know what you like best about the site.
As I’ve alluded to a couple of times, I returned last week from a trip to Japan (a brief moment of which was captured by Deanna). I haven’t gone into a lot of detail on my own background with Japan, but I began studying Japanese over 10 years ago in college, and lived in the Osaka area for a couple years in the early 00’s. Now that I visit on an semi-regular basis, I find my trips to Japan to be a blend of light culture shock and familiarity, depending on how long I’ve been away. This time, it’s been a busy three years since my last visit, and here’s what I noticed:
Japan’s mobile phone ecosystem is still way ahead of the US’s. Apple’s iPhone is available in Japan, and it’s a market leader, but there are far more competitive offerings from Docomo and au than we anything we have here in the States.
The Back to the Future II-ish Mitsubishi i has apparently been rolling in Japan since 2006, but I don’t remember ever seeing one on the road before this trip.
Despite its age, I saw a favorite car oddity of mine, Toyota’s WiLL vi, continuing to occupy Japanese streets.
After all these years, the more subtle differences are what catch me off-guard. It’s things like train ticket machines with animated characters that bow to you; the menus in coffee shops being placed on the counter, rather than posted behind the server; and placing your money in a dish rather than handing it to the cashier that really reminds me that I’m in a foreign country.
I fell asleep watching NHK’s Kohaku music program on New Year’s Eve. That show is meant to be a pretty big deal, but the live studio audience always looks bored to tears when they are shown on tv.
Daisuke Matsuzaka? “No good, too fat,” in the words of a distinguished baseball fan I happen to know.
We’ll return to regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow. And as an official announcement, I’ve joined Fangraphs, so look out for more there.
The NPB draft is tomorrow, and no shock here, but Yusei Kikuchi will be the story of the first round. So far seven teams have announced an intent to select Kikuchi in the first round. Here’s the breakdown:
Yokohama: Yoshitomo Tsutsugo
Hiroshima: Takeru Imamura
Hanshin: Kikuchi
Yakult: Kikuchi
Chunichi: Kikuchi
Yomiuri: Hisayoshi Chono
Orix: unannounced (Kikuchi)
Chiba Lotte: Kikuchi
Seibu: Kikuchi
SoftBank: unannounced (Kikuchi)
Rakuten: Kikuchi
Nippon Ham: Kikuchi
SoftBank has been very quiet on Kikuchi, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sneak up on Hiroshima and pick Imamura instead of trying their luck on Kikuchi. Orix has talked quite a bit about Kikuchi and I do think they’ll pick him. In any event Kikuchi has a realistic shot at breaking Hideo Nomo’s record of being selected by eight teams in the draft. But when he’s selected, there will still be a number of good prospects on the table, so we should see multiple drawings.
Even if Yusei Kikuchi winds up choosing to sign with an MLB team, NPB is not going to go down without a fight.
NPB is trying to employ some new tactics in the hopes of giving their teams an edge in signing Kikuchi. The Daily Yomiuri has conveniently run the story in English, which saves me a step:
Japan’s teams say they want to meet pitcher Yusei Kikuchi.
On Thursday, Nippon Professional Baseball’s board of directors met and filed a request to the High School Baseball Federation that asked Iwate Prefecture’s Hanamaki Higashi High School to bring the pitcher to the table when NPB’s clubs come calling.
The school has said the pitcher, who has said he may sign with a major league club, will not attend meetings with the representatives of Japanese teams.
NPB also requested the youngster not meet with anyone from a major league team until after Japan’s amateur draft later this month.
(for those interested in the original Japanese, please find it here)
Kikuchi doesn’t have an agent, but he and his family have entrusted his high school manager, Hiroshi Sasaki, with the task of inter-mediating negotiations for the time being. Junichi Tazawa used his manager at Eneos, Hideaki Ohkubo, in a similar manner last year. Sasaki has yet to meet with any MLB teams during these negotiations, and it remains to be seen whether he and the school will grant NPB’s request.
In other news, the Rangers continue to be perhaps the most frequently mentioned in the media among Kikuchi’s suitors. Most recently GM Jon Daniels told a Chunichi Sports reporter, “he’s the type of player we’re looking for”. The Rangers have also signed Kazuo Fukumori and Yukinaga Maeda out of Japan, and plucked Keisuke Ueno from the old Samurai Bears of the Golden League.
I’ve interrupted my self-imposed hiatus to launch my Data project into Beta. You can check it out at www.npbtracker.com/data. This is a beta release, so expect more functionality to come over the next few months, and don’t be shy about reporting problems and making suggestions.
Some of you might be following the NPB Tracker Twitter feed. I hope you’re enjoying it. What we’re doing with the Twitter feed is posting quick updates on specific players, mostly players of note to MLB fans. We’re posting a lot of quick updates to Twitter that won’t necessarily make it here.
For those of you that don’t have Twitter accounts, you can still get the updates via this rss feed.
NPB Tracker has succombed to the lure of microblogging and opened a Twitter page. We’ll cram as much info as we can in to the 140 characters that Twitter gives you. Expect to see game and player updates.