NPB Tracker

While I think about my next lengthy analytical piece, here’s a set of links to recent news items.

• A fan ran on the field at Hanshin’s remote home in Fukui on June 30. I can’t remember ever seeing this in an NPB game before.
• The Ishikawa Million Stars of the independent BC League have picked up Dominican infielder Antoni Lugo. Lugo played four years in the Dominican Summer League.
• Hisashi Iwakuma started his rehab assignment with a three-inning ni-gun outing on July 5. Kuma threw all his pitches and maxed out at 145 kmph on the gun.
• Hayato Terahara has very deservingly been selected for the Pacific League’s All-Star team, his first selection since 2008. Nikkan Sports is speculating that Terahara could challenge the All-Star Game velocity record of 157 kmph, currently held by Ryota Igarashi.
• Here’s a funny one: Chunichi demoted mascot Doala to ni-gun on July 1 to “make adjustments”.  Upon returning, Doala initially failed to perform a back flip, but then “barely” pulled on off on the 7th.
• Brent Leach has returned to Japan, after a long post-earthquake absence. Leach had been on the restricted list, but is scheduled to practice at ni-gun started on the 9th.
• Lotte shortstop Masato Watanabe hit an inside-the-park home run against Yu Darvish and the Nippon Ham Fighters on Thursday. Here’s a link to the video.
• Speaking of Darvish, scouts from six or seven (depending on what you read), including the Mets, Yankees and Giants, were in attendance for his Thursday start.

Here is the much-anticipated followup to my earlier uniform roundup post.

• Here’s a look at this year’s All-Star uniforms.
• As pointed out by the always on-time passerby, Orix is dusting off the old Kintetsu Buffaloes uniforms later this season.
• The Seibu Lions will be feature 1951 throwbacks, from the team’s Nishitetsu era.
• Lotte is going with mid-90’s throwbacks, featuring the old CLM logo.
• I don’t know if these are alternates or what, but Rakuten recently wore uniforms that were unfamiliar to me. They are different from the 1980’s Astros knock-offs that they wore in interleague play, but do feature that rainbow motif.
• Softbank is wearing baby blue alternative uniforms this year (seen here game action). Maybe it’s because I’m a San Jose Sharks fan, but these have grown on me. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: Softbank needs to revive these helmets.
• Yokohama will be wearing these “Summer Uniforms” until the end of August.

Last week, a tweet asking about Brazilian ballplayers in Japan came my way (and Ken’s). I’ve maintained an interest in Brazil since David Byrne started marketing 1960’s psychodelic innovators Os Mutantes around the turn of the century, so I decided to write a little more about the subject. If nothing else, it gave me a chance to write that last sentence.

I don’t know much about baseball in Brazil, but I know that there are significant reciprocal expatriate communities in Brazil and Japan, and it’s generally known that baseball was brought to Brazil by Japanese immigrants. Although it’s not terribly common, it’s not that unusual to see players with Brazilian heritage active in the amateur ranks in Japan, particularly in high school and college ball. And Yakult has some kind of academy in Brazil, but I have no idea how active it is. That’s about the extent of my knowledge of baseball in Brazil. If anyone can enlighten me further, I’m all ears.

There are currently three Brazilian players active at the pro in Japan, all with Yakult: OF/1B/PH Yuichi Matsumoto, P Rafael Fernandes, and OF Maike Magario. Each took a different path to pro ball. Matsumoto is the elder statesman of the group, with 13 years in the Yakult organization. He’s mostly served as a pinch hitter over the last few years, but is probably the most successful Brazilian professional baseball player to date. Fernandes played college ball at Hakuoh University, where he apparently showed great velocity but little polish. Yakult drafted him as an ikusei player in 2008, and he earned a promotion to the regular roster this season. Through 38 innings at ni-gun, he has a 1.89 ERA, but command is still a problem, as he has allowed 22 walks. Magario was born in Sao Paulo but moved to Japan at age five and came up through the high school ranks, playing at Koshien and eventually getting drafted as an ikusei player. So far at ni-gun this year, Magario has a defensive replacement’s line: 25 games played, seven plate appearances.

Looking to the future, a couple of Brazilian Industrial Leaguers I’m keeping half an eye on as potential NPB draft prospects. The first is pitcher Felipe Natel of Yamaha, who has commented that he would like to go pro after meeting the residence requirements to qualify as a Japanese player, thus avoiding the foreign player limit. My Natel experience is limited to video clips that I’ve sought out, but I’d like to see a little more velocity from him. The other is outfielder Allen Fanhoni of NTT East. Fanhoni first caught my eye a few years ago when I saw him in a prefectural high school game. I probably wouldn’t have remembered him if not for his name. He doesn’t look like much of a prospect at this point, but he’s probably the biggest guy in the Industrial Leagues at 196 cm / 100 kg, only 19 years old, and relatively in experienced at higher levels of competition. If he can refine his approach and turn himself into a real power prospect, he’ll be valuable NPB commodity.

It’s hard to believe, but NPB Tracker has been online for over three years now. June 15 was the official date, but I was busy last week.

Ever year has it’s highlights, and this year was no different. I’m probably forgetting a few things but these are the ones that jump out:

• Coming darn close to actually seeing a game with Deanna and Westbaystars-san. We got as far as the box office at Tokyo Dome, but the BayStars-Giants game was sold out, so instead we had dinner at Hichiori Morimoto’s parents’ restaurant, Yakiniku Erika.
• The awesome surprise of walking into Borders one day and seeing my article on the cover of Rotowire’s annual Fantasy Guide. Getting to finally meet Peter Schoenke after having worked with Rotowire for the last couple years was fun as well.
• Getting together with all the guys from FanGraphs in Arizona during spring again.
• Adding Ken and Adam to the NPB Tracker family.

I’d also like to say thanks to all the readers and commenters for making this thing fun.

• Bobby Scales is on his way to Japan to play for Nippon Ham. I had Scales on my list last offseason, and again a couple weeks ago, so it’s safe to say he’s an NPB Tracker favorite. According to Nikkan Sports, Ham intends to use him to fill the gap left by the currently injured Kensuke Tanaka.
• Another NPB Tracker favorite, Nagisa Arakaki, is rehabbing a ni-gun with an eye toward his first ichi-gun appearance in over two years. Arakaki is scrapping his once-feared slider.
• The other day I happened across a news item saying that former Yankees prospect Jackson Melian is active in Japan with the independent Kobe Suns, who are managed by former Major Leaguer Mac Suzuki. He’s only hitting .175 though.
• Here’s a pic of the scouting contingent at Tokai University pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano’s last game. The group included scouting representation from at least one MLB team. Sugano is high on Yomiuri’s radar for this season’s draft.
• Yet another NPB Tracker favorite, Junichi Tazawa, failed to last a full inning in his first appearance off the DL. Tazawa gave up six runs in 2/3 of an inning.
• Shame on me for not finding the English-language Hanshin Tigers Page and including it in this year’s blogosphere post.

The new, home run-supressing NPB ball has brought a Japan-wide “year of the pitcher”. Five NPB’s 12 teams have team ERAs under 3.00, led by Nippon Ham’s amazing 2.02 mark. But the thing that’s jumped out at me is number of guys with unbelievable K:BB ratios. Check these out:

• (pitcher – K:BB, IP)
• Yu Darvish – 106:10, 92 IP
• Masahiro Tanaka – 96:7, 91.1 IP
• Yoshihisa Naruse – 81:6, 83 IP
• Masaru Takeda – 45:3, 74 IP
• Yoshihisa Hirano – 42:2, 32.1 IP
• Dennis Sarfate – 40:4, 26.2 IP
• Takuya Asao – 29:2, 29 IP

Those are just the guys with ratios of 10:1 or better. There are number of others with ratios in the 4:1 or 5:1 range.

So what’s going on here? These guys were all very good already, but they didn’t all take this type of step forward at once. My guess is that the new ball has enabled pitchers to attack the strike zone more aggressively, with less fear of surrendering a home run. That’s just an untested theory at this point though.

I guess when it comes down to it, I don’t need to add much to the headline. Yomiuri is trying to get Josh Fields out of the Rockies organization. The news comes from Sports Hochi, which is part of the Yomiuri media group, and says the Giants are “pouring all their effort into agreeing to a contract quickly.” The Giants are reportedly looking at Fields as a third base alternative to Rusty Ryal, who has really struggled this year. None of Yomiuri’s homegrown options seem to have the chops for the hot corner.

Fields was once The White Sox’ heir apparent to Joe Crede, and has a 23 home run season on his resume, back in 2007. He hasn’t done much at the Major League level since then, those it seems he has quite a bit of MLB roster time as he hasn’t played more than 75 games at 3A since 2006. This is his first year in the hitter-friendly PCL, and he’s tearing it up to the tune of .365/.429/.674. I actually took a long look at Fields when the news came out that Hiroshima was looking for help, but that I thought with his line he might get a look with the Rockies.

This seems like a deal that has a good chance at getting done. I think Yomiuri picked a good guy to go after, though in retrospect, simply keeping Edgar Gonzalez wouldn’t have been a bad move.

With NPB off until Friday, it’s a good time to refresh the Bullet Points series.

• NPB has decided not to pursue changes to the Posting System, according to a June 13 Sanspo report. Difficulty in changing the system on the MLB side and the possibility of collecting large posting fees were cited as the reasons behind the support for the current system.
• Yakult has added Brazilian Rafael Fernandez to its 70-man shihaikai roster, an upgrade from the ikusei roster. Fernandez was selected in the ikusei draft back in 2008, and has a 1.97 ERA in eight games at ni-gun this season.
• Hanshin did the same with Venezuelan lefty Robert Zarate. Zarate was signed out of the independent Baseball Challenge League last offseason.
• Norihiro Nakamura is back, this time with the Yokohama BayStars. Nori hit the first home run of his return on the 18th against Softbank.
• The Chiba Lotte Marines have come to an agreement to acquire infielder Jose Castillo, who was with Yokohama last year. Castillo had been tearing up the Mexican League, and I figure he’ll play LF or DH in Chiba.
• The Braves and Twins had scouts at Yu Darvish’s June 15 start, where he was shockingly defeated by Hanshin. Atlanta’s always chatty Hiroyuki Ohya had this to say: “It felt like he was pressing with this fastball. He has less break on his slider than he did two years ago. He can do better than this.”
• Yakult is set to sell a cocktail “produced” by slugger Wladimir Balentien. The drink will be based on Curacao, a liqueur from Coco’s homeland in the Netherlands Antilles.
• Agent Don Nomura has a new client, pitcher Keisuke Imamura, currently of the Kobe 9 Cruise of the Kansai Independent League. According to the Kobe News, Imamura stands at 190 cm (6’3), reaches 148 kmph (92mph) with his fastball, and has a 14.54 K/9IP ratio this season. The Astros, Giants, and Yankees are said to have shown interest.

On Sunday, Seibu prospect Yusei Kikuchi made his ichi-gun debut, an afternoon start against the Hanshin Tigers. The results weren’t impressive: 2.1 IP, 53 pitches, 14 batters faced, 6 hits, 2 strikeouts, 1 walk, 4 runs, 4 earned. That line looks a little worse if we note that two of Kikuchi’s seven outs were sacrifice bunts by Keiichi Hirano.

Stuff-wise, Kikuchi’s day was a mixed bag. He didn’t have the fastball velocity that he showed in his high school days, and while he had great movement on his slider, his command of it was spotty. He fell behind in the count to most of the batters he faced, and lacked the swing-and-miss stuff to get even. But on the positive side, he worked exclusively down in the zone, and induced a number of extraordinarily weak, squiber-ish ground balls. All of the six hits he surrendered were singles, and only one was a decisive line drive.

Kikuchi was clearly better against the weak part of Hanshin’s order, so maybe he needs a little more time at ni-gun to work things out. The basics are there, and if Kikuchi can add a few more kmph to his fastball, a little more polish on his slider, and a changeup or a curveball to round things out, I think he’ll be a quality professional pitcher.

• Rakuten has imported first baseman Luis Alfonso Garcia from the Mexican League. The big righty has already appeared in three games for the Eagles, and is 3 for 10 with a double, and has participated in his first hero interview. Rakuten has a bit of a pattern of in-season imports having some initial success, then flaming out in year two, so we’ll see how Garcia does. I love his stance, though.
• Orix has picked up 23 year-old righty Wilson Matos on an ikusei contract. Matos had been with the Cardinals 1A affiliate, but it looks like all of his game experience came in the low minors with the Boston and Florida organizations.
• Nikkan Sports is reporting that Hiroshima is looking to add a bat, specifically a righthanded outfielder with gap power. They reportedly have a list of five or six names, but Nikkan Sports didn’t give us anyone specific. Hmmmm…. my guesses would be Jeremy Hermida, Jeff Larish, Bobby Scales. I guess I have a bit of a bias for guys I’ve seen in the Major Leagues, specifically those who have come through the Bay Area.
• Nikkan Sports also reports that Lotte is also in the market for an outfielder, and were specifically going after John Bowker, but hadn’t been able to close out a deal as of the 11th. Bowker is a good pick, another guy with player plenty of 3A experience, but little MLB success. Loyal commenter Chris Jackson gave us a heads up on Lotte’s scouting activities a couple weeks ago.