NPB Tracker

Japanese:

• 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.

English:

• We tweeted the news that Yu Darvish will skip his next start.
• Matt visited Starfin Stadium in Hokkaido recently.
• Deanna went to an Island League game, and sends pictures.
• Gen gives us a look at Japan’s entry in to this year’s Asia AAA Tournament.
• Jim Allen finds out what makes Takuro Ishii tick.
• 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.

Coming: Takuro Ishii, Scott Dohmann, Mazda Stadium

Going: Alex Ochoa, Jim Brower, Shigeru Morikasa, Ken Takahashi, Victor Marte

Staying: Colby Lewis, Ben Kozloski, Scott Seabol, Mike Shultz, Akihiro Higashide, manager Marty Brown

Trending: slightly downward

Synopsis: Renewing the contracts of ace Lewis and manager Brown were the biggest moves the Carp made. Losing Takahashi to the majors hurts the team’s pitching depth, but someone should be able to step into his shoes. Hiroshima hasn’t added any major pieces but with the continuing improvement of the team’s young players, they should be ready to challenge Chunichi for the third and final playoff spot. Marte is a guy who came up through the Carp’s Dominican Academy who will now look to catch on with an MLB organization. Not sure who is going to replace Ochoa’s production.

Japanese news from the usual sources for today.

Japanese Articles:

• The Indians have reportedly gotten into the Junichi Tazawa race despite Mark Shapiro. Meanwhile, Tazawa’s final tournament as an amateur begins on the 17th. He’s not hiring an agent and plans to negotiate during the tournament, and will be eligible to sign after it ends on the 24th. 
• Kenshin Kawakami filed for free agency, after pausing for a bit. “I want to choose the team that needs me the most and the team that I feel like I really want to play for”. 
• Orix is working on a contract with Baltimore AAA righty Jon Leicester, and has added Richard Hidalgo to their list of acquisition targets. Hidalgo’s name emerging is interesting — he hasn’t played in the bigs since 2005 and is currently in the Venezuelan Winter League. 
• Former “Face of the BayStars” Takuro Ishii has agreed to a contract with the Hiroshma Carp. Hiroshima also signed 4th-round draft pick Son-Hyon Shin to an entry-level contract with a ï¿¥20,000,000 ($200K) signing bonus.
• Hiram Bocachica is returning to Seibu, saying that game 7 of the Japan Series was the best day in his baseball career. 
• Softbank is going after an MLB free agent this off-season. No word on who they might be targeting, but they have 10 guys on their list. Softbank overpaid for Tony Bautista a few years ago; I hope they do better this time.

Time for another edition of NPB Bullet Points. Randomness abounds, as usual.

Japanese Articles:

• SoftBank sent outfielder Naoyuki Ohmura to Orix in exchange for outfielder Arihito Muramatsu, in a trade that sends both players back to their previous teams. I had previously read that Ohmura’s contract was up and he was considering attempting a move to the majors, but now it seems like he stick with the Buffaloes.
• Hideo Nomo is back in the news: Orix manager Daijiro Ohishi has invited him to the team’s autumn camp as a special instructor, and Tatsunori Hara has expressed intertest in having him on his pitching coach for Japan’s WBC entry. Meanwhile, Nomo’s been training with his Osaka-based amateur team, the Nomo Baseball Club.
• Speaking of Hara, after winning the rights to select Taishi Ota in the draft, he pumped his fist until SoftBank manager Koji Akiyama got the point.
• Yokohama released the long-time star Takuro Ishii. The team asked Ishii to retire, but he hopes to continue his career elsewhere.
• Nippon Ham is looking for righthanded hitting, and willing to trade star closer Micheal Nakamura or 2006 RoY lefty Tomoya Yagi to acquire some. The Figthers feel like they have a surplus of pitching, and are targetting Tomohiro Nioka and Kodai Sakurai in a potential trade.
• Rakuten is planning some seating upgrades to the unfortunately named Kleenex Stadium Miyagi. The team is adding seating right on the field behind home plate.

English Articles:

• Bobby Valentine commented on his blog on the selection of Hisayoshi Chono in the draft. Apparently Chono refused to talk to Bobby before the draft.
• Simon over at jhockey has a Robert Whiting piece on Sadaharu Oh.