Aoki signed for next to nothing.

While reading all the off-season and spring training news that can be found about NPB and MLB, I came across some tidbits on former Tokyo center fielder, Norichika Aoki.

• A tracking poll conducted last week over at Brew Crew Ball found that 94% of respondents were in favor of the contract that Aoki signed with Milwaukee. In fact, only three of the 253 voters ticked the ‘nay’ box.
• The guys who do the View From Bernie’s Chalet podcast are very happy with the Norichika Aoki signing, and feel that the Brewers have managed to reel in a good baseball player who, even if he does have a rough time adjusting to MLB, can potentially provide some good bench insurance for the club.
• Here’s a bit more information about how his salary breaks down over the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The contract contains a club option for 2014. Aoki can nearly double his salary based on how many games he plays in and starts according to the ESPN link above.

I feel like someone needs to write a ‘Life After Aoki’ piece. Anyone up for it?

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.

As most of the baseball world has been made aware, the Texas Rangers won the exclusive rights to speak with Mr. Darvish in December 2011. Until this week, there really had not been much discussion about the discussions. Granted in the US, the sportsworld is fully engulfed by the NFL and college football. Now that all the favorites are out (Tebow, Green Bay and New Orleans) the US sportsworld is jiving for a new story. So all the “talking heads” looked at the following options: NBA, NHL, college basketball, and the MLB ”hot stove”.  They are thinking how can I be different. I know, let’s bring up all the busts from Japan and compare them to the next best thing from Japan. Yeah this will be a great idea nobody else will think of this. So, about 26 hours, 12 minutes, and 19 seconds before the 5 pm est deadline on Wednesday, a large amount of reporters decided to focus on just this. Most of sports sites were running with the following theme: How can we criticize the Rangers and Darvish before he has ever thrown one pitch in “the show”?

I will concede that there have been alot of busts exported from Japan. But how many big time prospects sign a riciulous contract and never live up to the hype in the US? Well, I have come up with a list of about 10 from the last 25 years. (This list could be made up entirely by 3 teams, Pirates, Royals and the Expos, but I felt I should include other teams as well).

Here you are (listed by years):

Kurt Brown, Chicago White Sox (1985, 5th pick; could have picked Barry Bonds. As a diehard Southsider, this still haunts us. )

Brien Taylor, New York Yankees (1991, 1st pick; could have picked Manny Ramirez or Cliff Floyd )

Darren Dreifort, Los Angeles Dodgers (1993, 2nd pick; could have picked Billy Wagner, Derick Lee, Chris Carpenter, Torii Hunter or Jason Varitek)

Reggie Taylor, Philadelpia Phillies (1995, 14th pick; could have had Jarred Washburn, Mark Bellhorn or Carlos Beltran)

John Patterson, Montreal Expos (1996, 5th pick; could have picked Erick Chavez, Jake Westbrook or Jimmy Rollins)

Matt Anderson, Detroit Tigers (1997, 1st pick; could have had Troy Glaus, Vernon Wells, Michael Cuddyer, or John Garland)

Coret Myers, Arizona Diamondbacks (1999, 4th pick; could have picked Alex Rios or Colby Lewis!)

Mike Stodolka, Kansas City Royals (2000, 4th pick; could have had Chase Utley )

Colt Griffin, Kansas City (2001, 9th pick; David Wright, Ryan Howard or C.J. Wilson)

Bryan Bullington, Pittsburgh Pirates (2002, 1st pick; could have picked Prince Fielder, Khalil Greene, Scott Kazmir, Nick Swisher, or Jeff Francoeur)

You might be thinking, these are all draft picks. Darvish is a free agent not a player being drafted. You would be right. So here are my top 5 free agent busts since 2000.

In 2003, Chan Ho Park signed with the Texas Rangers for 5 years, $65 million

In early 2001, Mike Hampton signed with the Colorado Rockies for 8 years, $120 million

In 2007, Barry Zito signed with Oakland Athletics for 7 years, $126 million

In late 1998, Kevin Brown signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for 7 years, $105 million

In 1999, Mo Vaughn signed with Annaheim Angels for 6 years, $80 million

These are just 5 of a VERY long list of busts. I threw in 4 pitchers and 1 “power-hitter” because that is what nearly every team is always looking for. The Rangers have publicly stated that these are there two needs. So, going by the figures that are being thrown around on the sports outlets around the world, the Darvish to Texas deal will cost a total of $112 million ($51.7 for the rights to talk and $60 million contract). This is very similar to the Matsuzaka deal the BoSox made with Seibu. Most are saying that Seibu made out on that deal. Will the same happen here? In my opinion, yes and no. Nippon Ham will make out on their end, although the exchange rate hurts them. I think Darvish will be better than Matsuzaka. Why? He is younger. He is more confident and has had less pitching stress on his body compared to Matsuzaka.

I have mentioned all of this information, draft busts, free agent busts, and posting busts, to show that this is not an exact science. This is a guessing game that most teams fail at. Will Darvish be the savior that Texas is hoping for, who knows. Will he be better than C.J. Wilson (the man he replaces) who knows. What I do know is that Darvish will work hard and pitch over 200 innings per year for the majority of his contract. We will need to wait a few years and see how Darvish does, not just in the regular season, but in the post-season as well.

That said, I predict that the Rangers will win the World Series twice during Yu’s time in Arlington. Good luck!!

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.

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?

Milledge's MLB numbers and youth suggest good things for Tokyo.

I’m not any more willing to predict how well Tokyo’s brand-spanking-new left fielder, Lastings Milledge, will do in NPB than I was about Norichika Aoki and his possible transition to MLB. There are several doubters out there, perhaps due to a collective pessimism related to Aoki’s departure, so I would like to make sure that everyone understands just what type of player the Swallows were able to add to the roster this off-season.

There is little doubt that Lastings Milledge is going to help the team win.

Alrighty then. Let’s start with something that we all agree on. Aoki is one hell of a talent and the team won’t find a commensurate replacement to fill his shoes in center (apologies, Ueda-senshu).

Alright, now let’s move on to something that several of you have already openly disagreed with me on. Lastings Milledge.

I’ve gotta’ say, I’m borderline-ecstatic about the Milledge acquisition, and now please give me a couple of minutes to explain why you should be, too.

First, let’s look at the mediocrity we dealt with (mostly) in left last season. After it was finally determined that Hatakeyama’s range is far too farcical to play him in the outfield, Tokyo started a veritable “who’s who” of second string outfielders. Ueda, Fukuchi, Iihara, Yuichi, Miyade and Hamanaka all got a shot.

Ueda eventually took over and started throughout the playoffs, and he seems to be in the lead for the center field job this year.

Fukuchi featured as a pinch runner for most of the season and led the league in steals for a while before ever collecting his first base hit. Weird.

Iihara, Yuichi and Miyade continued to be Iihara, Yuichi and Miyade, unfortunately. And Hamanaka was a mistake to begin with.

The funny thing is that Hamanaka was actually the opening day left fielder. That didn’t last long.

And the Swallows struggled early in the season with waiting for either Josh Whitesell to stake a claim to first base, or for a second string outfielder to lock down left field. Neither potentiality transpired. Ogawa’s plan of attack ended up being to keep Hatakeyama at first, thus turning Josh into a bench-bound-bat, and allowing left field to turn into a revolving door of OK gloves that can’t hit.

Fukuchi played in 40 games and hit .155/.210/.224 with only nine hits but 10 stolen bags. Iihara had a slash line of .126/.229/.169, and Yuichi clocked in with .193/.270/.291 (in 64 and 51 games, (dis)respectively).

Miyade only remains in management’s good graces because he’s an abnormally tall human being (6’4″/192 cm). His offensive numbers from a limited number of at-bats looked promising, and he also sports a decent arm, but let’s not forget that we traded him to Tohoku (because he plateaued years ago), got cut, and then we re-signed him on the cheap before the 2011 season.

So I think that we can all agree that we have a gaping hole in left. Especially if Ueda, who only played in 12 games toward the end of the regular season, ends up staring in center.

Wonderful. That’s now two things that we agree on.

Last fall, the team was faced with a few options for dealing with the hole in left:

a) Trade for a decent outfielder, but that rarely happens in NPB when you’re talking about players who could have an immediate impact.

b) Promote an in-house minor league player to the starting job in left, but we tried that with Iihara, and he still doesn’t know which way is up.

c) Import a quick fix.

As you’re probably well aware, option c is what NPB teams normally do with corner outfielders and first basemen. We’ve seen it a million times before, and I’m sure that’s exactly what many pundits are thinking when they process the Milledge signing. “Great. We have another AAA guy coming in,” or “He has a chip on his shoulder and hasn’t lived up to the hype.”

Yes, there was a bundle of hype surrounding this guy as he was the youngest player in the National League in 2006. But hear me now. Adjustment issues notwithstanding, Lastings Milledge represents the most talented MLB player to land in NPB since Matt Murton.

Murton, Hanshin’s god-loving, Ichiro’s-single-season-hits-record-breaking right fielder was a bonafide big league player before agreeing to play for the Tigers. What’s my definition of a “bonafide big league player”? It’s someone who was a regular player in the big leagues for the majority of a single season. Murton fits that bill.

Matt Murton was the everyday left fielder for the Chicago Cubs during the 2006 season. In 144 games (508 plate appearances) he hit a mouth-watering .297/.365/.444 and ended the season near the top of several offensive categories for the team. Over five seasons, Murton played in 346 games and notched 1,048 plate appearances. Both of those numbers are way above average for NPB imports. He arrived in Japan at the age of 28, transitioned smoothly, focused on baseball, and has two accolade-drenched seasons to show for it.

The Tokyo Swallows have had several high-quality non-Japanese players on the roster over the past decade. Roberto Petagine (2001 Central League MVP; last played for Fukuoka) and Alex Ramirez (2008-09 CL MVP; now with Yokohama) were there for the team’s most recent Central League Pennant and Japan Series Championship. Tony Barnette, Chang-yong Lim, Aaron Guiel (retired), Josh Whitesell (Chiba), and Seth Greisinger (Chiba) have made solid contributions since then.

Lastings Milledge is definitely within the order of magnitude just listed, and then some. Milledge has featured heavily for two major league teams over the past several years, and he’s still just heading towards his prime. In 2008, at the age of 23, Milledge was the everyday center fielder for the Washington Nationals and hit .268/.330/.402 in 138 games (134 starts; 587 plate appearances) with a .986 fielding percentage.

The 2009 season was split between the Nationals and Pittsburgh, but Lastings was a full-time starter again in 2010 when he played in 113 games (both corners of the outfield) and hit .277/.332/.380 and contributed a fielding percentage of .995 (perfect % in left).

It’s clear that Lastings Milledge compares favorably with Matt Murton who is bar-none the best all-around position player to hit NPB since I’ve been paying attention.

The similarities are striking. Both sought an alternate career advancement route after cutthroat competition shunted them to AAA despite strong top team numbers. Both have a solid work ethic and desire to play day-in and day-out. And both plan to use NPB as a way to play in the big leagues once again (see Colby Lewis).

In other words, they posted big league numbers that project far more confidently in NPB than what we’re used to seeing.

There is one big difference, however. Unlike Murton, who was 28 when he began his NPB career, Milledge will be 26 when he hits the scene in less than a month’s time. Also, compared to Murton’s 346 major league games and 1,048 plate appearances in the majors, Milledge will arrive with 433 games and 1,659 plate appearances under his belt.

And to Milledge’s credit, he’s reportedly on a steady dose of Rosetta Stone and is well ahead of the curve in terms of preparing himself for this fast-approaching shock to the system.

If he can take things in stride half as well as Murton, Barnette, Whitesell and Balentien have, then expect big things from him.

Barring injury or any unforeseen growing pains, Milledge could be NPB’s best position player import since Murton.

So hopefully you now understand why there’s plenty of room for optimism about the situation in left this season. Hopefully you’re now Thrilledged as well.

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

Milledge had his longest stint at Pittsburgh.

Bio

Born April 5th, 1985 in Bradenton, Florida, Lastings Darnell Milledge was a standout baseball player from a young age and hit the national stage in elementary school when he helped his Little League team, Manatee East, reach the finals of the national tournament in 1997.

Manatee East lost in the finals when Milledge was 12 years old, but he soon made an impact at the international level when he helped the US beat Venezuela for the gold medal in the IBAF’s U16 Baseball World Championship four years later.

Milledge graduated from Lakewood Ranch High School in 2003 after the school’s baseball team was crowned Florida 5A champions.

Professional Baseball

Even though he was touted as the top junior prospect in the nation when he was in 11th grade, his transition to professional baseball was not a smooth one. News that he had been expelled from Northside Christian High School at the age of 17 dogged him and largely prevented him from being selected in the top five after his senior year.

Milledge was drafted in the first round (12th overall) of the 2003 draft by the New York Mets. However,

Milledge started his MLB career in New York.

additional details about his high school expulsion slowed contract negotiations, and he was only able to play in a few games at the tail-end of the 2003 minor league season.

Milledge worked his way through the New York Mets minor league system during the 2004 through 2006 seasons. In 2006, just before his 21st birthday Milledge was the starting right fielder for New York’s triple A affiliate, the Norfolk Tides of the International League.

He was awarded his major league debut on May 30th, 2006 a little less than two months after his 21st birthday. That made him the youngest player in the National League that season, and he would go on to play both left and right field in 56 games while batting .241/.310/.380 for the Mets that season.

His top team action was limited somewhat in 2007 due to a foot injury, and he was traded to the Washington Nationals at the end of the season.

It was with Washington in 2008 that Milledge appeared in a career-best 138 games. He hit .268/.330/.402 that season while working as the team’s everyday center fielder. His strong performance that year was in spite of the fact that he spent a month on the DL due to a groin injury that season.

A slow start to the 2009 season plus an injury while at AAA Syracuse helped convince Washington to trade the 24 year old outfielder to Pittsburgh along with pitcher Joel Hanrahan in exchange for outfielder Nyjer Morgan and pitcher Sean Burnett.

In 2009 he played in only 65 major league games, seven with Washington and 58 for the Pirates after overcoming his injury.

In 2010, Milledge appeared in 113 games for Pittsburgh and played both left (63 games) and right (45 games). However, after hitting .277/.332/.380, the Pirates decided not to extend his contract, and he signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox in February of 2011.

He only appeared in two games for the Sox though, and he spent the remainder of 2011 with the team’s AAA affiliate in Charlotte where he hit .295/.364/.441 in 123 games (444 at-bats). He had 12 homers and 27 stolen bases for the Charlotte Knights in 2011, and he was in the middle of a solid winter league campaign with the Aragua Tigres in Venezuela when he signed with the Tokyo Swallows.

Wecome to Tokyo!

The Tokyo Swallows announced on Tuesday December 27th, 2011 that they had signed 26 year old Lastings Milledge to a two-year contract. It seems like a basic agreement was reached on the seventh of that month, and the Swallows first publicly acknowledged interest in Millege at the beginning of November.

Milledge was brought in to help soften the offensive and defensive blow of losing Norichika Aoki to the Milwaukee Brewers via the posting system.

According to reports at the end of 2011, the Swallows were planning to use him in left field.

Milledge was assigned the number 85 which is the same number that he wore while playing for the Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates. First base coach Tetsuya Iida gave up the number so that Milledge could have it. Iida switched to the number 88 which was last worn by Tokyo’s former manager and Tsubamegun favorite, Shigeru Takada.

Stats

MLB Offensive Statistics

Key:
NYM = New York Mets
PIT = Pittsburgh Pirates
G = Games
AB = At-bats
R = Runs
H = Hits
2B = Doubles
3B = Triples
HR = Home Runs
RBI = Runs Batted In
SB = Stolen Bases
BB = Walks
HBP = Hit By Pitch
K = Strikeouts
Avg. = Batting Average
OBP = On-Base Percentage
Slg. = Slugging Percentage

Other Milledge News and Notes

Lastings Milledge invited some controversy early in his pro career with the Mets when he was featured in a friend’s rap song involving typical hip hop lyrics. Mets GM Omar Minaya was quite unhappy with the negative PR that ensued, and Milledge was traded following the 2007 season.

The song was produced by one of Milledge’s companies, Soulja Boi Records. However, it doesn’t look like the company has done anything of interest since the controversy in 2007. The company’s website, as of the end of 2011, was still inactive.

In the second half of 2011 Milledge started an LLC with Deon Troupe called Pro Live Connect that attempts to give professional sports fans a chance to interact with their favorite athletes.

Milledge also played 145 games for the Nationals.

Which team won the Aoki posting sweepstakes?

Norichika Aoki (29), Tokyo’s decorated center fielder, will now have 30 days to negotiate with the team that recently bid the highest through the posting system.

The winning bid, which was immediately accepted by Tokyo, was $2.5 million.

The name of the winning team, which has exclusive negotiating rights, has not been divulged.

The bidding window ended at 7AM this morning (Tokyo time), and after reports earlier today that team wasn’t sure when or if it would be able to talk about the size of the winning bid, the Yomiuri newspaper website reported the amount.

Update 4:13 PM (Saturday December 17th, 2011)

Gen over at Yakyu Baka posted this quote from Aoki:

“All I could do was wait, so I feel relieved now.  I feel as if I am now one step closer to realizing my dream.  I will allow my agent to handle the rest while I focus on my practices to make sure I am fully prepared.”

Update 8:14 PM (Monday December 19th, 2011)

The Swallows have made it publicly known that the Milwaukee Brewers won the bidding contest for Aoki. They said that they were quick in releasing the name of the team to the general public because they were worried that there would be a leak in the US media.

Tony was born in Anchorage, Alaska on November 9th, 1983. He played high school baseball at Thomas Jefferson High School under coach Chad Fahnlander before heading to Central Arizona College for two years of Junior College baseball.

He then moved on to the Pacific 10 Conference where he played two more years of college ball for Reggie Jackson’s alma mater, Arizona State University.  He was 10-5 during his time with the Sun Devils, and the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted him in the 10th round of the 2006 Amateur Draft.

Professional Baseball

Tony played rookie ball for the Missoula Osprey (Missoula, Montana) and was 6-4 in 15 starts during the 2006 season. He was promoted to single A in 2007 and started 25 of his 26 appearances for the South Bend Silver Hawks (South Bend, Indiana).

2008 saw Tony pitching for the double A Mobile Bay Bears (Mobile, Alabama) where he pitched more than 150 innings for the second year in a row and compiled a 11-7 record with a 3.87 ERA in 27 starts. Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile is known for being a hitter’s park (13 of the 17 homers Tony surrendered were at Hank Aaron), so his ERA is that much more impressive.

His work that year, which featured 7.79 strikeouts per nine innings and a K:BB ratio of 3.17, earned him a non-roster invite to the Arizona Diamondbacks spring camp in early 2009.

Barnette played the 2009 season for the AAA Reno Aces (Reno, Nevada) where he started 29 games and threw 164.2 innings. He finished the year with a 14-8 record and ranked sixth for pitchers in the Pacific Coast League.

Following the 2009 season, Tokyo bought Barnette’s contract from Arizona as a possible number three or four starter behind Tateyama and Ishikawa.

Welcome to Tokyo!

Barnette signed a one-year deal with the Swallows on January 7th, 2010.

Barnette was released after the 2010 season and everyone, Tony included, thought that the chances of him pitching in Japan in 2011 were slim to none.

But due to a variety of reasons, Tony was re-signed by the Swallows on January 12th, 2011 for a second shot at getting the whole Japan thing sorted out. The contract included a club option for 2012.

Stats (NPB)

	G	W	L	Sv	BF	IP	H	HR	BB	HBP	K	WP	Bk	R	ER	ERA	RIP
NPB Totals	64	5	6	2	575	126.2	142	11	54	8	124	2	0	69	67	4.76	1.61
2010	16	4	5	0	376	79.2	99	9	41	4	70	2	0	55	53	5.99	1.81
2011	48	1	1	2	199	47	43	2	13	4	54	0	0	14	14	2.68	1.28