Kawakami back with the Dragons this year

Chunichi Dragons

• Sold backup catcher, Keiji Oyama (31) to Tohoku. 2011 was Oyama’s best season so far, offensively-speaking. He hit .280/.394/.390 in 102 plate appearances.
• It sounds like Araki and Ibata could be reverting to their old positions, second and short, respectively.
• Victor Diaz is all but certain to be wearing a Chunichi uniform this season. He has experience playing all over the field, so he should give the Dragons several options in terms of where they can put him.
• The team lured the team’s former starter, Kenshin Kawakami, back from MLB. The last time he played in a Dragons uniform was the 2008 season when he recorded a 9-5 record and a 2.30 ERA. He moved to the Atlanta Braves as a free agent after that. Kawakami pitched well in 2009, but is now regarded as a bust in MLB. He spent most of last season at AA and ended the season with an ERA well above eight. Six million dollars for a crappy year at double A? Yikes.

Yomiuri Giants

• First year players Scott Mathieson (P) and John Bowker (OF) were unveiled to the media on Friday.

Hanshin Tigers

• Much like Tokyo, Hanshin has yet to figure out who will be manning center field this season. A number of names have been floated, including Ryo Asai, Shunsuke, Wei-Chu Lin and rookie Hayata Ito.
• Matt Murton’s wife has still not given birth to the couple’s third child, so there’s a very good chance that he will miss the beginning of spring camp.
• It looks like pitcher Yasutomo Kubo will re-sign with the team some time this week, but infielder Keiichi Hirano is still holding out.

Hiroshima Carp

• Brand new Carp pitcher, Cam Mickolio, and right-handed bat, Nick Stavinoha, were formally introduced to the media on Friday.

Yokohama Baystars

• The new Baystar uniforms are apparently due to be unveiled this weekend. Alex Ramirez may be one of the guys modeling the new kit.

Pacific League Notes

• Kiko Arai, daughter of Orix Buffaloes farm team manager, Hiromasa Arai, is highly attractive. Exhibit A, she was recently crowned Miss Japan.
• Hokkaido received the posting bid money (more than US$50 million for Yu Darvish) from the Rangers. Unfortunately for Hokkaido, however, investors are still guaranteeing the relative strength of the yen over the dollar and euro, so the amount received was basically the equivalent of a couple thousand dollars at today’s exchange rate.

Aoki also snagged a TV announcer.

I’ve noticed it before, but lord it’s out of control right now. Reporters, announcers, newscaster, whatever you want to call them, are dropping like flies. For whatever reason they’re marrying baseball players.

Here’s a list of recent developments:

January – Anri Mitsube (NHK newscaster) and Kan Otake (Hiroshima); Saho Narushima (freelance reporter) and Kenta Maeda (Hiroshima)

Undecided – Chiho Nishimori (Sapporo TV reporter) and Kensuke Tanaka (Hokkaido); Maya Kobayashi (freelance reporter) and Handkerchief Prince Yuki Saito (Hokkaido)

That’s just a few that have caught my attention recently. There are surely many other examples. Former Tokyo player, Norichika Aoki, married a TV Tokyo reporter as well.

If you can think of any other examples, recent or distant, please leave a comment below.

Ishikawa is a beautiful blend of quality and class.

On this day in 1980, Masanori Ishikawa was born in Akita Prefecture. He joined the Tokyo Swallows at the end of 2001 when he was selected in the first round by the Japan Series champion Tokyo Swallows.

There was no delay in his introduction to top team baseball, and he quickly found himself a weekly contributor to the team’s title-defense efforts. He went 12-9 with a 3.33 ERA in his rookie season and brought home Central League Rookie of the Year honors in 2002.

In 2006, Ishikawa became only the third pitcher in NPB history to record at least 10 wins in each of his first five seasons as a pro.

In 2008, he won a Golden Glove. To this day, he is the only Tokyo Swallows pitcher to ever earn that distinction.

In 2011, Ishikawa threw just over 178 innings and finished up with a 2.73 ERA.

Happy birthday, Masanori. We here at Tsubamegun salute you for your durability and willingness to help the young guys on the team. You’re a class act.

Best of luck this season!

Milwaukee's newest prospect and ROY candidate, Norichika Aoki.

let’s first take a moment to check in with the rest of the team.

• At least two Tokyo players have already contracted the flu. Awesome. I’m a bit confused because this is normally what happens to the team in September and October. Are we planning to do this twice in 2012? For the record, however, I have no objection to moving this nonsense to the front-end of the season. Guys, stop sharing cutlery! And wash your hands.
• Ogawa recently told the media friends that 2011 Central League home run champ Wladimir Balentien could start the year on the farm team thanks to how nonexistent he was following the All-Star break last season. We here at Tsubamegun have no problem with that although we’d like to politely remind him that Balentien was far more effective in the playoffs than Hatakeyama and Miyamoto.
• Sorry, can’t resist. While he’s not a Tokyo player anymore, we still love him. Aoki was all over the place with relief upon returning to the motherland. And the Milwaukee folks are well aware of the fact that they’ve landed Aoki’s services at bargain-basement prices.

Aoki is now a Brewer. Makes me proud. I was once a brewer, too. Long live Otter Creek Brewing (Middlebury, VT).

The Milwaukee Brewers announced that the team signed Norichika Aoki, Tokyo’s star 30-year-old outfielder, to a multi-year deal.

Congratulations to both Aoki and the Brewer community! We here at Tsubamegun hope that it truly is a match made in Milwaukee heaven.

Details are sketchy at this point, but it seems like the two sides were able to come to some kind of preliminary agreement.

It’s a two-year deal with a club option for 2014.

Let's get this deal done already.

• The talk of Araki and Ibata switching back to their original positions, 2nd and short, respectively, continues. Not that anyone cares.
• Victor Diaz might be on the team’s radar. Diaz played in Korea in 2009.

Yomiuri Giants

• Hayato Sakamoto, Yomiuri’s prized homegrown shortstop, has been reaping the benefits of Shinya Miyamoto’s guidance this month. Hey, aren’t those trade secrets? You little git, give us those notes!

Hanshin Tigers

• New Hanshin manager, Yutaka Wada, has given in to Takuya Asao lust and is now babbling about having Fujikawa pitch the 7th inning. If…IF!… he has another top notch closer on hand. Which he doesn’t. And by the way, Mr. Wada, Fujikawa will continue to blow it in the playoffs no matter when you plug him into the game. Sorry.

Hiroshima Carp

• Hiroki Kuroda signed with the Yankees (one-year US$11 million deal). No word yet on whether or not Hiroshima plans to keep waiting.

Yokohama Baystars

• GM Shigeru Takada has injected some young blood into his wing of the building by hiring former Bobby Valentine (Chiba era) front office brain, Shun Kakazu. The 30-year-old has some MLB experience under his belt in the form of serving as San Francisco’s point man on talent in Japan. He has no pro playing experience, however, which makes him rare in front office operations as Patrick Newman pointed out.

Around the Pacific League

• The big news on Yu Darvish will be arriving with in the next few days. The deadline for an agreement is 5PM EST on the 18th (7AM Japan Standard Time on Thursday the 19th). That’s precisely 24 hours after the deadline for a decision on the Norichika Aoki situation.

Orlando Roman is Tokyo's newest candidate for the starting rotation.

As announced yesterday, we have a new friend. Orlando Roman has signed a deal to pitch for the Swallows during the 2012 season.

¡Bienvenido a Tokio, Señor Román!

Call me crazy, but looking over his numbers from the past several years, it seems like there’s a bit of a climate-linked variable in terms of how well he does in a given season. I’m not saying that his pitching is affected by El Niño or anything, but his ERA seems to drop when he pitches in warmer places.

It’s just a casual observation, but he has pitched well in Mexico and Taiwan while struggling in cooler locales such as New Hampshire (Toronto’s double-A affiliate).

I wonder if that means that he’ll struggle in the spring before hitting some consistency in the summer and then disappearing again in the fall.

See also:

Did the Tokyo Swallows sign RHP Orlando Roman?

Fresh off a two year stint with the Elephants, welcome to the Swallows, Mr. Roman.

It’s official. The rumors that we reported earlier this month were the real deal. The Swallows now have a little extra competition brewing in the starting rotation.

Meet Orlando Roman.

The 33-year-old RHP has significant minor league experience in North America with the New York Mets, Baltimore, and Toronto. He has also spent time in Mexico and, for the past two years, Taiwan.

Here’s the team’s official Japanese-language press release, and Yakyu Baka’s English-language summary.

It’s an incentive-laden one-year deal starting at a reported 25 million yen (roughly US$325,000).

So what does the competition for the starting rotation look like at this point?

Ishikawa, Muranaka, Akagawa, and Masubuchi appear to be healthy right now. Tateyama is coming back from surgery, and there’s still a big question mark hanging over Yoshinori’s delicate cabeza. Hopefully we’ll hear some noise from a resurgent Nakazawa, Shichijo, and the cast aside Mikinori Katoh.

Roman enters the fray with a shot at the fifth or sixth starter’s slot. He’ll need to be steady early on and learn to communicate his preferences with Aikawa before May roles around.

We hope he does well. It would be nice to give the kids an extra kick in the pants and finally discover a modicum of reliable depth after the team’s third starter.

He’ll be wearing number 53, Josh Whitesell and Ryota Igarashi’s old number.

They're multiplying as you read this.

Happy Coming-of-Age Day to all of the 20-year-olds out there who are celebrating today. Be sure to post a photo of yourself in the comments all decked out in your old-enough-to-vote garb. And don’t drink too much tonight.

This website has been very preoccupied with Norichika Aoki news as of late, and Lastings Milledge has been getting plenty of attention as well. But there hasn’t been a whole lot Swallows news, even as we’ve tried to keep everyone updated on what’s happening Around the Central League.

Of course, that’s not always the easiest thing to do as there isn’t exactly a ton of Tokyo news coming out of the NPB paparazzi.

But here’s a few tidbits from the past week or so:

• The team announced today that farm team outfielder Jun Matsui (24) filed marriage papers with a woman named Kayoko (25) on December 27, 2011.
• Miyamoto doesn’t seem to think that the Swallows did enough during the off-season to improve the team. This Japanese-language report doesn’t contain anything more than a one line quote, and I mostly agree with him (I would love to see a bold multi-player trade to bring in a decent starting pitcher), but you have to wonder if Miyamoto has heard anything about new import Lastings Milledge other than the fact that he last played AAA ball for the White Sox. Milledge has spent even more time in the big leagues than Matt Murton had before he signed with Hanshin two years ago. And Murton was a legit big leaguer with the Cubs. I’m not saying that Milledge will deal with the culture shock he experiences as well as Murton did, but he’s definitely a solid all-around player and better than all of the players we platooned in left last year combined.
• Speaking about Miyamoto, it sounds like he’s more than willing to step out of the way once he’s reached the 2,000 hit milestone. Seeing as how he only has 25 hits to go, it’s likely that he’ll reach his desired tally some time in May as long as he doesn’t slump as hard as he did during the playoffs last year. As I said in this post, I wouldn’t mind seeing some other folks getting time at third base, but if Miyamoto has another regular season like 2011, then I’d prefer that he keep his spot in the lineup. Even if he is 150 years old.
• New recruit, Yuji Nakane, will miss the 2011 season after having ACL surgery on his right knee.
• It’s not a great improvement, but the top team will add one more trainer/physio to its staff for the upcoming season, bringing the total to four. Hopefully another gets added for the 2013 season.
• Sounds like the team might have signed another non-Japanese pitcher who could compete for a starting role. However, if reliever Tony Barnette has another good season, then look for Orlando Roman to spend the majority of 2012 up in Toda on the farm team.
• The number of cheerleaders at Swallows home games is expected to double because Tokyo’s squad was the smallest in the league, and the young ladies will apparently be wearing ‘sexier’ outfits. Draw your own conclusions on that one.

Wladimir Ramon Balentien was born on July 2nd, 1984 in Willemstad, Curaçao. He is often referred to by his nickname, Coco.

He played on the Dutch national team in the 2004 Olympics which finished in sixth place.

Balentien is best known for his incredible power at the plate. He hit the longest home run of the 2009 Major League season off of Pittsburgh’s RHP McCutchen in the seventh inning with one out. Click play in the video below to watch that enormous home run.

According to Hit Tracker, the ball landed 495 ft. from home plate.

Balentien also has a strong arm, so he has been known to give runners pause before pursuing an extra base.

Professional Baseball

In 2000, and at the age of 16, Balentien signed with the Seattle Mariners as an undrafted free agent. He did not debut in the minors until 2003 when he played in 50 games for Seattle’s rookie ball team, the Arizona League Mariners. He spent the next four seasons rising through the Mariners’ minor league system and had a standout 2007 at AAA Tacoma where he hit .291/.362/.509 in 124 games for the Rainiers.

Balentien was finally granted his major league debut at the end of the 2007 season and collected his first hit in his first at-bat while pinch-hitting in a game against the Yankees. He collected four RBI and six total bases in just four plate appearances at the end of 2007.

He signed his first big league contract, a one-year deal, before the start of the 2008 season, but ended up beginning the season once again with AAA Tacoma. However, about a month later Balentien was called back up to the big leagues when the starting right fielder, Brad Wilkerson, was demoted (Ichiro was starting in center at the time). Balentien logged 243 at-bats in 71 games for the Mariners that season, and he hit just .202/.250/.342 while turning 25 in the process.

With big league numbers that were just slightly better in 2009 than those he put up a year earlier, Balentien was traded to Cincinnati for right-handed reliever, Robert Manuel. Cincinnati got the better end of that trade, as Balentien hit .264/.352/.427 in 110 at-bats while Manuel never made it past Tacoma.

Balentien spent all of the 2010 season at Cincinnati’s AAA affiliate, Louisville and hit .282/.337/.536 while hitting 25 home runs.

He was released by the Reds following the 2010 season so that he could sign a contract with the Tokyo Swallows.

Welcome to Japan!

Balentien signed with the Swallows in November, 2010.

Balentien had an immediate impact with the Swallows.

Following the tsunami-delayed start to the 2011 NPB season, Balentien quickly raced out to the front of the home run race in the Central League, a lead that he would not relinquish. His strong first half of the 2011 season earned him All-Star honors.

However, he faded badly during the second half of the season. Balentien played slightly better in the playoffs going six-for-24 with one RBI and two runs scored against some of the best pitchers in the Central League. However, he had no extra-base hits and he struck out nine times.

He finished the 2011 season as the Central League home run king (31) and was top in slugging percentage (.469).

However, the overall adjustment to Japanese baseball was not an easy one as can be seen by comparing his 2010 AAA slash line of .282/.337/.536 (113 hits; 78 RBI; 85 K) with his 2011 NPB stats: .228/.314/.469 (111 hits; 76 RBI; 131 K).

For the record, Balentien played in 116 AAA games in 2010 (452 plate appearances) and 140 games in 2011 (555 plate appearances).

Stats

MLB Statistics

 

Year	Team	G	AB	H	R	RBI	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	Avg.	OBP	Slg.
2007	SEA	3	3	2	1	4	1	0	1	0	0	.667	.500	2.000
2008	SEA	71	243	49	23	24	13	0	7	16	79	.202	.250	.342
2009	SEA	56	155	33	18	13	10	0	4	13	43	.213	.271	.355
2009	CIN	40	110	29	12	11	7	1	3	15	27	.264	.352	.427
Total		170	511	113	54	52	31	1	15	44	149	.221	.281	.374

NPB Statistics

Year	Team	G	AB	H	R	RBI	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	Avg.	OBP	Slg.
2011	TOK	140	486	111	63	76	22	1	31	61	131	.228	.314	.469