Miyamoto won the vote for who Tsubamegun want to see playing third.

We posted a poll on the 25th asking you some general questions about the state of affairs with the team. Aoki’s gone, and there are some question marks hanging over the team as spring camp gets under way down in Urasoe, Okinawa.

We here at Tsubamegun tend to see these question marks as opportunities, and the majority of respondents to the poll seemed to agree with us. Not a single voter had the team finishing the 2012 season any lower than fourth place in the Central League.

There were 25 complete responses to the poll, and for your perusal we have laid out the numbers in an easily digestible format.

1. Do you approve of Tokyo’s decision to post Aoki at the end of 2011?

Response	Votes	%
Yes	15	60%
No	6	24%
Undecided	4	16%

2. Who do you want to get the most starts at third base for the Tokyo Swallows this season?

Response	Votes	%
Shinya Miyamoto	13	52%
Tetsuto Yamada	3	12%
Shingo Kawabata	3	12%
Kazuhiro Hatakeyama	2	8%
Ryosuke Morioka	1	4%
Takahiro Araki	0	0%
Other	0	0%
Undecided	3	12%

3. Who do you want to get the most starts at center for the Tokyo Swallows this season?

Response	Votes	%
Tsuyoshi Ueda	14	56%
Yasushi Iihara	3	12%
Kazuki Fukuchi	1	4%
Yuichi Matsumoto	1	4%
Other	1	4%
Undecided	5	20%

4. With the players currently under contract, do you believe that Tokyo can make up for the loss of Aoki’s defense and his 2011 slash line of .292/.358/.360?

Response	Votes	%
Yes	9	36%
No	14	56%
Undecided	2	8%

5. Do you think that the front office made enough moves during the off-season to bolster the starting rotation and bullpen?

Response	Votes	%
Yes	7	28%
No	13	52%
Undecided	5	20%

6. What place to you think the Tokyo Swallows will finish the 2012 regular season in?

Response	Votes	%
Central League Champions	7	28%
2nd place	6	24%
3rd place	6	24%
4th place	6	24%
5th place	0	0%
6th place	0	0%

Interesting responses although not entirely unexpected. Even though it’s an exceedingly small sample size, feel free to offer your interpretations in the comments section below.

Spring camp is officially under way!

• Spring camp started for the top team in Okinawa today. Here’s a list of the players that were invited. The Swallows’ Japanese website has a handy schedule that will give you a light peak into what’s ahead for the team.
• The top team camp has only four officially-scheduled days off, and camp concludes on February 28th.
• Aikawa was named just the third team captain since the turn of the century. Former star catcher and player-manager, Atsuya Furuta, and current third baseman, Shinya Miyamoto, were the two preceding captains.
• The farm team also started its spring training camp today. The team will practice in Tokyo until this Saturday. The fifth (Sunday) is a travel day, and camp resumes on Monday in Miyazaki Prefecture.
• Scroll down to the bottom of this article on the Tokyo Swallows’ Japanese site for some photos of the players and fans down in Okinawa. There are also a couple of photos of manager Ogawa and the team’s player rep, Takeuchi, at a shrine praying for a safe and productive spring camp and 2012 season.
• Here are a couple more photos featuring the manager and business-suited versions of Balentien and Barnette arriving at their spring training camp facility.

Former Tokyo player news:

• New Yokohama manager, Nakahata, had this to say about Alex Ramirez’s defense, “ラミレスは直線を走ったら速いんだよ。” (“Ramirez is quick when he’s running in a straight line.”)
• Josh Whitesell and Seth Greisinger were introduced to the media on Monday as two of the newest members of the Chiba Marines.

Shrinkage dot com.

• The team reported that it would likely use the US$2.5 million dollars if received from the Milwaukee Brewers to help improve the farm team facilities. It was not reported whether all or part of the posting fee would be put towards stadium improvements. There is also a rumor flying around that Hatakeyama has requested a larger supply of pudding for between-inning consumption.
• The farm team’s stadium in Toda is apparently being sized up for a number of improvements covering everything from the field to the fence to the seats to the toilets.
• Second baseman Hiroyasu Tanaka is reportedly taking ballet lessons.
• RHP Hitoshi Yamamoto spent eight minutes standing under a waterfall of near-freezing water while “meditating.” The water was so cold that he apparently started making odd 2012 proclamations such as “I plan to record double-digit victories.” If he fulfills any of those crazy pledges this year, then Tsubamegun will see to it that he spends twice as much time under the waterfall next year. At any rate, Ogawa was impressed and invited him to first team spring training in Okinawa.
• Lastings Milledge‘s tenure in Japan got off to a slow start when he missed his flight out of Tampa. He arrived in Japan on the 26th, a day later than originally planned. The Japanese press was all over it. They wasted little time in coming to the conclusion that Milledge will be nothing but trouble. The team, for its part, responded calmly and said that it wasn’t too worried at this point in time.
• Masanori Ishikawa appears to be the lone Tokyo Swallow on the Samurai Japan team that will take on the Chinese National team in an earthquake relief charity event on March 10th. Yoshinori had originally been recruited to pitch, but the Swallows wisely rejected the offer seeing as how he’s still recovering from a shoulder injury.

Video: Balentien taking BP during the 2011 spring camp.

The following players were invited to the first team spring training camp in Okinawa:

Pitchers (21 players)

Yoshinori, Chang-yong Lim, Yuya Ota (rookie), Kyohei Muranaka, Ryohei Kiya (rookie), Masanori Ishikawa, Tetsuya Yamamoto, Kenichi Matsuoka, Tatsuyoshi Masubuchi, Shohei Tateyama, Tony Barnette, Masato Furuno (rookie), Yasuhiro Ichiba, Ryo Hidaka, Katsuki Akagawa, Orlando Roman (1st year), Kenta Abe (1st year), Itsuki Shoda (1st year), Hitoshi Yamamoto, Takehiko Oshimoto, Ryo Hirai

Catchers (4 players)

Ryoji Aikawa, Genki Nitta, Yuhei Nakamura, Yuki Mizuno

Infielders (9 players)

Shinya Miyamoto, Hiroyasu Tanaka, Shinichi Takeuchi, Tetsuto Yamada, Takahiro Araki, Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, Keisuke Mizuta (1st year), Masayoshi Miwa, Ryosuke Morioka

Outfielders (7 players)

Wataru Hiyane (rookie), Wladimir Balentien, Yasushi Iihara, Yuhei, Tsuyoshi Ueda, Nariaki Kawasaki (rookie), Lastings Milledge

The following players were invited to the farm team spring training camp:

Pitchers (15 players)

Masato Nakazawa, Kentaro Kyuko, Chikara Onodera, Yuji Nakane (rookie), Yuki Shichijo, Kosuke Matsui, Mikinori Katoh, Koki Watanabe, Minoru Yamagishi, Tatsuo Kinoshita, Rafael Fernandes, Ryosuke Yagi, Takeaki Tokuyama (rookie – ikusei), Keisuke Ueno (ikusei), Hugo Kanabushi (rookie – ikusei)

Catchers (3 players)

Ryohei Kawamoto, Akihisa Nishida (rookie), Masakazu Fukukawa

Infielders (7 players)

Keizo Kawashima, Shingo Kawabata, Atsushi Fujimoto, Ryuhei Kawakami (rookie), Tomoya Matano (rookie), Yoshiyuki Noguchi, Tomofumi Asoh (ikusei)

Outfielders (8 players)

Kazuki Fukuchi, Yuichi Matsumoto, Ryoji Miyade, Yusuke Kusuki (1st year), Jun Matsui, Takanori Satoh (ikusei), Koki Kitano (ikusei), Maike Magario (ikusei)

*Players are listed according to uniform number from lowest to highest.
*These invite lists were officially published by the Swallows. The lists can change at any time.
*Note that some of the farm team invitees are rehabbing from an injury or surgery.

The nest has a bunch of new inhabitants this year.

of the major goings-on include:

• Norichika Aoki has joined the Milwaukee Brewers
• Lastings Milledge was snagged as a free agent before signing with another major league club
• Orlando Roman was lured away from the Brother Elephants (Taiwan)

David and Christopher cover all of the players mentioned above, plus a few other issues surrounding the team. Give it a listen and let us know what you think. If you have any observations, or questions, voice them in the comments section below.

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.

Hanada had his best year in 2006 (3.33 ERA over 54 innings pitched), but he was a year too early to make this list.

OK, let’s try not to think about the fact that Aoki is officially gone.

In fact, let’s not even think about position players at all.

Instead, let’s ponder the bright spots in the pitching corps over the past five seasons.

That’s right, it’s time for some more trivia (again care of SPORCLE)!

Over the past five seasons (2007-2011), there have been no less than 17 Tokyo pitchers that have pitched at least 25 innings and recorded an ERA under 3.50.

Can you name them?

This one should be considerably easier than the last quiz I threw out there. Most of you should get at least 10 of the 17 Tokyo pitchers on the list.

Rules:

Same as last time, take the quiz and then report your score in the comments section below. Please refrain from commenting on any specific answer so that other folks have a chance to rack their brains, too.

If you get all 17 of them, then be sure to post your time as well.

And don’t cheat. There are no prizes involved anyway.

More Swallows Sporcle:

• NPB players wearing uniform number ’00′ in 2012

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.

Yokohama marks his third team in the Kanto region.

• Free agent LHP Wei-ying Chen signed with Baltimore. It’s a three-year deal that consequently puts a serious dent in Chunichi’s ability to keep opposing teams off the board. Cheers to that!

Yomiuri Giants

• Sounds like the Giants may be about to sign utility INF/OF John Bowker who was recently released by the Phillies.

Hanshin Tigers

• Closer Fujikawa got pretty riled up about the absolutely appalling state of uncleanliness that some of the new recruits left the Naruohama pitching area in.

Hiroshima Carp

• The Carp were hopeful about a Hiroki Kuroda return, but he said no. But they’re still planning to keep waiting. Little bit of Hachiko action going on there if I’m not mistaken.

Yokohama Baystars

• It seems like new Yokohama manager, Nakahata, is training as hard as anyone on the team.
• The team selected journeyman and former Tokyo Swallows pitcher, Shugo Fujii, as part of the compensation deal for losing INF Shuichi Murata through free agency to Yomiuri.

Around NPB

• Former Yomiuri starting pitcher (who played for the Swallows before that), Seth Greisinger, signed a one-year deal with the Chiba Marines.
• After a swing and miss with the Yankees, Nakajima re-signed with his old club, the Saitama (Seibu) Lions. It’s a one-year deal reportedly worth 280 million yen (US$3.6 million by today’s exchange rate).