NPB Tracker

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.

The Seibu Lions have released statements from Hiroyuki Nakajima and team president Hajime Igo (thanks yakubaka.com — couldn’t read that one).

Nakajima:

“Although it’s very regrettable that we failed to agree on a contract, I appreciate the Saitama Seibu Lions for allowing me to be posted, and the New York Yankees for bidding on me.”

Igo:

“Nakajima pursued his Major League dream, but unfortunately he couldn’t realize it at the point. With a feeling of renewal, in the 2012 season we’d like to have him contribute to a Japan championship as a core member of the Saitama Seibu Lions.”

Along with Hiroki Sanada, we’re now 0-2 on postings this year, with Norichika Aoki and Yu Darvish pending.

Today’s Japanese word of the day is Oshogatsu (お正月), which refers to New Year’s Day or the New Year.

Oshogatsu is a big deal in Japan. It’s easily the biggest holiday Japan celebrates, and the country largely shuts down for about a week while its citizens gather as families and take part in the traditional activities, such as visiting shrines and eating Osechi ryori.

Here’s an roundup how some NPB players spent Oshogatsu, all found via the very handy @npb_players Twitter feed.

• Orix pitcher Satoshi Komatsu celebrated his first Oshogatsu with his child.
• Recently-retired pitcher Kimiyasu Kudoh “wants to spend [his] days learning things and having experiences to elevate [himself].”
• Yu Darvish posted a brief New Year’s greeting, asking for unchanged support from his fans.
• Yakult pitcher Tatsuo Kinoshita wishes you a feliz ano nuevo from the Dominican, where he is currently training.
• NPB Tracker favorite Hayato Terahara‘s Oshogatsu meal included this sashimi ensemble.
• Rakuten ace Masahiro Tanaka was a guest judge in NHK’s annual Kohaku music event, where he was “touched by the many staff members who put the stage together, but don’t show up on TV.”
• Someone apparently posted a note on Yoshihisa Naruse’s blog saying that he was considering retirement as part of a false New Year’s Day message. I only saw Naruse’s follow up saying that it wasn’t him that wrote it, and he wants to try harder than ever this year.
• Kazumi Saito received a set of lighters custom engraved with characters from the One Piece anime as a gift from his father in law.

The other day, Sports Hochi reported that, in the event that he signs with the Rangers, the Nippon Ham Fighters will “semi-retire” Yu Darvish’s number 11. The number won’t be officially retired, but will remain unused until the team develops another “absolute, Darvish-caliber ace”.

So it’ll be something like a Nippon Ham adaptation of number 18, Japanese baseball’s recognized “ace number”. Incidentally, Darvish wore 18 for Japan’s 2008 Olympic Team, because Kenshin Kawakami had 11. I could have my historical facts not-quite-right here, but I believe the ace number tradition was popularized by 18-wearer Tsuneo Horiuchi, Yomiuri’s 60’s and 70’s-era ace. After Horiuchi retired, number 18 was eventually passed down to Masumi Kuwata who went on to have a lengthy career. Every NPB except Yakult currently has number 18 assigned to a pitcher. In the Major Leagues, Hiroki Kuroda, Daisuke Matsuzaka and now Tsuyoshi Wada wear number 18.

I’m on board with this one, I think treating 11 as a new ace number is a great idea. Darvish’s tenure in NPB has been short, but legendary, and he’s certainly left his mark on Japanese baseball.

Hiroki Kuroda will not be wearing a Dodgers uniform on opening day 2012. I don’t have any special insight into where he might wind up, but I do have a couple of quotes from Kuroda and his agent to pass along.

Here’s a one from Kuroda that appeared in Sponichi on December 30th:

“It’s an important offseason in that I’m taking another look at my life in baseball. I’d like to take as much time as is permissible and carefully make a decision.”

 

「野球人生を見つめ直す意味で大事なオフ。時間の許す限り、じっくり決断を下したい」

And the second is from agent Steve Hilliard, and appeared in Sponichi the previous day:

“We’re steadily getting closer to decision time.”

 

「（去就）決断の時期は着々と近づいている」

 

“Currently he’s carefully considering all his options, including Hiroshima and MLB teams, but it’s a very difficult decision.”

 

「彼は現在、広島とメジャー球団、全ての選択肢を検討し熟考している段階だが、とても難しい決断になっている」

The quotes from Hilliard are translations of translations, and I couldn’t find the original quotes published in English, so we’ll have to live with them for now.

The other day, Scot Drucker tweeted that Orlando Roman signed with a Japanese team. On the same day, Daily Sports reported that Yakult was looking into signing Roman, so, putting two and two together… I’ll surmise that Roman has signed with Yakult.

I’ll admit that I had never heard of Roman prior to Drucker’s tweet, but his b-ref page indicates that he’s a hard working minor league veteran, a 31st-round draft pick who reached 3A at age 27, and has played in Mexico and in Taiwan with the Brother Elephants in recent years. It’s always nice to see  hard work pay off for this type of player, and I hope he does well in Japan.

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.

明けまして、おめでとうございます。今年も、よろしくお願いします。

Happy New Year!

It should be 2012 everywhere in the world right now, so wherever you are, I hope your 2012 is off to a great start.

良い年を！

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.

Last week, over at the mighty fine (Japanese language) Carp Blog, I learned that veteran righty Masaki Hayashi is calling it a career. Hiroshima released (via senryokugai) Hayashi after the season, and decided to retire after failing to draw any interest with his participation at an offseason tryout.

Hayashi spent his 11-season career in Hiroshima’s bullpen, and while he was never dominant or even really consistently effective, he did have one distinguishing trait: a great slider with big, late movement.

(here’s another video)

Hayashi could run his fastball up into the 147-148 kmph range in his earlier years, so he had pretty good stuff. It didn’t quite translate to NPB dominance, but he was fun to watch. According to the Carp Blog, he’ll take a position the Carp’s front office.