Dragons Sign Former-Dodger Alex Guerrero

Per yakyudb, Chunichi has signed Alex Guerrero

He's spent most of his recent time at 3B and outfield.
At first glance, I like his swing, I think he could do well

Here is a highlight video (note home runs against Madison Bumgartner and Hisashi Iwakuma)

Here is his Baseball Reference Bio

Article on Former WSU Wheatshocker and Current Hiroshima Carp Kris Johnson

Nice article here on Hiroshima Starting Pitcher Kris Johnson from the L.A. Daily News.  Interesting that his Grandmother is Japanese.

Jordan Norberto Highlights Comp

Some highlights of the newly signed Dragons pitcher from his stint in the Major Leagues.
Posted by Youtube member Pisty Chan

Japanese Baseball Cards Blog Masahiro Yamamoto Tribute

Check out NPBCardGuys' Masahiro Yamamoto post here.
He's got card's of him from nearly every year of his career.

Dragons Bid Farewell to Yamamoto, Wada, Ogasawara and Tanishige (As a Player)

Over the last few weeks several Dragons from the over-40 crowd have announced their retirements, including long-time Dragons Masa Yamamoto, Kazuhiro Wada and Motonobu Tanishige.

Yamamoto, the oldest of the group, was unable to contribute much this year though continues to set records each time he pitches due to his age.  News reports suggest that he will make his final appearance in Chunichi's final game this week.  Yamamoto made his NPB debut back in 1986 and was a consistent member Chunichi's rotation from the late 80's until 2008.  He's pitched infrequently for the last several years with varying degrees of success.  He will be remembered as a Dragons' legend and is one of my favorite Dragons players.

Wada, who I believe should be a future Hall-of-Famer, will retire at the age of 43 after 10 years with the Lions and 8 years with the Dragons.  He is the newest member of the meikyukai, reaching 2000 hits this summer.  He finishes his career still being a productive offensive player, and as one of the more consistent and clutch performers in recent Dragons history.  He grew up in Gifu and had always hoped to be a Dragon.  His dream became a reality when he signed as free agent prior to the 2008 NPB season.  He immediately replaced the production of the departed Kosuke Fukudome and has been one Chunichi's best hitters since.  He will be missed.

Tanishige, Chunichi's current player/manager, will retire as a player but continue in his role as manager.  He is currently under contract for two more years as a manager.  He played in a limited role as a player this year, but finished offensively on a high note, posting his highest batting average since 1999.  He was supposed to play a limited role last year as well but was forced into action by the ineffectiveness of Chunichi's other catchers.  He's had amazing longevity as a catcher, and a very impressive career.  He's also a member of the Meikyukai, due mainly to his longevity, but to do so as a catcher is still extremely impressive.  Hopefully with a focus only on managing he can get the Dragons turned around next year.

Ogasawara joined the Dragons only two years ago after long stints with Nippon Ham and Yomiuri.  He's been an extraordinary pinch-hitter in those two years, matching his average career numbers in batting average and on-base percentage as a pinch-hitter, something not easy to do.  He's an NPB legend based on what he did for other teams, but was certainly a useful player for the Dragons in his role. 

A First Look at Raul Valdes and Amaury Rivas

New foreign players Raul Valdes and Amaury Rivas made their first appearances for the Dragons in yesterday's practice game against the Marines.  A replay of the game can be seen on UStream. 

Valdes is a 37-year old Cuban lefthander with some experience as a reliever in the Major Leagues, but was mainly a starter in the minors.  I don't know which role Chunichi plans on using him, but he did start this game.  His severely short-armed delivery looks more like a reliever's to me, but it looks like he has a variety of off-speed pitches so he has a chance to be successful as a starter.  He pitched three shutout innings yesterday and his fastball was topping out around 140 km.

Rivas is a 29-year old righty from the Dominican.  He looks more like a traditional power pitcher with a big windup and a mid-140's fastball.  Rivas was tagged for a couple solo home runs yesterday, one on a breaking ball and the other looked like a first-pitch fastball.  He did have a nice strike out on a changeup.

Overall, I had a good first impression of both pitchers.  You can't take too much from the results of a preseason game, especially a first game, but based on their stuff I think both of these guys could be useful this year.

Dragons Trade Kyohei Iwasaki to Orix for Taiki Mitsumata

In one the few trade deadline moves Chunichi sent Kyohei Iwasaki to Orix in exchange for Taiki Mitsumata.  I don't know a ton about Orix's roster, but I imagine this was a move to add a little depth to their middle infield as it doesn't appear to be a move that would improve Chunichi's playoff chances, at least for this season. 

Iwasaki is 28-years old and wasn't seeing much time with the ichi-gun team this year.  He had less than 100 plate appearance at ichi-gun in his career with the Dragons.  He's a bit of a light hitter and hasn't had much success as a hitter in his ni-gun career either, though he did have a fairly high OBP this year.  I'm sure Orix is looking to add him for his defense and hoping he'll at least be able to get on base at a reasonable rate.  I don't know if they are planning to use him much, maybe for late-inning defense.

Though this looks to be minor trade, Mitsumata could eventually turn out to be an interesting player.  He is only 22-years old and was a 2nd-round draft pick of the Buffaloes out high school in 2010.  So far he's been about a .230ish hitter in ni-gun and has had limited opportunities at ichi-gun.  He showed power in high school hitting double-digit home runs in his final year at Shutoku HS.  He's not likely to give Chunichi much this year, but he's young and still has time to improve.

For the time being I'm liking this trade.  I think Mitsumata has a chance to be a better player than Iwasaki is or will be and hopefully can be a future middle-infield piece for the Dragons.  Chunichi needs more middle-infield prospects, it's kind of a weakness right now as they've had to sign a foreigner to play shortstop, pretty uncommon, and have an aging second-baseman.  So far the prospects they have haven't stepped up and though Shuhei Takahashi is looking promising right now he's probably more of a corner infielder than a middle-infielder long-term.  This hopefully will end up being a trade that benefits both teams, Orix in the short-term and Chunichi in the long-term.

Hector Luna of Las Aguilas Cibaenas

The Dragons' Hector Luna is currently playing for the Aguilas (Eagles) in the Domincan Winter League has been doing pretty well so far.  You can see his stats here.  Luna is coming off of a knee injury that ended his 2013 season prematurely.  He appears to be healthy now and hopefully can do some damage for the Dragons in 2014.  ESPN3 has a replay of the Aguilas vs. the Leones from December 12th here, Luna is in the starting lineup hitting in the middle of the order.

Takeshi Yamasaki Hangs Up His Spikes

Takeshi Yamasaki, at 44 years old, has now officially retired after 25 years of professional baseball.  He played his final game for the Dragons last Saturday in Chunichi's final game of the season.  The team did several ceremonial things for his last game, as can be seen in these photos.  Yakyubaka has the details of the event including an English translation of his retirement speech.  Japanese Baseball Cards also has a nice write-up about Yamasaki's career.

Though he had already moved on from the Dragons when I began following Japanese baseball, I've been a fan of his.  There's a lot to like, at least for me, he's from Aichi and went to Aikodai Meiden, he's got the big slowpitch softball swing and even drives a lamborghini.  He also authored one of my father-in-laws favorite Dragons' moments:

A walkoff home run from 1999 bringing Chunichi's magic number to five.  They eventually held off the Giants and went to the Japan Series that year for the first time since 1988.

He wasn't the most consistent player, but his at-bats were always must-see, he wasn't going to be cheated and a prolific home run could be on the way.  I'm glad he could go out as a Dragon.

Dragons Sign Matt Clark

According to several reports and his own twitter account, Matt Clark, a Padres farmhand will be a Chunichi Dragon in the very near future.  Clark is a first baseman and has played some outfield.  He's 26 years old and has spent the last two years with the AAA Tuscon Padres.  He's never appeared in a major league game, but his minor league numbers are solid.  Had the Padres not had so many other 1B prospects he probably would have gotten a look in the majors, he has attended major league spring training.  It sounds like he's most known for his power and for being somewhat strikeout-prone, but his overall batting average and on-base percentage numbers look plenty good.  Here's a video about him from last year:

It's been reported that former Dragon and current professional hitting coach Alonzo Powell may be involved with the acquisition.  According to yakyubaka Powell has also been invited to be a special instructor at the Dragons' Spring Camp, something that could help with Clark's acclimation to Japan.  Clark is a little younger than most foreign players who come to the NPB and may still have a shot at the majors should he succeed in Japan, so he's got a lot to play for.  As far as how he would fit on the Dragons, if he can do for Chunichi what he's done for the Tuscon Padres the last two years, he will fill the power bat, first base hole that was left by Tony Blanco's move to Yokohama.  From what I've been reading, he sounds like a good guy and ready to go wherever baseball leads him.  I'm excited to see what he can do in 2013.

Here's a link to an interview with Clark from last year here.

Update: The deal is official

Hidenori Kuramoto Calls it a Career

This is kind of old news, but Hidenori chose to retire from playing at the end of the season after the Dragons did not offer him a contract for 2013.  The Dragons did, however, offer him a job as an assistant coach, which he chose to accept rather than trying to catch on with another NPB team or another pro team somewhere else in the world.  He is currently listed as the ni-gun outfield and baserunning coach and has been working with the team during fall camp.

Hidenori's career with Chunichi spanned fourteen years, with ichi-gun appearances in twelve of those years.  He was never really a full-time player due to his hitting, he finished with a .236 career average, but was a good athlete and a skilled defender and baserunner.  Those skills kept him on the team as a pinch-runner and late-inning defensive replacement allowing him to appear in 884 games for the Dragons.  He'll be remembered for his spectacular plays in the outfield, some can be seen in this video (highlights start at 1:25):

  
Gen from yakyubaka translated his retirement interview which had this fantastic quote:

"I was a Dragons fan the day I was born.  It was like being a superhero on a TV program and fighting enemies every day."

With his love for the game and text-book outfield play he should make a great coach!

Your 2012 All-Stars

It's time for the 2012 All-Star Series and Chunichi has several representatives:

Hitoki Iwase
2.75 ERA, 36 IP, 10 BB, 17 SO, 27 SV
The NPB's all-time saves leader is having another solid season.  He is currently leading the NPB in saves for the 2012 season.  He's struggled a bit lately, blowing two out of his last three save opportunities, but up until that point Iwase had been very reliable.  Certainly deserving of another All-Star invitation.

Motonobu Tanishige
.250 AVG, .323 SLG, .361 OBP, 1 HR, 21 RBI
The veteran makes it as one of the back-up catchers.  He isn't the biggest offensive threat, and never really has been in his career, but he is a capable hitter and aside from Shinnosuke Abe there aren't any prolific hitting catchers in the CL.  Tanishige brings a lot of leadership and catching experience and is still a very good defender, even at his age, definitely an All-Star in my book.

Tony Blanco
.266 AVG, .542 SLG, .359 OBP, 16 HR, 42 RBI
Blanco put up great power numbers over the first half of the season.  Unfortunately, his hand was broken by a HBP a couple weeks ago and he will not be participating in the All-Star Series.  He was selected to be an All-Star by the player vote.

Masahiro Araki
.248 AVG, .314 SLG, .274 OBP, 2 HR, 18 RBI, 31 R
Araki is having a pretty mediocre season so far, but the CL doesn't have any above average second basemen right now to choose from.  He is listed as a back-up infielder, but is only one of two second basemen on the roster.  Araki currently has an OBP of under .300, pretty bad for anyone, pretty awful for a leadoff hitter.  If he is truly a back-up infielder then there would plenty more deserving infielders out there, Hirokazu Ibata comes to mind and he played 2B last year, but Araki probably is in the top 2 second basemen if that is the reason why he was chosen.

Kazuhiro Wada
.280 AVG, .411 SLG, .360 OBP, 6 HR, 37 RBI
Wada has returned to form this year and been the most consistent hitter in the Dragons lineup.  He's carried the team during parts of the season and had a bunch of sayonara hits as well.  Wada was selected to the All-Star team by the players' vote.

Yohei Ohshima
.288 AVG, .359 SLG, .352 OBP, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 39 R
I've always thought that Ohshima had the potential to be a nice player, but it has taken until now for him to hit consistently.  He's currently leading the team in runs scored and is 6th in the Central League in batting average.  His center field defence is excellent as well.  If he continues to play the way he did during the first half of the season he should become the Dragons' everyday leadoff hitter.  It's his first All-Star game and he was also selected by the players.

Shinji Tajima
0.46 ERA, 39 IP, 8 BB, 28 SO, 11 HLD
As you can see by his numbers Tajima has been almost unhittable in his rookie season.  He's shared the role of setup man and been a very important part of the bullpen, stepping up big in the wake of Takuya Asao's injury.  Tajima was named to the team by Takagi as an alternate for the injured Daiki Enokida.

Other Chunich players that should/could have made it:

Jorge Sosa
0.00 ERA, 39 IP, 7 BB, 34 SO, 1 SV, 10 HLD

Kazuki Yoshimi
2.25 ERA, 72 IP, 8 BB, 36 SO

Soma Yamauchi
2.44 ERA, 88 2/3 IP, 16 BB, 34 SO

Tony Blanco Named Central League MVP for the Month of May

Nice to see the big guy overcome some obstacles and put the early-season BS (Yamasaki "competition" and ni-gun demotion) behind him and show everyone what kind of damage he is still capable of.   He's definitely deserving of the above award with at .333 BA, 9 HR and 23 RBI in May.  He's now among the league leaders in HR and RBIs and with way fewer plate appearances than most his competitors.  Hopefully he can keep things rolling through the season and the Dragons will sign him to new deal.  I think he will continue to thump if he stays healthy, he's been around the NPB for several years now and knows what it takes to succeed.  Whether the Dragons re-sign him or not will be interesting,  I'm still not sure what direction the front office is going with their recent moves, but they definitely don't have a replacement of his calibre on the current roster.  With the way Blanco's been jerked around a bit by management, I wouldn't blame him if  he took an offer from another team should one be available, but as a fan I hope he'll be back.

Nobumasa Fukuda

Nobumasa Fukuda has been getting more playing time of late and is a guy that I didn't really know much about.  He has been mainly a pinch-hitter so far at the ichi-gun level, but seems to have some potential as a hitter and has been seeing some time at several positions over the last few weeks.  Here's some more on Fukuda:

He's 23 years old, and was drafted in the third round as a catching prospect in 2006.  He attended Yokohama High School and had 49 HR's during his career there.  He was also the clean-up hitter for Yokohama HS when they won the 2006 Spring Koshien Championship.

Fukuda started his ni-gun career as a catcher, but Hiromitsu Ochiai was impressed by his offensive skill and had him switch to the infield, hoping this would provide him with more opportunities to play.  Since then he has played mainly corner infield and been a consistantly solid performer at ni-gun.  He is the current record holder for most doubles in a game in the Western league with 4 in one game.  Fukuda was also an alternate on last year's fresh all-star team, but didn't play because of injury.

This year Fukuda has been asked to return to catching in order to take the place of Keiji Oyama who was traded to Rakuten.  He's now the third-string catcher behind Tanishige and Oda, but has also seen some innings at 1B, 2B and 3B so far this year.  Fukuda has hit .300 with a HR this year in 20 ichi-gun at-bats.  Hopefully he can keep it up, Chunichi could use a useful catcher under the age of 35 and a potential successor to Tanishige at some point.

Fun fact:  Fukuda became the 49th player to hit a home run in his first pro NPB at-bat against the Swallows on July 8, 2009.

Masahiro Yamamoto

The big lefty has got it going to start the season.  He had another good start the other night, allowing only 1 run and 3 hits over 6 innings.  That follows his first start of the season, which I was able to see on Justin.tv, where he pitched 5 innings of shutout ball.  At 46 years old, turning 47 in August, he isn't going to be able to go deep into games, but he's still throwing quality innings and you gotta love watching his old school wind-up.

This may be Masa's last season, he's said in the past that he only wants to continue pitching for as long he can be successful.  The funny thing is that after coming back from period of injuries in 2009 and early 2010 he has been really good, when available, and I think if they limit his innings he may be able to hold up over the course of the season.

Yamamoto may also have a chance this year to become the oldest pitcher to record a win in NPB history.  The current record is set at forty-six years and 8 months, so Masa has a couple months to go before he will be eligible to break it.  Though Yamamoto has pitched well in both of his starts this year he has recieved two no-decisions so far.  Masa left the game with a 1-0 lead in his first start, but Takuya Asao had a rare blown hold opportunity in the 8th and the game ended in a tie.  Chunichi was unable to score while Yamamoto was on the hill on the April 8th, but rallied to tie later in the game, before losing in extra innings. 

Whether or not Yamamoto goes on to set any more records he has already left quite a mark on Dragons history.  He's been with the team since 1983, when he was a 5th-round draft pick.  He's pitched over 150 innings for the team 14 times, has over 200 career wins and is 50 games over .500 in his career.  Never the most dominant pitcher, he has always been consistantly solid.  From 1989 to 2004 he posted an ERA of over 4.00 only one time.  While he's had a hard time staying healthy over the last few years and many others lump him into a group of players who are hanging on too long.  I would rather appreciate the few starts he has left, especially as he continues to get guys out.  From the classic windup to the history and craftiness he takes with him when he climbs the mound, I definitely still get a lot of enjoyment from him still being on the team.

Looking Back at Chunichi's No. 1 Picks

Newspapers are reporting that Shuhei Takahashi will make the ichi-gun squad to start the season.  If Takahashi does start the season at ichi-gun he would be the team's first high school draft-pick to start his rookie season at ichi-gun since Kazuyoshi Tatsunami did it in 1988. 

On that note, lets take a look at the progress of the Dragons' previous No. 1 Picks back to the 2000 draft.

2010 - Yudai Ono - A left-handed pitcher drafted out of Bukkyo University.  Ono had a rough 4 innings at ichi-gun last year.  He also started 9 games at ni-gun and finished the year there with a 4.84 ERA.  He is only 23 years old this year, so he has plenty of time to develop yet. 

2009 - Toshiya Okada - Okada has a pretty similar story to Ono, he's a lefty pitcher.  He was drafted from Chiben Wakayama High School and is 20 years old.  He has pitched two years at ni-gun, but entirely as a reliever.  Okada had quite a bit more success in 2011, but is probably a year or two away from being an ichi-gun regular.

2008 - Kei Nomoto -  A left-handed hitting outfielder, 27 years old.  Nomoto wasn't drafted coming out of college and played for two seasons in the Industrial Leagues for Nippon Express.  He made the ichi-gun team in his first spring camp and debuted on Opening Day 2009.  He has remained primarily at ichi-gun since and played in as many as 118 games there in 2010.  He's had some good moments and key hits, but plenty of missed opportunities as well.  So far he just hasn't hit well enough to be a full-time starter at one of the outfield spots, but many of the other Dragons hitters have struggled as well so he is likely to have some more opportunities coming.  He's getting close to being too old to be a prospect and may never win a job as an every-day player, but for now he is a useful option off the bench or a platoon lefty, with still the chance that things will "click" for him and will turn into a solid starter.

2007 High School Draft - Kazuyuki Asasaka - Asasaka was drafted as a right-handed pitcher out of Urawa Gakuin H.S.  He pitched in ni-gun until 2010 and had a pretty sucessful 2009 season there.  But after a tough 2010 he was switched to outfield.  He is currently listed as an outfielder on the Dragons' Development Squad Roster.  At this point it looks like a long shot that he will be a significant contributor at the ichi-gun level.

2007 College/Independent Draft - Soma Yamauchi - A right-handed pitcher drafted from Meijo University.  Yamauchi has 22 career starts at ichi-gun in his career and 17 over the last 2 years.  His ERA was 1.73 last year over 62 1/3 innings.  He's 26 years old and projected to start the year in the starting rotation.  He's shown a lot of promise so far and this may be the year that he can establish himself as one of the main contributors on the team.

2006 High School Draft - Naomichi Donoue - The younger of the Donoue brothers is a 23-year old infielder.  He's played quite a bit over the last two years filling in for the Dragons' elderly infielders, mainly Ibata.  He played a lot last year as a late inning defensive replacement at third base.  He's been a useful backup and can play SS, 2B and 3B.  He hasn't put it together yet with the bat, but he is clearly in Chunichi's future plans.  My guess is the switch of Ibata back to shortstop and Araki back to 2B means that they are looking for Donoue to take over the shortstop position in the near future.

2006 College/Independent Draft - Daisuke Tanaka - Tanaka is a 27-year old catcher drafted out of Toyo University.  He hasn't had much of a chance yet at ichi-gun, and hasn't hit much at either level.  I not sure what the future will be for the Dragons at the catcher position.  The top two catchers for this year are over 35 and none of the catching prospects have really done much to wrestle any playing time away from either of the older guys.

2005 High School Draft - Ryosuke Hirata - Hirata is a 24-year old outfielder.  Last year was his first full year at ichi-gun.  He had a nice season, comparatively to the rest of the team, and has cemented himself as the starting right fielder.  He can also play some center-field and looks to be one of better younger players on the team.  His first career home run in 2008 was a walk-off, and that may have been a sign of things to come as he had multiple walk-off dingers and some very clutch moments last year.  The only things I see that could hold him back are his swing is little long and he seems to miss some pitches he should be able to cover.  I also saw him in a interview over the offseason and he was looking a little chunky, but he was able to lose most of the weight before coming back to training camp.  All in all, he looks like a promising player moving forward.

2005 College/Independent Draft - Kazuki Yoshimi - Yoshimi is a 27-year old righty pitcher and has been an excellent performer over the last four years.  With the loss of Chen over the offseason, he is now the clear ace of the pitching staff.

2004 - Tatsumi Higuchi - Higuchi was drafted in his late 20's from the Japan Railways industrial team.  He pitched several years at ni-gun before retiring, but never pitched for the ichi-gun squad.

2003 - Hiroki Nakagawa - Nakagawa was a outfielder for the Dragons up until this past offseason.  He only had 33 career ichi-gun at-bats in his career.  He will be joining the ni-gun coaching staff for 2012.

2002 - Ryosuke Morioka - Morioka is currently a reserve infielder for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.  He left the Dragons after the 2008 season.  He hit .256 with 0 HR and 0 RBIs over 52 games last season. 

2001 - Akihiro Maeda - Maeda is catcher on the Dragons roster.  He's 28 years old now and has only 34 plate appearances at the ichi-gun level.  He hit well last year at ni-gun last year in 22 games and will likely be on the ichi-gun bench for this season.

2000 - Atsushi Nakazato - Nakazato was a righty relief pitcher for Chunichi until 2009.  He didn't pitch much or have a lot of success at the ichi-gun level.  In 2010 he went to Yomiuri and pitched a few innings for them.  He had a servicable season for Yomiuri's ni-gun team in 2011, but was never brought back to ichi-gun.  He was not given a contract for the upcoming season and will join Yomiuri's coaching staff.

Kenichi Nakata & Kenta Asakura

Kenichi Nakata

Two guys that I didn't even mention in my 2012 Outlook post who have been getting their fair share of opportunities in camp are Kenichi Nakata and Kenta Asakura.  Both are right-handed pitchers who were drafted very highly.  Nakata was a second-round pick in 2004 and Asakura was a first-rounder back in 1999.  They are within a year apart in age, as Asakura was drafted out of high school, while Nakata was drafted out of college. 

There has been a lot of similarities in their career paths as well.  Both had considerable success as young players and both have been burdened by numerous injuries and poor performances over the last few years.  They have also each had appearances in multiple Japan Series's with mixed results, ranging from dominance to disaster for each of them. 

Asakura's career has been a bit more up and down than Nakata's, with higher highs and lower lows.  He was one the CL's top pitchers in 2002 and 2006, with some leaner injury-filled years sandwiched in between.  He was solid in 2007 and 2008 and okay over 150+ innings in 2009.  Since then his performance has fallen off a cliff and he spent most of his time in ni-gun last year.  He was successful last year in ni-gun, but has flopped with an ERA of over 6.00 during his ichi-gun opportunities over the last two years.

Nakata's has been the more consistent of the two, but his best seasons don't quite compare to Asakura's best years.  Nakata, however, has been a much better strikeout pitcher and has averaged nearly a strikeout an inning over his career.  He had a good year in 2010, though I never really had as much confidence in him as I probably should have that season.  I was very surprised and dismayed when Ochiai sent him out for the pivotal Game 5 of the 2010 Japan Series, especially after he hadn't pitched in real game in over a month.  Nakata gave up 8 earned runs over 5 innings and took the loss in that game.  That choice was one of only a few gripes I ever had with Ochiai.  Last year Nakata was only able to pitch in around 50 innings between both ichi-gun and ni-gun.  He wasn't awful at ichi-gun and actually didn't give up a single run over 20 innings in ni-gun.


Kenta Asakura


Both guys have been at ichi-gun camp this spring and have participated in several of the exhibition games.  Nakata has fared better than Asakura in those games and it sounds like Takagi may be counting on him more than I anticipated.  Nakata has shown some good fastball velocity in camp with reports him throwing up to 149 km/h, but he has had mechanics issues as well.  It is hard to say how much time Asakura will spend at ichi-gun this year.  It seems like he may be running out of chances, though under-performing players do tend to hang around a lot longer on NPB clubs as compared to the MLB system. 

If one or both of these guys can get it together and have a nice season it could really give Chunichi a lift, as they are already having injury issues in their starting rotation.  I'm not expecting a whole lot from either player, but it looks like there will be more opportunites for each of them and I hope they will make the most out of those opportunities.  Hopefully their prior injuries haven't taken too much out their arms and 2012 will be their year to shine again.  There is hope for Nakata especially, as his velocity seems fine.  We will find out soon enough as Opening Day is just over a week away and reports have said that Takagi is planning to start Nakata in one of the games against Yokohama in the second series of the year.

Shuhei Takahashi

Birthday: January 18, 1994 (Age: 18)
Height: 180cm
Weight: 85kg
Hometown: Kanagawa
Blood Type: O
Hobby: Shopping
High School: Tokai University Kofu H.S.
Uniform #: 31
Throws: Right
Bats: Left
Position: Infield


Baseball Highlights: 2012 NPB First Round Selection, Most Valuable Player of the 2011 Asian 18U Baseball Championship, hit 71 home runs during his high school career

Easily the most exciting addition so far to the 2012 Dragons is first-round pick Shuhei Takahashi.  He appears to be the most coveted position player in this past years draft.  He was selected on draft day by Orix and Yakult as well as the Dragons.  Chunichi just happened to win the rights to Takahashi via a lottery between those three teams.  The only other position player taken in the first round was college outfielder Hayata Ito by Hanshin and the Tigers were the only team to select Ito.

Takahashi signed with the team in November, which isn't always a sure thing in the NPB.  Nippon Ham was unable to sign their first-round pick this year and there is a long history of picks refusing to sign because they would prefer to play for a different team than the one they were drafted by.  Takahashi's contract for the upcoming season is worth 12M yen with a 100M yen bonus.

Chunichi's new manager, Morimichi Takagi, announced Takahashi would be attending Ichi-gun spring camp prior to the season. Takahashi has since reported to rookie training camp which began last week and will move on to Ichi-gun camp once that begins.

I haven't seen anything resembling a scouting report on Takahashi in English, but here are some details translated mainly from Japan high school baseball writer Soichi Kawashima and some comments from NPB team scouts:

• Takahashi has extremely good bat speed and can cover both the inside and outside of the plate
• He is seen as having more of a line drive producing swing at this point, but has been able to hit for power using it, including some tape-measure shots and opposite field home runs
• Needs to improve pitch recognition and thinking ahead while batting, is mostly an instinctual hitter at this point
• Played shortstop in high school, but scouts project him as third baseman professionally
• Has a strong throwing arm, but needs to improve his routes to groundballs (charge them more) to have a chance to play shortstop at higher levels
• Below-average footspeed, needs to improve awareness during baserunning
• Has shown team leadership skills in high school, as well as unselfishness in interacting with teammates
• Has a strong will and work ethic, works hard at following coachs' directions, but isn't the most intuitive at understanding his own faults as a player
• Had some trouble adjusting to using a wood bat during U18 Asian Tournament, though still won the Most Valuable Player

Clearly he has shown a lot of power in high school and international competition.  He has also shown some good contact skills beyond that, all of which Chunichi desperately needs right now.  It sounds like the team is looking at him as their future third baseman.  That position is currently held by Masahiko Morino, he is coming off of a sub-par season, but is still one of Chunichi's best hitters.  Morino has also spent time recently at first base and used to be able to play the corner outfield positions.  Not sure if he is still a viable option in the outfield, but I think there is a good chance he will be the team's full-time first baseman by the time Takahashi is ready.  The scouts' opinions are somewhat mixed on when they expect Takahashi to be ready to be a Ichi-gun regular.  All of the ones we saw expect him to be a starting everyday player within five years, some said if he works hard it will be closer to a couple years, and a couple said his swing his is ready for the middle of an NPB batting order right now.  Still I wouldn't expect Takahashi to play much this season with the Ichi-gun club.  I'm sure that will depend on how he performs in the pre-season and in Ni-gun to start the year.  Even as bad as Chunichi was last year offensively, it is hard to believe that an 18-year old would be able to step in and improve the team right away. 

Even if he doesn't spend much time at Ichi-gun this year it is nice to know they have one of the top prospects around, because the average age of Chunichi's starting position players is near 33.  The current players will need to pass on the torch to younger players sooner rather than later and at the moment I'm seeing a lot more potential holes than I'm seeing capable young players to fill them.  Hopefully Takahashi can get things moving in the right direction for the young players and the Dragons have in him a future team leader, it is certainly too early to tell, but it will be fun to see what he can do.