2007 Draft: College/Industrial Leagues

Well, the draft isn't for another 12 hours or whatever, but the kibouwaku players were listed on Yahoo SportsNavi here:

Yokohama: Kentarou Takasaki, Nissan, RHP
Hiroshima: Michito Miyazaki, Honda, RHP
Orix: Satoshi Komatsu, JR Kyushu, RHP
Giants: Norihito Kaneto, Ritsumeikan Univ, LHP
Yakult: Shun Takaichi, Aoyama Gakuin Univ, RHP
Softbank: Kenji Ohtonari, Kinki Univ, LHP
Tigers: Tatsuya Kojima, Osaka Gas, LHP
Seibu: Takayuki Kishi, Tohoku Gakuin Univ, RHP
Chunichi: Daisuke Tanaka, Toyodai Univ, C
Nippon Ham: Ken Miyamoto, Waseda Univ, LHP

Lotte had a second round pick in the high school draft, so they didn't do one of these, and Rakuten apparently didn't agree to terms with their choice. Or something like that. I have to admit I really don't entirely understand how this part of the process works.

If you can read Japanese, the above linked page has some profiles of those guys.

Does anyone have more information about the College/Industrial Leagues draft? Who was drafted by whom, and maybe some information about the top draft picks?

To take my mind off the Ogasawara signing, I went ahead and translated the entire draft list off of Sankei Sports, going and digging up hometown prefectures and other stuff.

Hopefully this will format correctly.

(The dashes on some of the later hometowns are where I really couldn't find one, was getting tired, and just inserted their hometown high school's prefecture)

Name                  Pos  Univ/Company        B/T   DOB          Ht/Wt        Hometown
--------------------  ---  ------------        ---   ----------   ----------   --------

Chunichi Dragons

K: Daisuke Tanaka      C   Toyo Univ           R/R   12/18/1984   174cm/78kg   Hiroshima
3. Takuya Asao         P   Nihon Fukushi Univ  R/R   10/22/1984   182cm/71kg   Aichi
4. Masanori Kikuchi    P   Toho Gas            L/L   09/09/1984   177cm/82kg   Shizuoka
5. Tatsuro Iwasaki     IF  Nippon Oil (ENEOS)  R/R   12/28/1984   175cm/75kg   Kanagawa
6. Akinobu Shimizu     P   Meijo Univ          R/R   10/26/1983   175cm/85kg   Mie
7. Akira Nishikawa     IF  Hosei Univ          L/R   04/02/1984   175cm/72kg   Mie

Hanshin Tigers

K: Tatsuya Kojima      P   Osaka Gas           L/L   10/07/1985   180cm/73kg   Osaka
3. Keiji Uezono        P   Musashi Univ        R/R   06/30/1984   180cm/80kg   Fukuoka
4. Takashi Shimizu     C   Kanzei Gakuin Univ  R/R   04/23/1984   177cm/75kg   Hyogo
5. Yuuji Oshiro        IF  TDK Chikumagawa     S/R   10/07/1985   172cm/75kg   Okinawa   

Yakult Swallows

K: Shun Takaichi       P   Aoyama Gakuin Univ  R/R   07/09/1984   177cm/80kg   Chiba
3. Satoshi Nishizaki   P   JR Hokkaido         R/R   08/01/1982   174cm/68kg   Fukuoka
4. Atsushi Kinugawa    C   Sumitomo Kashima    R/R   03/20/1981   180cm/90kg   Hyogo

Yomiuri Giants

K: Norihito Kaneto     P   Ritsumeikan Univ    L/L   04/10/1984   177cm/83kg   Hyogo
3. Takahisa Ueno       P   NTT East            L/L   12/09/1984   177cm/75kg   Tokyo
4. Hidetoshi Tsuburaya IF  Aoyama Gakuin Univ  L/R   09/17/1984   181cm/75kg   Kanagawa
5. Kazuho Fukasawa     P   Shikoku / Kagawa*   L/L   09/16/1983   180cm/72kg   Yamanashi
6. Takayuki Terauchi   IF  JR East             R/R   05/27/1983   177cm/75kg   Tochigi
7. Ryousuke Fukamachi  P   Chukyo Univ         R/R   10/25/1984   181cm/81kg   Aichi

(Shikoku League, Kagawa Olive Guyners)

Hiroshima Carp

K: Michito Miyazaki    P   Honda Suzuka        R/R   09/06/1978   181cm/78kg   Wakayama
3. Hirofumi Ueno       P   Toyota              R/R   04/10/1981   176cm/82kg   Kagoshima
4. Takahiro Aoki       P   Nissan              L/L   11/26/1981   187cm/80kg   Gifu
5. Naoki Nakahigashi   OF  Honda Suzuka        L/R   10/05/1981   168cm/68kg   Hiroshima

Yokohama Bay Stars

K: Kentarou Takasaki   P   Nissan              R/R   06/24/1985   175cm/80kg   Kumamoto
3. Yuta Kimura         P   Tokyo Gas           L/L   05/21/1985   189cm/80kg   Akita
4. Tatsuya Shimozono   OF  Kyushu Kokusai Univ L/L   11/22/1984   179cm/81kg   Miyazaki
5. Yusuke Shimokubo    OF  Nippon Express      R/R   01/21/1979   173cm/78kg   Kagoshima
6. Michiomi Yoshihara  P   Honda Sayama        R/R   10/29/1981   181cm/83kg   Tokyo


Nippon Ham Fighters

K: Ken Miyamoto        P   Waseda University   L/L   04/18/1984   174cm/78kg   Okayama
3. Keisaku Itokazu     P   Asia University     R/R   11/07/1984   180cm/88kg   Okinawa
4. Hisayoshi Chohno    OF  Japan University    R/R   12/06/1984   178cm/78kg   Saga
5. Kazunori Yamamoto   P   Waseda University   L/L   06/13/1983   184cm/90kg   Shimane
6. Youhei Kaneko       OF  Honda               R/R   12/04/1981   177cm/83kg   Yamaguchi
7. Takahiro Imanami    IF  Meiji University    L/R   07/06/1984   170cm/75kg   Fukuoka
8. Yusuke Uchiyama     P   Asahikawa Univ      R/R   08/21/1984   182cm/83kg   Kanagawa

Seibu Lions

K: Takayuki Kishi      P   Tohoku Gakuin Univ  R/R   12/04/1984   180cm/69kg   Miyagi
3. Jun Yamamoto        P   TDK Chikumaguma     R/R   04/16/1982   188cm/80kg   Kanagawa
4. Takuya Hara         IF  Kanto Gakuin Univ   L/R   05/18/1984   174cm/74kg   Kanagawa
5. Tetsuya Iwasaki     P   Mitsubishi Yokohama R/R   10/13/1982   190cm/88kg   Saitama
6. Yutaro Ohsaki       OF  Aoyama Gakuin Univ  L/R   10/18/1984   170cm/80kg   Ibaraki

Fukuoka Softbank Hawks

K: Kenji Ohtonari      P   Kinki Univ          L/L   11/19/1984   174cm/82kg   Kyoto
3. Hiroaki Takaya      C   Hakuoh Univ         L/R   11/13/1981   178cm/83kg   Tochigi
4. Masahiko Morifuku   P   Shidax              L/L   07/29/1986   175cm/67kg   Aichi
5. Yuuya Hasegawa      OF  Senshu Univ         L/R   12/22/1984   178cm/81kg   Yamagata
6. Hideto Kawazu       P   Fukuoka Univ        R/R   03/26/1985   181cm/80kg   Saga-

Chiba Lotte Marines

3. Takumi Kobe         OF  Ryutsu Keizai Univ  L/R   02/23/1985   191cm/95kg   Ibaraki
4. Tadahiro Ogino      P   Hitachi             R/R   04/16/1982   174cm/71kg   Tokyo
5. Ryousuke Eguchi     P   Aichi Gakuin Univ   L/L   08/12/1984   175cm/77kg   Tokyo-
6. Taiki Nakagoh       P   JR Shikoku          R/R   09/21/1984   175cm/68kg   Tokushima-
7. Tatsuya Kakunaka    OF  Shikoku/Kochi*      R/R   05/25/1987   180cm/80kg   Ishikawa
8. Kodai Matsumoto     P   Duplo               L/L   12/23/1980   175cm/75kg   Hyogo

(Shikoku League, Kochi Fighting Dogs)

Orix Buffaloes

K: Satoshi Komatsu     P   JR Kyushu           R/R   10/29/1981   180cm/78kg   Fukushima
3. Keiji Ohbiki        IF  Hosei Univ          R/R   06/29/1984   177cm/75kg   Osaka

Rakuten Golden Eagles

1: Satoshi Nagai       P   Toyo University     L/R   09/27/1984   177cm/69kg   Gunma
3. Motohiro Shima      C   Kokugakuin Univ     R/R   12/13/1984   178cm/82kg   Gifu
4. Fuminori Yokogawa   OF  Aoyama Gakuin Univ  R/L   12/03/1984   186cm/90kg   Ibaraki
5. Naoto Watanabe      IF  Mitsubishi Fuso     R/R   10/15/1980   173cm/70kg   Ibaraki

Very Nice, thanks. Were there any "Blue Chip" type players like there were in the 2006 High School draft ala Tanaka, (or Saitoh who ended up going to University)?

There's talk that Kimura won't sign with the BayStars as he wants to only play with Chiba Lotte.

And Chono doesn't want to sign with the Fighters because he wants to play for the Giants, so he's talking of going to play for Honda for a few years instead.

It's funny how Bobby Valentine finds himself on both sides of the draft desire list, first having to convince Yuta Ohmine (who wanted to play for the Hawks) to sign with Lotte, now having another team suffer the problem of having a high draft pick wanting to sign with Lotte.

What does the "K" mean in regards to draft picks? Is that like some kind of compensation pick?

Thanks.

No, and I'll admit, I might not entirely understand the process, so if someone wants to correct this it'd be great - but basically, in this part of the draft, a certain number of "top" draftees are allowed to specify which teams they'd be interested in joining, and then the teams are allowed to pick one of them before the actual draft starts. They're listed as 希望枠 ("kibouwaku") picks in the draft results, since they are technically picked before round 1.

With the draft splitting into two parts in 2005, there are a bunch of rules with the way the high school and college drafts interweave - it seems that a team has to forego a second-round high school pick in order to take a kibouwaku pick in the college/industry draft - and if a team takes a kibouwaku pick in the college/industry draft, they don't pick until what is technically the third round of that draft. If I understand correctly, a team can also give up having a first-round high-school pick in order to get a second-round industry pick. And if a team takes first- and second- round high school players, they don't get a kibouwaku pick and still don't pick until the third round of the industry draft (like Lotte this year).

I hope that makes sense and is somewhat correct. This system's supposed to be re-evaluated this year anyway, I think.

Not sure, but I did read an article about the Shikoku Island League player the Giants picked up. I believe he was working at a lettuce farm to help make ends meet during his time in Shikoku. I'll be rooting for him.

Thanks Deanna for entering all of this. I'm currently in Las Vegas (company trip), so I haven't had my trusty Nikkan Sports to look at every day. You've done a ton of work, and laid the table out beautifully.

Do some teams historically go for university players while others company players? I noticed Hiroshima (Matsuda family connected to Mazda) went with all players from automotive companies! Nissan, Honda, and Toyota. Hmmm!