NPB Tracker

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.

This is a big year for NPB imports into MLB, with as many as seven front-line players poised to be wearing MLB uniforms in 2012. While all of the these players will be missed, their departures do collectively open spots for younger talent to fill. Here’s a look at who we might see stepping up in the next year and beyond.

• Hisashi Iwakuma (Rakuten) – Masahiro Tanaka took over as Rakuten’s ace in 2011, and the presence of Satoshi Nagai and Takahiro Shiomi softens the blow of losing Iwakuma. For me, the question of who inherits the title of Japan’s best groundball pitcher remains open.
• Wei-Yin Chen (Chunichi) – I’m not sure I see an immediate successor on Chunichi’s roster, though they do have young lefties Toshiya Okada and Yudai Ohno. And although he might be a year or two away, I’m looking to Yusei Kikuchi to emerge as Japan’s next top hard-throwing lefty starter.
• Hiroyuki Nakajima (Seibu) – Hideto Asamura played his way on to the Lions’ opening day roster in 2011, and was a tough out all season. He should move to shortstop in 2012, though he’ll have to fend off competition from Esteban German.
• Munenori Kawasaki (Softbank) – Softbank has young infielders Kenta Imamiya and Tu-Hsuan Lee waiting in the wings. It’s probably unrealistic to expect either to have the same kind of impact that Kawasaki did though. And it seems like the Kawasaki will be back at some point.
• Tsuyoshi Wada (Softbank) – Tadashi Settsu established himself as Softbank’s ace in waiting with a strong 2011. The losses of Wada and Toshiya Sugiuchi mean that there will be more pressure on guys like Kenji Ohtonari, Sho Iwasaki, Shota Ohba and Shingo Tatsumi to pitch quality innings at the ichi-gun level. We’ll see who steps up in 2012.
• Norichika Aoki (Yakult) – So far, Lastings Milledge is set to replace Aoki on Yakult’s roster. Softbank’s Seiichi Uchikawa would currently get my vote as Japan’s top contact hitter, though he lacks Aoki’s plate discipline. I’m not sure I see any Aoki-type prospects on the horizon… I’ve read some good things about Orix’s Shunta, but he needs some time to put it together.
• Yu Darvish (Nippon Ham) – In terms of public stature and marketability, Yuki Saito is certainly Darvish’s heir as the face of the Fighters. Saito is no replacement for Darvish on the mound, and I don’t think Nippon Ham will really have a true successor for him for a long time. Rakuten’s Tanaka seems poised to begin his tenure as Japan’s ace.

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.

The current phase of the Yu Darvish posting saga has predictability opened with a round of “no comments”. Here’s what Nippon Ham Fighters representative Toshimasa Shimada said to the Japanese media:

“We don’t have anything we can talk about yet. The outlook for a decision? I think we want to make a decision within the extent of the rules”

When asked about what Nippon Ham would base an acceptance on, Shimada reponded,

“Starting now, we’re considering our options, including that.”

And that was all.

Each offseason, NPB teams release a raft of players. I’ve combed through the list and picked out a few guys that could have some upside ahead of them.

• Chih-Lung Huang — There were MLB clubs interested in Huang when he signed with Yomiuri out of Taiwan in 2009, but he preferred Japan. The Giants seemed bullish on him when he reached ichi-gun in 2010, but cooled off this year. His stuff wasn’t as advertised but at age 22 he may still have some upside.
• Marcos Vechionacci — Vechionacci signed an ikusei contract with Hanshin last offseason, then hit .255/.359/.436 in 128 ni-gun plate appearances. That line sounds alright to me, but I guess Hanshin’s management didn’t agree. I would guess he’ll wind up back in 2A or 3A.
• Dioni Soriano – Soriano is a graduate of the Hiroshima Carp Dominican Academy, and bounced around China and Japan’s independent Island League before signing with the mothership in 2009. He has shown more success than anyone else on this list, throwing a shutout against Hanshin near the end of 2010. Soriano has a good arm, but throwing strikes has tended to be an issue for him. At age 29 (on December 30) he’s not a spring chicken by baseball standards, be he likely still has a few decent years in front of him.
• Wilfreiser Guerrero — Another product of the Carp’s Dominican Academy. Admittedly I know next to nothing about Guerrero, other that than he walked a lot of guys at ni-gun. I’ve included him on this list based on the observation that MLB clubs turned former Academy-sei players Ramon Ramirez and Esmailyn Caridad into Major Leaguers pretty quickly.
• Wirfin Obispo — I’ve written quite a bit about Obi-chan, calling his very good 2009 season a “small triumph for player development” and lauding Nippon Ham acquiring him from Yomiuri as one of my two favorite trades of last offseason. Obispo made Nippon Ham’s opening day roster in 2011, but was lit up in the first week and banished to ni-gun, where he was unimpressive for the rest of the season. At his best in 2009, he had a 93+ mph fastball and hard slider. Obispo is playing Winter Ball this year in hopes of catching on with an MLB club.

As far as I know, none of these players has signed for 2012 yet.

Not much time to write today, but there’s still a lot going on. If you to chat about what I said about Yu Darvish, or Tsuyoshi Wada’s deal with Baltimore, please leave a comment.

And another minor bit of news: the Yokohama DeNA BayStars have granted Hiroki Sanada his release, so that he may pursue an MLB deal. Sanada was posted unsuccessfully last week.

I don’t have much to say here, I just think that Norichika Aoki will wind up with the Rays.

If the earlier news about Hiroki Sanada’s failed posting wasn’t exciting enough, we have more.

Yu Darvish is finally getting posted. He’s announced it on his blog, and I’ve translated below.

To all the fans, an announcement

At this time, Yu Darvish has decided to use the posting system.

 

Because I wanted to relay this to the fans first, I am announcing this here.

 

I greatly appreciate the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters Baseball Club.

 

Because we’ve only just begun the posting process, I can’t talk about the details now.

 

I wish to hold a press conference once everything is decided.

 

Yu Darvish

The posting period for Yokohama DeNA BayStars reliever Hiroki Sanada has quietly come and gone, with no MLB teams submitting a bid. This wasn’t exactly a surprise, for reasons explained earlier. Sanada is the third NPB player posted to fail to draw a bid following Akinori Otsuka in 2002 and Koji Mitsui (twice) in 2009.

A few notes to share as we await word on where Hiroyuki Nakajima will wind up.

• The Chugoku Shimbun reports that the Hiroshima Carp are working on signing outfielder Nick Stavinoha. As of Monday, Hiroshima’s inquiry to the MLB commissioner’s office was complete, and negotiations were making progress.
• Sponichi reports that the Seibu Lions are moving on Texas infielder Esteban German, as a means of replacing the departing Nakajima on next year’s roster.
• In other Seibu news, Nikkan Sports reports that the Lions have hired former Yakult Swallow Kevin Hodges to scout the United States. Currently international scout Tetsu Suzuki will take over as Seibu’s farm director.