NPB Tracker

Nikkan Sports is reporting that the Rakuten Golden Eagles have agreed to a deal with a bari bari Major Leaguer, veteran Andruw Jones. Nikkan Sports estimates the value of the deal at JPY 300m ($3.5m or s0) including signing bonus, base salary, and performance bonuses. An official announcement is expected after Jones takes a physical.

Nikkan Sports is the only publication that has this news right now, but it’s plausible. Rakuten released all their foreign position players after the season and was said to want to make a splash this offseason. They had been rumored to have interest in Manny Ramirez as well.

After slumping to a surprising 6th-place finish in the Pacific League last year, the SoftBank Hawks went into the offseason looking to acquire some offense, but only came away with Chris Aguila, who himself admits to being more of a gap hitter. It had been reported that the Hawks were after Nelson Cruz and Eric Hinske, but Cruz couldn’t be pried away from Texas and Hinske signed with Pittsburgh.

The Hawks haven’t given up on finding a power hitter for the 2009 season. They’re now targetting guys who are now in camp with MLB teams, but fall off active rosters as the teams head North. Team COO Takeuchi says, “even for the same player, the salary is many times different after being dropped from the majors. We’ve reached out but haven’t had any concrete financial discussions yet”. They have a list, but no names are public yet.

Of course, I should point out that Manny Ramirez is still unsigned, and Barry Bonds hasn’t “officially” retired yet.