NPB Tracker

Edit Wednesday, February 10: Just as I alluded to in the original post, this one wound up getting shot down, just like the supposed signings of Shigetoshi Yamakita and Naoya Okamoto. For this one, the Phillies canceled Yamamura’s press conference 30 minutes before it was scheduled to begin. Nikkan Sports quoted Minoru Ichihara, who was inter-mediating the signing, as saying “there are differences between the truth and what’s been reported about this contract, and it feels like Amaro resents that”. Nikkan Sports goes on to explain that there were reports of big-money contract being finalized, but the reality is that the Phillies were planning to bring Yamamura into their minor league camp and let him play before the scouts before finalizing the contract. For his part, Yamamura said “I was thinking that it would be important to put up results in camp, and my frame of mind hasn’t changed. I just have to do my best in America.”

It’s hasn’t been reported whether or not the Phils are still going to have Yamamura in camp. I’m not sure where the errant information came from; the reports I saw when the story broke said that the contract wasn’t done. This Jiji News report from yesterday says so as well. I didn’t read every report on Yamamura so I could have missed it though.

Yakyu Baka has a few thoughts as well.

Let’s throw this one out there and see if it gets shot down… multiple reports out of Japan are saying that the Phillies have agreed to a minor league deal with Osaka University of Commerce catcher Hiroya Yamamura. Commenter John Brooks first passed along Yakyu Baka’s post on the signing, but there have been several subsequent reports.  Yomiuri says the details of the contract are still not finalized, and we have other reports saying that there will be a press conference on the 10th.

Yamamura was not selected in last year’s NPB draft, and only got a tertiary mention in Shukan Baseball’s draft guide, so I don’t know much about him. But (repeating what I put in the comments of another post), according to Draft Reports, he threw out 75% of would-be basestealers over his college career, but his hitting tanked in 2009. 23 k’s in 87 at-bats after controlling the strikezone pretty well the previous two years.