NPB Tracker

Sayonara Bobby, konichiwa Greg Maddux?

Maybe. The Chiba Lotte Marines are planning to invite the future Hall of Famer to spring training next season as a temporary pitching instructor, somewhat similar to what Orix did with Hideo Nomo last year. Sponichi notes that with his legendary control and excellent circle change, Maddux is a great role model on how to get by without velocity for Japanese pitchers. I’d tweak that just a bit and say he’s a great example for any pitcher.

Lotte’s intent is to reach out to Maddux through former Padres teammate and current Marine Tadahito Iguchi. I hope this comes together, it would be great to see Maddux back in the game.

It’s much harder to predict the standings for the Pacific League as the teams are so evenly matched. But I’ll give it a shot.

1. Seibu Lions: I think we’ll see a little regression from Okawari Nakamura and Kazuyuki Hoashi, but a better performance from Hideaki Wakui. Overall it looks like the Lions have enough to repeat.
Key Players: Wakui, Hoashi, whoever gets the most at-bats at 1st base

2. Nippon Ham Fighters: Nippon Ham was actually outscored by their opponents last year. I’m putting them here because I believe that they have the pitching and defense to win close games, and that Sho Nakata will turn up at some point during the season and provide a little offense.The new additions to the bullpen have the task of replacing Michael Nakamura as well.
Key Players: Nakata, Ryan Wing, Masanori Hayashi

3. Chiba Lotte Marines: I didn’t think I’d have the Marines making the playoffs, but I’m putting them in third because they have a solid front four in their rotation, and no real holes in their lineup. Hopefully Bobby V can find a way to keep Tadahito Iguchi and Shunichi Nemoto both in the lineup, as Nemoto broke out last year with a .296/.369/.430 line.
Key Players: Bobby V, Yoshihisa Naruse, Yuuki Karakawa

4. Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles: The Eagles have two WBC heroes at the top of their rotation (Hisashi Iwakuma, Masahiro Tanaka), a couple of solid mid-rotation guys (Darrell Rasner, Hideaki Asai), and some power in the middle of their lineup (Norihiro Nakamura, Fernando Seguignol, Takeshi Yamasaki). But on the other hand they have some holes in their lineup and bullpen.
Key Players: the bullpen

5. Orix Buffaloes: Manager Daijiro Ohishi took over in May of last year and lead the Buffaloes to a seemingly improbable playoff run. Looking back, the Buffaloes pitched better than I realized, with a 3.93 team era and four starters with sub-4:00 eras and at least 10 wins. If the pitching staff can repeat that performance, and the aging lineup of foreign sluggers holds up, they’ll be competitive. If not, look for a B-class finish.
Key Players: Tuffy Rhodes, Alex Cabrera, Jose Fernandez, Greg LaRocca

6. Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks: It’s hard to pick the Hawks to finish this low with the amazing rotation depth they have — Tsuyoshi Wada, Toshiya Sugiuchi, Nagisa Arakaki, Shota Ohba, Kenji Ohtonari, Kameron Loe, Kazumi Saito (if he can come back from his injuries) and rookie Shingo Tatsumi. But on the flipside, their lineup just isn’t what it used to be. The Hawks hit just 99 home runs last year and haven’t added any significant bats. They’re hoping for a return to form from aging sluggers Hiroki Kokubo and Hitoshi Tamura, who have been shells of their former selves in recent years.
Key Players: Kokubo, Tamura

It was tough to pick any of these teams to finish last, because the league is so balanced and all the teams have strengths. It seems likely that Seibu will finish in the top 3 and SoftBank will finish in the bottom 3, but everything else is up for grabs. What are your thoughts?

Coming: Tadahito Iguchi, Gary Burnham, Chase Lambin, Juan Muniz

Going: Julio Zuleta, Jose Ortiz, Winston Abreu, Szu-Yu Wu

Staying: Brian Sikorski, Benny Agbayani, Saburo Ohmura, Naoyuki Shimizu, Shingo Ono, Tasuku Hashimoto

Trending: upward

Synopsis: Iguchi is an upgrade over Ortiz, and the combination of Lambin/Burnham should be more productive than the injury-prone Julio Zuleta. None of Lotte’s major Japanese free agency-eligible players chose to sign elsewhere for Bobby Valentine’s final season.

News of the official announcement of Tadahito Iguchi’s move the Chiba Lotte Marines is beginning to spread around the East side of the ‘net. Reports have it that Iguchi has agreed to a three-year deal that will pay him 540m yen ($5.94m) plus performances incentives. The length of the contract is cited as a decisive factor in Iguchi selected the Marines. Reports had as many as eight MLB teams interested in Iguchi, plus an unspecified number of Japanese teams.

Iguchi will be introduced in a press conference on the 25th.

Update, Jan 19 8:11 am: According to 47news, Iguchi to Lotte is a done deal, and will be announced on the 20th. Other sources say the deal is close but not done.

I didn’t post this when it was new, but it’s been widely reported that Tadahito Iguchi will decide his destination on the 20th, which is either tomorrow or later today depending on which timezone you happen to be in.

Bobby Valentine’s Chiba Lotte Marines very publicly made Iguchi a three-year offer, and cleared out second base for him by releasing the incumbent Jose Ortiz. Despite this, Iguchi hasn’t given up on an MLB contract, but given that the market for 2nd basemen (Orlando Hudson) has been so weak, his best financial offer is likely to be in Japan.

I actually have an English report of this one — Chiba Lotte has offered 2nd baseman Tadahito Iguchi a 3-year, 600m yen contract. That’s $6.6m against a still weak greenback. Iguchi is unlikely to top that offer in MLB, and sounds like he’s seriously considering taking it:

”I feel like there are a lot of expectations of me. I feel gratitude that I can receive this offer even though I was injured last year. I feel Lotte’s sincerity,” Iguchi said. ”I want to play for a club where I feel needed. I haven’t decided yet, but I would like to decide as soon as possible.”

Sanspo ran this shot of Iguchi and team president Setoyama together.

First bullet points of the new year… let’s get started.

Japanese Articles

• The Tadahito Iguchi rumor mill is heating up a little. According to Nikkan Sports by way of Sports Nifty, the Chiba Lotte Marines are prepared to start the negotiations at 2 years, 400m yen ($4.4m at the current exchange rate).  The article speculates that they could go a little higher as they have the diasppointing Julio Zuleta’s 260m yen ($2.86m) annual salary coming off the books.
• Nikkan Sports reports that Daisuke Matsuzaka will be training with his former team, the Seibu Lions in preparation for the World Baseball Classic. Matsuzaka will train with Seibut at his own request.
• Nippon Ham manager Masataka Nashida has announced that Yu Darvish will be his opening day starter. Not really news, but it’ll be a tight schedule with the WBC wrapping up shortly beforehand. In the same breathe, Nashida said that he wants to face Hanshin in the Japan Series this year.
• Yomiuri Giants reliever and 2008 R0Y Tetsuya Yamaguchi will be doing his pre-camp training in Arizona at the Fischer Sports Gym, where Randy Johnson works out in the offseason. In other training news, Yakult reliever Ryota Igarashi is also heading to Arizona to train at the same gym Nomar Garciaparra uses.
• The Hiroshima Carp have been flooded with a deluge of orders for their new uniform.

English Articles

• The Saitama Seibu Lions are changing their look that’s suited them pretty well over the years. Simon isn’t a fan, and I have to say neither am I.
• Deanna racked up quite an impressive pile of ticket stubs in 2008.
• 2008 Sawamura Award winner Hisashi Iwakuma signed a 3-year, 1.1bn yen ($12.1m) deal with the Rakuten Eagles. This is a rare case of a top player getting a multi-year deal prior to reaching free agency in Japan.
• Jim Allen has a couple of players to watch in 2009.

Time to close out this series with some conclusions. I fear that I may be oversimplifying this a bit, but I’m looking for macro trends with this. These are casual observations, I didn’t do any hard research. 

Check the three previous installments here: 1, 2, 3. 

1. Most of the teams that lost a star to MLB took some kind of a hit in the standings. With the exception of Hiroshima, the teams losing the top 10 players listed below took years to replace the production they lost. Some of the teams still haven’t replaced the production they lost. It’s also important to remember that none of these departures happened in a vacuum; there were other things that affected the performance of each team, but overall the lose of these players has hurt their former teams competitively.

2. The only team that really took a popularity hit after losing a star to MLB was the Giants after losing Matsui. I bought walk-up tickets to a Giants game in 2005, which would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. Of course, while the Giants were down, the Tigers and Dragons were both up and have enjoyed competitive success and popularity since the early part of the decade. SoftBank has been less competitive since losing Johjima, but has not suffered at the gate. The team is actually adding 6000 seats to the Yahoo Dome for next season to help meet demand. 

3. Signing foreign talent to replace departed stars doesn’t seem to work. Teams will often sign foreign players to fill the holes left by departed stars, but when the do so, they’re losing the opportunity to add depth at other positions with those roster spots. I can’t think of an example where a foreign star was a long-term replacement for an MLB bound star. Colby Lewis was great as Hiroki Kuroda’s replacement in 2008, but so was Kevin Hodges a few years ago and he flamed out after a single season.

4. Losing talent to MLB has a trickle-down impact on the smaller market teams. As an example, Hanshin may have been content with their outfield had Shinjo stuck around, but two years after he left they signed Tomoaki Kanemoto away from the Carp to play left field. Kanemoto has gone on to become a legend for the Tigers while the Carp have only recently begun to show signs of life. Hanshin and Yomiuri can spend to fill their holes, while smaller market teams like Hiroshima cannot.

5. On the positive side, stars moving to MLB has opened up (or could potentially open) spots for younger players, in a league where there is no rule 5 draft and blocked prospects and depth guys are seldom traded. We haven’t seen too many cases of prospects jumping in and filling the shoes of the top 10 guys I’ve listed below, but others have stepped in for 11-26.

Overall, I don’t think this trend is killing NPB. Attendance is stable, and Japan Series television ratings were up this year (mostly because the Giants played in it). Many of the players who have made the leap to MLB have actually been pretty successful, which has greatly improved the credibility of NPB overseas. On the downside, the loss of star players has hurt the competitive depth of the affected teams, and led many to question the viability of the league. I seeing the loss of these star players as an “Oakland A’s-ing” of the league — the A’s have gotten by with smart management, an ability to exploit market inefficiencies and a willingness to continually reinvent the team on the field. The A’s style doesn’t translate to the Japanese game completely, but the underlying principles of thrift and creativity are important for a group of teams that generally is not going to compete with MLB financially.

Below is a list of all the players I looked at, ranked in order of how much I think their departure affected their previous team and the league. For me, there are really about three or four classes: Matsui and Johjima, Iwamura through Iguchi, and everyone else. You can possibly put Matsui, Kobayashi and Yabuta in their own class as well, as guys who were quickly replaced but did leave a gap in their absences. 

* I forgot about both these guys when compiling the original lists. Mori was successfully posted and signed with Tampa Bay, but got hurt in his first spring training and was never heard from again. Iriki played in the Mets and Blue Jays organizations, but got busted for PED usage and never reached the Majors. He resurfaced with Yokohama in 2008, but retired after the season.

** I left out Yukinaga Maeda as well.

Channeling mlbtraderumors for the second straight day…

• Looks like Takashi Saito is non-tender candidate. He was admittedly awful in his playoff appearance, but given how great he’s been the last few years I think he deserves another shot.
• Dan Evans has spoken to over 10 teams about Kenshin Kawakami.
• The Giants are reportedly in on Tadahito Iguchi.
• Kei Igawa visited Hanshin’s office, fueling speculation that he might be headed back to the Tigers. Igawa insists that he’s focused on succeeding in America. Igawa is eligible for the rule 5 draft this year… I’ll have more on him in a couple days.
• Texas AAA reliever Yukinaga Maeda announced his retirement last week.

A couple of notes to pass along regarding Japanese player activity at this week’s MLB winter meetings:

• Sponichi is reporting that the Astros are interested in So Taguchi. Agent Alan Nero has talked to five teams so far and is continuing to shop Taguchi around.
• Tadahito Iguchi will be in the States during the meetings, and hopes to decide on a 2009 team by the 20th. Iguchi has offers on both sides of the Pacific, and has reportedly already decided against returning the Phillies.
• Ken Takahashi’s agent isn’t expecting to see any movement for his client until the meetings start. Takahashi has been working out with a Major League ball.
• The Orioles are reportedly preparing to offer both Kenshin Kawakami and Koji Uehara 2-year/$10m deals. This seems surprisingly low to me. Even in this bad economy, the Giants still found $8m for Jeremy Affeldt. 
• Another report has an international scout from an AL East team putting the market for Uehara at 2 years, $5m. I think he would be a tremendous bargain at that price.
• I had read that Rakuten manager Katsuya Nomura would be in attendance at the winter meetings, but I think the Golden Eagles are done shopping this offseason. SoftBank, HIroshima, Lotte and possibly Hanshin still have foreign player slots open and could be active at the meetings.
• And this last one isn’t really winter meetings related, but I’ll through it out anyway. Remember Akinori Otsuka? He spent the year training and rehabbing after his injury in 2007. He wrote of his good relationship with new Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu in his blog, so I’ll speculate that if he’s healthy enough to pitch in 2009, Seattle might be the place. Otsuka seems to maintain a residence in San Diego, and he would be a Padres-type signing.