NPB Tracker

A busy work schedule kept me away from the blog for a few days, but I’m back with another post. We’ll start with the usual randomness and hopefully I’ll have some more focused content to post in a couple of days.

English Articles:

• I’ve made my list of 2009 free agents a permanent page on the site.
• Mike Plugh’s Darvish Watch blog is back.
• SeeBeautiful published some excellent photographs from a recent Tigers-Swallows game.
• Speaking of photography, here’s a great shot of the Lucky 7 jetto-fusen at Koshien.
• 2006 Rookie of the Year Tomoya Yagi pitched well in his first game of the season.

Japanese Articles:

• Orix slugger Alex Cabrera had 4 hits and 3 RBI’s in the Buffaloes’ Aug 16 win over Nippon Ham, pulling within 1.5 games of a playoff spot. Cabrera is promising to close the gap: “The team is clicking and it’s a good atmosphere. We’re definitely going to the playoffs, so to all the fans, why don’t you come with us?” (note: translation of a translation. These are not his exact words.)
• Olympic teammates Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka have shaved their heads for the games. Darvish comments in his blog: “You know the reason. Tomorrow, we’ll win.”
• Rakuten’s Hisashi Iwakuma won his 16th game and dropped his ERA to 1.93. Looks like we have a new favorite for the Sawamura Award. Iwakuma was presented with a bouquet for setting a new career high in wins.
• Yomiuri’s Hisanori Takahashi has qualified for domestic free agency. I’ve added him to my list of 2009 free agents.

Going light on English today, for no particular reason:

• Janblurr keeps us up-to-date us on the Koshien high school baseball tournament.
• Deanna chats with Seibu outfielder Hiram Bocachica.

Lots of Japanese-language links to share today:

• Ten major league teams have scouts at the Olympics watching upcoming free agents Hitoki Iwase, Koji Uehara, and Kenshin Kawakami, as well as phenom Yu Darvish and stopper Kyuji Fujikawa. The Yankees, Mets, Angels, and Padres were named as teams with reps present.
• Orix is working on retaining the services of sluggers Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera for next year
• US Olympic Team manager Davey Johnson commented on Yu Darvish: “No question Yu Darvish is a big league-level pitcher. They’ve got a lot of other good pitchers together too” and Japan manager Senichi Hoshino: “I remember from my time with the Giants that he had a lot of strikeouts. He was great as a player and a manager.”
• Hanshin Tigers speedy center fielder Norihiro Akahoshi set a new NPB record by going 1930 plate appearances without a home run. He surpassed the previous record held by former Hanshin second baseman and current Hanshin coach Yutaka Wada.
• The Seibu Lions celebrated their francise’s 4000th win on Monday with a 3-0 victory over Nippon Ham.
• Rakuten Eagles ace Hisashi Iwakuma won his 15th game of the season, and lowered his ERA to 2.04 to pull ahead of Yu Darvish for the league lead.
• Lotte will suit up in their old Lotte Orions unforms for their next six games. I think the uniform has aged well — see here and here. The Yakyu Shop has throwback caps for sale.

You won’t catch me doing this very often, but I thought I’d post some YouTube highlights of Yu Darvish’s last two games. I get the feeling that there are a lot of people who have read about him, but only a smaller percentage of those have actually seen him pitch. Here’s an opportunity to see some recent action. I’ve also included links to English-language box scores from JapaneseBaseball.com.

July 24: Chiba Lotte Marines 5, Nippon Ham Fighters 2 (box score)

Darvish goes 8 innings, but gives up 5 runs on 11 hits and 5 walks while taking the loss. The big blow was a 4th inning grand slam off the bat of DH Tasuku Hashimoto. Give Hashimoto credit; Darvish made a good pitch and he turned on it.

Lotte rookie Yuta Ohmine picked up his first career win in the game, striking out 6 over 6 innings of work.

Here’s a link to the content on YouTube.

July 17: Nippon Ham Fighters 3, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 1 (box score)

Vintage Darvish; a 4-hit complete game on 89 pitches. 10 strikeouts, no walks. This video has some good highlights of Darvish’s variety of stuff.

Here’s a link to the content on YouTube.

Headlines from the Japanese side of the web tonight:

• I caught a blurb on Softbank negotiating with a foreign power hitter in Sports Hochi. Says team COO Takeuchi, “when we reach the final stages we’ll make an announcement. Currently we’re negotiating”. This report is a little old and doesn’t hint at who it might be. Maybe negotiations didn’t go anywhere.
• Yu Darvish threw 165 pitches in Nippon Ham’s July 23 loss to Lotte. Darvish hung around until the 8th inning, allowing 5 earned runs on 11 hits and 5 walks while striking out 10. Sanspo quotes Nippon Ham manager Nashida: “I thought we’d go until 140. He himself said that’d go. His love for the team is intense. I thought he’s dependable”. Ham pitching coach Masato Yoshii commented that Darvish didn’t have his good stuff.
• Chris Resop hit 98 MPH on the gun in a practice with Hanshin. The coaches seem impressed. Tomoyuki Kubota holds the Hanshin record for fastest pitch in a game at 157 KM/H (98.125 MPH).
• Hiroshima made two minor trades recently that totally slipped by me. They picked up Rui Makino from Rakuten for Kenta Satake, and Akira Tanaka from Orix for Koji Yamazaki. There seem to be more trades happening in NPB recently.

As an addendum, I also posted some highlights from the Darvish game I mentioned.

So I must say that I’m disappointed to see Hideo Nomo‘s career end as it did. Although Nomo was obviously a shadow of his former self these past few years, I still think he deserves better. It would be nice to see him get a one-day contract with the Dodgers or Orix Buffaloes so he could get a last cheer from the fans. Nomo suited up for a lot of different teams over the last 18 years, but I’ll always think of him as either a Dodger or a Buffalo.

If you’ve made your way to this site, you can no doubt find the many English language articles that have been published on Nomo in the last day or two. So I’m going to focus on Japanese language content (translations courtesy of me).

Comments from Daisuke Matsuzaka, via Sponichi Annex:

“He was the one who inspired me to clearly aim for the Major Leagues while I was in middle school. Since then my goal had been to stand in the same park with him.

“It’s a shame that we couldn’t meet on the field while we had the chance this year and last”

Comments from (Kintetsu Buffaloes teammates) Daijiro Ohishi, Motoyuki Akahori, Hideki Irabu, and Yu Darvish, again via Sponichi Annex:

Ohishi: “I knew he was going to retire someday, but actually hearing it makes me sad. He was a strikeout/walk pitcher, so as fielder it was tough defending (behind him).”

Akahori: “He really was an amazing pitcher. It feels like an era has ended. I want to say ‘well done'”

Irabu: “He was the one that contributed the bridge between Japanese and American baseball. I’d like to tell him ‘you did great work’. I hope that he’ll continue to work hard for baseball in another form”

Darvish: “I think he can still play. I expect him to come out of retirement, but for now I’d like to say ‘well done'”

And last but not least, here’s a YouTube video of Nomo’s first career victory for the old Kintetsu Buffaloes team. It was Nomo’s third career appearance and he struck out 17 Orix Braves, mostly with his splitter.

Today’s news & links:

• Yu Darvish dominated Rakuten for his 11th win of the season: 9 IP, 10 K, 0 BB, 4 H, 1 ER on 89 pitches. Darvish’s league-leading ERA is now 1.88.
• Hanshin lost yesterday, cutting their lead to 11.5 in the Central League.
• Kazumi Saito has been rehabbing in Arizona, but he’s found time to attend a WNBA game and hang out with Jeremy Giambi.
• Victor Starfin’s daughter did indeed throw out the first pitch at the Giants’ July 15 game.
• NPB teams sending three or more players to the Olympics will be allowed to carry an additional foreign player while they’re Olympians are away. This means some teams will have up to five foreign players on their active rosters.

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days… took a little bit of an extended holiday weekend and did a little traveling. Hope my readers in America hada nice 4th of July. Here are today’s bullet points:

• Hanshin is cruising with a 7-game winning streak(link in English) and has opened up a massive 12.5 game lead on 2nd place Chunichi. They’ve also “lit up” their magic number to clinch a playoff spot. It currently stands at 55.
• In other Hanshin news, pitcher Wakatake threw a no-hitter for the Tigers’ farm team.
• Yu Darvish will be starting the All-Star Game for the Pacific League. Colby Lewis gets the call for the Central League.
• MVPs for the month of June. Central League: Kenshin Kawakami (Chunichi), Tomoaki Kanemoto (Hanshin); Pacific League: Hisashi Iwakuma (Rakuten), Craig Brazell (Seibu). Note that a profile on Kawakami is on my to-do list.
• I stumbled across a new English-language Korean Baseball Blog. Here’s a link.
• Deanna at Marinerds, etc posted a blog about her trip to a minor league game in Japan. Lots of good photos.
• In another stumbling, I found this guy’s YouTube page. Tons of game highlights, posted regularly. All videos in Japanese.

There’s a lot of hype and speculation around Yu Darvish, the anointed successor to Daisuke Matsuzaka as Japan’s ace and the next big MLB import. It’s easy to understand why: Darvish is 21 years old, 6’6, throws a 95MPH fastball as well as five other pitches, and has dominated the Pacific League. If anything, Darvish is a slightly better prospect than Matsuzaka was at this stage.

Unfortunately for hot stove fans, I think it’ll be a long time before we see Yu Darvish in an MLB uniform.

Here’s video from an interview with Darvish conducted prior to last year’s Japan Series. It’s in Japanese, but I’ve translated some highlights below.

“Won’t it be uninteresting for the Japanese children? To give the kids something to enjoy, it’s important for local stars to stay.”

“There aren’t supposed to be players born in Japan who what to go to the majors from the start. You start in Japanese Pro Baseball first.”

“I want to continue playing in Japanese Pro Baseball.”

(source video)

*Note: I’m not satisfied with my translation there. I may revisit this one.

In a sense it’s refreshing that Darvish is committed to Japanese baseball. As much as I like Uehara and Matsuzaka, they’ve been talking about playing in the Majors since day one. It’s nice to see that Darvish is focused on NPB, at least for now.

I don’t think it’ll last though. If Darvish continues to perform at the level he’s at, I have a hard time believing he wouldn’t want to challenge himself at the MLB level. The interest is certainly there on the MLB side.

From a practicality standpoint though, it’s going to take a while. Darvish still needs to accumulate six more years of service time beyond this season before qualifying for international free agency. So that’s a long way off.

Which brings to the question of whether Nippon Ham would post Darvish. I think posting is actually Darvish’s most likely route to MLB, but let’s examine this.

Let’s assume that Darvish would command a posting fee similar to the $51,111,111.11 that Seibu got for Matsuzaka. Actually let’s bump that up a little and guess that Darvish will fetch $60M for his team. This is just a wild, totally, unscientific guess for the sake of argument so don’t take it too seriously.

If Nippon Ham were to post Darvish after this season, they’d essentially be selling their right to employ him for the next six years for $60M. I think Darvish is worth far more to the Fighters than this. Financially speaking, he’s a huge asset as he’s Japan’s most popular player, and can sell tickets, merchandise and attract fans on television and the internet. I don’t have numbers on what Darvish actually pulls in, but I think he is the single biggest draw in NPB.

Darvish is also at the core of the Fighter’s competitive efforts. Nippon Ham is experiencing kind of a golden age right, now coming off back-to-back Japan Series apperances (winning in 2006), and are competitive again this year. Darvish is one of the players that got them to competitiveness after years of being a doormat. As other key figures like manager Trey Hillman (KC Royals), Tsuyoshi Shinjo (retirement), and Michihiro Ogasawara (Yomiuri Giants) have departed, Darvish has become even more central to the team’s success.

The only way Nippon Ham will post Darvish is if it comes down to posting him or losing him to free agency. I suspect it’ll eventually come down to that, and Nippon Ham will have to make a choice like the Indians have to make with C.C. Sabathia this year, and the Rangers made last year with Mark Teixiera. I could be wrong, but I think we’ll see him in an MLB uniform in 2014 or so but not before then. By then he’ll be 27-28 and have some mileage on his arm, but still be solidly in his prime.

The good news is that we get to see him play in Japan for several more years, and represent Japan in international competition. The media attention Darvish has garnered in America has seemed to generate some interest in Japanese baseball. I hope this will be beneficial for the sustainability of NPB.

I’ll post a more complete profile of Darvish at some point in the future, and track his performance throughout the season. For now, here are his career numbers (through 2007) and some brief game footage.

NPB resumed league play last night after a short post-interleague break.

Pacific League
Nippon Ham 3 – Orix 2 — Yu Darvish struck out 10 and walked 3 over seven innings to pick up the win. Former Twin Micheal Nakamura picked up the save, while former Angel Ramon Ortiz went six innings a losing effort for Orix.

Saitama Seibu Lions 4 – Chiba Lotte Marines 1 — Breakout starter Kazuyuki Hoashi held the Marines to one run over 7+ innings and Craig Brazell knocked in three runs in Seibu’s win. Lotte phenom starter Yoshihisa Naruse surrendered four earned runs in five innings, seeing his personal night game winning streak end at 14.

Softbank Hawks 3 – Rakuten Golden Eagles 2 — Infielder Yuichi Honda won it in the ninth for Softbank with a Sayonara hit to center, knocking in catcher Katsuki Yamazaki. C.J. Nitkowski took the win in relief for Softbank.

Central League
Chunichi Dragons 2 – Yokohama BayStars 1 — MLB prospect Kenshin Kawakami held the BayStars scoreless over seven innings, and the Dragons scored twice on Yokohama’s bullpen for the win. On the plus side for Yokohama, rookie starter Futoshi Kobayashi pitched well, giving up one earned run in seven innings of work.

Hiroshima Carp 6 – Yomiuri Giants 1 — Rookie hurler Kenta Maeda shutdown the Giants over seven innings, and first baseman Kenta Kurihara lead a well-balanced attack with his eigth homerun of the year. Shinnosuke Abe homered in a losing effort for the Giants.

NPB Interleague Play wraps up over the weekend, and Nippon Ham will need to win both of it’s games against Hanshin to have a shot at winning the Interleague title*. Yu Darvish has offered to pitch in relief over the weekend if it will give his team a chance to win. Darvish last pitched on June 17, throwing 128 pitches over seven innings in the Fighters’ 8-7 win. He allowed three earned runs while striking out nine and walking four.

Hopefully Nippon Ham manager Nashida sees the bigger picture and doesn’t burn out his ace pitcher over a game that ultimately doesn’t hold any special meaning.

Source: Sanspo (in Japanese)

*In Japan, Interleague games are sorted of treated as a separate championship within the season. Each team’s results still factor in to their normal won-lost records, but they also keep separate standings for Interleague games, and the team with the best record is considered the champion. The Interleague Championship doesn’t have any playoff implications and isn’t a big deal at the end of the day. The Interleague contenders are:

Going into the final Interleague weekend, Hanshin plays Nippon Ham and Softbank plays Yomiuri. So despite the Interleague games not being worth any more in the standings than any other game, making it a little more of a competition does at a bit of intrigue.