Well, we've got live baseball here in Japan so, welcome to the Nippon Pro Baseball 2020 thread! After a couple months of delay the season started last Friday. A week in, players are trying (and sometimes failing) to limit contact, and coaches are all masked up. No fans yet but the hope is to allow them in limited #'s starting July 10th.
For a brief intro to NPB, here's a breakdown of the two leagues: Central League and Pacific League. A few good Twitter follows for English info on NPB are @NPB_Reddit @tokyoswallows and @tom_mussa.
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A few young players I'll be following this year:
Carter Stewart - the pitcher who bypassed the US minors to go straight to the SoftBank Hawks. He spent last year on the AA-equivalent team (san-gun) but is starting in AAA-equiv (ni-gun) this year, and is expected to see some time with the big club if all goes well.
Rohki Sasaki - this kid was throwing 102mph as a 16-yo and attracted MLB scouts, one of whom told me at the time that if you needed him to get 6 outs in the bigs right now, he could do it. He's 18 now and with the first team of the Chiba Lotte Marines, though he hasn't appeared yet this season.
And a couple of my local Tokyo Yakult Swallows youngsters, 20yo 3B/1B Munetaka Murakami who hit 36 HR last year as a 19-year old and who I think will be Stateside in 4-5 years, and 19yo RHP Yasunobu Okugawa who was a Koshien star. He struck out 23 in a 14 inning CG in Koshien, and also notably K'd 18 Canadians in 7 IP in last year's U18 World Cup. Here is a clip of that performance:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oc60ewIIc
For a brief intro to NPB, here's a breakdown of the two leagues: Central League and Pacific League. A few good Twitter follows for English info on NPB are @NPB_Reddit @tokyoswallows and @tom_mussa.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few young players I'll be following this year:
Carter Stewart - the pitcher who bypassed the US minors to go straight to the SoftBank Hawks. He spent last year on the AA-equivalent team (san-gun) but is starting in AAA-equiv (ni-gun) this year, and is expected to see some time with the big club if all goes well.
Rohki Sasaki - this kid was throwing 102mph as a 16-yo and attracted MLB scouts, one of whom told me at the time that if you needed him to get 6 outs in the bigs right now, he could do it. He's 18 now and with the first team of the Chiba Lotte Marines, though he hasn't appeared yet this season.
And a couple of my local Tokyo Yakult Swallows youngsters, 20yo 3B/1B Munetaka Murakami who hit 36 HR last year as a 19-year old and who I think will be Stateside in 4-5 years, and 19yo RHP Yasunobu Okugawa who was a Koshien star. He struck out 23 in a 14 inning CG in Koshien, and also notably K'd 18 Canadians in 7 IP in last year's U18 World Cup. Here is a clip of that performance:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oc60ewIIc