Please excuse the randomness of these links — I accumulated them over the offseason but never found the time to post them.
Yakult commemorated the retirement of Hirotoshi Ishii with this decorative mobile phone strap. Ishii was once Japan’s top power lefty, but hadn’t pitched above ni-gun for several years due to injuries.
In contrast, Softbank power righty (and NPB Tracker favorite) Nagisa Arakaki is on his way back. Arakaki pitched in November’s Asia Series, his first “ichi-gun level” game action in three years.
A number of NPB prospects participated in the Australian Baseball League this offseason, and the ABL’s official Twitter stream was kind enough to tweet me with updates on Yusei Kikuchi, Kenta Imamiya, and Takumi Akiyama.
I discovered a new blog recently: NPB Prospect Watch. This blog fills a much-needed niche for me and has a very good chance of making it into my regular rotation.
Shunsuke Watanabe: “trade secret pitches” in his own words: “I tried three and two worked well. I’m going to keep trying them out without worrying about the results.”
Here are some unorganized, rapid-fire notes about yesterday’s draft. Some of these are my own observations, others are from the media.
In the end, ‘only’ six teams went after Yusei Kikuchi in the first round. Still impressive, but not exactly an unprecedented number. It seemed that the other teams used the distraction of Kikuchi to nab the guy they wanted.
Despite this being considered a thin draft, the only player that was selected by more than one team in the first round was Kikuchi.
The one team that should have been in on Kikuchi, but wasn’t, was Yokohama, who took slugger Yoshitomo Tsutsugo with their first pick. This looks like a case where the team allowed the appeal of taking the local kid outweigh the choice that really best fit their needs (pitching).
I think Hiroshima made a great first round pick in Takeru Imamura, and then followed it up with strong picks with Shota Dobayashi, Hisashi Takeuchi, and Hayato Shoji. I could just be biased towards fame though; Takeuchi is a well-known college pitchers and the other guys were noted Koshien performers. Shoji put a lot of mileage on his arm at this year’s Koshien.
Hisayoshi Chono finally wound up with the Giants.
Fat, short first baseman Ryoji Nakata got taken in the third round by Chunichi. He’ll need to get into shape as a pro, and even then I still think he looks more like a pinch hitter than a starter.
Honda hurler Takao Suwabe was annoyed at not being picked until the sixth round, and might not sign because of that.
In more tear news, Kenta Imamiya wept for joy at being selected by his local SoftBank Hawks in the first round.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Shuichi Furukawa, Yutaka Ohtsuka, and Yosuke Okamoto do as pros.
I was wondering why Akihiro Hakumura wasn’t drafted, but it turns out he’s going to college rather than the pros.
Former Braves farmhand Masayoshi Tokuda was not taken by the Carp, despite ‘passing’ their tryout.
A couple other non-picks I was slightly disappointed with were Michiya Minato and Shogo Akiyama. Admittedly I haven’t seen much of either of these guys, but they both seem to have good pitchers’ frames, decent velocity and command issues (particularly Akiyama on the last point). I was hoping to see if they’d develop as pros.
Kazuhiro Kiyohara made his first appearance in a Seibu uniform in a while, swinging through the ceremonial first pitch on August 22.I’m not sure what Kiyohara’s been up to since retiring, but it looks like it involves getting a tan.
Hanshin is scouting Korea, reportedly looking at Kim Tae-Gyun of Hanwha and Lee Taek-Keun of the Heroes as potential acquisition targets for this offseason. Lee Bum-Ho and Kim Dong-Ju are also drawing interest from NPB teams. Someone who knows better should check my Romanization of these names.
Yakult’s Norichika Aoki, in the midst of his worst season as a pro, had his first four-hit game of the year, bringing his average up to .278. Yakult lost the game 7-3 to the Giants.
Draft Reports has a list of the hardest-throwing pitchers in this year’s Koshien Tournament.Yusei Kikuchi, Takumi Akiyama, and Kenta Imamiya.
Non-baseball item du jour: researchers at Tokyo University have developed tangible holograms. Graphics are the area of computer science that I find the most challenging so I’m quite impressed by this.