team changes

Going through my Player Meikan (which is only dated from a few weeks before the season started), here are the current players on Kintetsu who started out on other teams:

(Pos Name - Team1(year-draft) - Team2(year) ...)

• P Kohda Isao - Giants(84-2) - Kintetsu(95)


• P Ishige Hiroshi - Giants(89-x) - Kintetsu(97)


• P Morita Kohki - Yokohama(88-1) - Kintetsu(98)


• P Kadokura Ken - Chunichi(96-2) - Kitetsu(00)


• P Sugiyama Kento - Seibu(93-2) - Hanshin(99+) - Kintetsu(00+)


• P Yamazaki Kazuharu - Hanshin(91-3) - Kintetsu(01)


• P Yufune Toshiroh - Hanshin(91-1) - Kintetsu(01)


• P Tabata Kazuya - Daiei(92-10) - Yakult(96) - Kintetsu(00)


• Koike Takuichi - Chunichi(93-6) - Kintetsu(00)


• P Katoh Hioto - Yakult(88-x) - Kintetsu(01)


• P Yamamura Hiroki - Hanshin(95-1) - Kintetsu(00)


• C Kitagawa Hirotoshi - Hanshin(95-2) - Kintetsu(01)


• IF Yoshioka Yuuji - Giants(90-3) - Kintetsu(97)


• IF Ichihara Kei - Daiei(92-8) - Chunichi(94) - Kintetsu(98)


• IF Shinzato Shohya - Daiei(97-7) - Kintetsu(01)


• OF Hagiwara Makoto - Hanshin(92-1) - Kintetsu(98)

Draft pick of "x" means outside the draft.

A "+" after the year traded means he was traded in mid-season.

And you're right, Wierd Gaijin-san. It does seem like the Buffs are collecting a lot of players who are cut from other teams. I thought that Yakult had quite a few, too, but I'll leave that for a future excercise.

Unless I'm mistaken, Kitagawa came over in
the same multiplayer trade that gave the Buffaloes
Hanshin's declining veteran starter Yufune.

          I have to say that Kintetsu is an even bigger
surprise than Chiba Lotte this season. The club's
pitching staff had an ERA around 9.00 during the
spring and slugger Norihiro Nakamura looked like
his quest to hit for a higher average by consulting with former Lotte Orions and Chunichi
Dragons great Hiromitsu Ochiai was going to lead to a power outage. Now the Buffaloes are over .500, the pitching staff has actually been decent
and Nakamura is hitting huge bombs left and right
while batting .360. Is this a great game or what?

I had forgotten about that trade, and when I saw Yufune on the mound one evening, I said to my (unintrested) wife, "That looks like Yufune. What's he doing there?" Well, she didn't know. Kadokura struck me as being out of place as well.

Nikkan Sports had a photo of Kitagawa after hitting that sayonara (game winning) hit with both hands up in the air in celabration - looking like he had just clinched the pennant. The headline read, "This was the best birthday in my 29 year life!"

And, yes, he was part of that 3 for 3 trade (confirmed in Nikkan Sports).

Kintetsu has been a surprise this season, but it seems to me that they're too streaky. They'll go on a tear, looking like they can't lose one week, then looking like they can't win the next. One is never sure which version is going to be at the park on a given day.

Their loss to the last place Nippon Ham Fighters last night (5/28), combined with Lotte's defeat of Daiei, dropped them to 4th place, .001 percentage point back of the surprising Marines.

Is it just me, or do the Buffaloes and Fighters take turns being the Pacific League's whipping boy? It just seems like one or the other is always struggling.

Yufune, Kitagawa and someone else went to Buffaloes for who?



Hanshin also had its success with rejects, especially with relief pitchers. I can remember Kubo, who probably retired by now, formerly of Kintetsu, Itoh (I think Orix or Swallows), Tohyama (I call him boomerang. He went to Marines and was a guinea pig to become a batter only to fail. Rejoined Hanshin when Nomura-kantoku took over Hanshin. Had his career resurrected by Nomura-kantoku) among many others.



I guess for many players going to another team is another chance to play and show their skills.