2004-5 Free Agents

1. Declaring Free Agency
   10/26 - 11/4: Players who qualify for free agency must put down their desire to declare free agency in writing and submit this to their respective ball clubs.


2. Official Announcement of Free Agency
   11/5: The Commissioner's Office makes the official announcement of players who have been declared free agents.


3. Negotiation Ban Lifted
   11/6: The ban on ball clubs other than the players' current club is lifted and players may negotiate freely with any other ball club.

This last part is the one that several MLB teams seem to not know about. The Yankees in particular have been mentioned as having talked with some potential free agents and players talking about being posted. They, or any other MLB or NPB team, are not allowed to talk with the below players until November 6, 2004.

Now, the free agents:

         Central League                  Pacific League

CD   P   Yamamoto Masahiro      SL   P   Nishiguchi Fumiya
     P   Kitoh Makoto                P   Shiozaki Tetsuya
     P   Ochiai Eiji                 IF  Ueda Hiroaki
     IF  Tatsunami Kazuyoshi
     IF  Sakai Tadaharu         FDH  P   Yoshida Shuji
     OF  Sekikawa Koichi             C   Taguchi Masanori
                                         IF  Torigoe Yusuke
YS   P   Yamamoto Tatsuki            OF  Ohmichi Noriyoshi
     C   Furuta Atsuya
     IF  Suzuki Ken             HNHF P   Kawamoto Yasuyuki
     IF  Dobashi Katsuyuki           C   Nakajima Satoshi
     IF  Miyamoto Shinya             IF  Tanaka Yukio
     OF  Iida Tetsuya                IF  Narahara Hiroshi
     OF  Manaka Mitsuru              IF  Kaneko Makoto
     OF  Inaba Atsunori              OF  Ueda Yoshinori

YG   P   Kudoh Kimiyasu         CLM  IF  Hori Koichi
     IF  Kiyohara Kazuhiro           IF  Hatsushiba Kiyoshi
     IF  Etoh Akira                  IF  Hamana Chihiro
     IF  Kokubo Hiroki               OF  Kakiuchi Tetsuya
     IF  Nishi Toshihisa             OF  Morozumi Kenji
     OF  Gotoh Koji                  OF  Haru Toshio
     OF  Tuffy Rhodes                OF  Satoh Yukihiko
     OF  Shimizu Takayuki
     OF  Ide Tatsuya            OKB  P   Takamura Hiroshi
                                         P   Akahori Matoyuki
HT   P   Yabu Keiichi                P   Yoshida Toyohiko
     P   Ishige Hiroshi              P   Koike Hideo
     C   Noguchi Toshihiro           C   Matoyama Tetsuya
     IF  Yagi Hiroshi                IF  Mizuguchi Eiji
     IF  Kuji Teruyoshi              IF  Hoshino Osamu
                                         OF  Ohmura Naoyuki
HC   P   Sasaoka Shinji
     P   Takahashi Ken          OBW  C   Miwa Takashi
     C   Nishiyama Shuji             C   Yoshihara Kosuke
     C   Seto Terunobu               IF  Ohshima Koichi
     IF  Nomura Kenjiro
     OF  Kimura Takuya
     OF  Maeda Tomonori
     OF  Ogata Koichi
     OF  Machida Kojiro
     OF  Asai Itsuki

YBS  C   Nakamura Takeshi
     IF  Ishii Takuro
     IF  Saeki Takahiro
     IF  Taneda Hitoshi
     IF  Ogawa Hirofuji
     IF  Manei Takashi

Note to new-comers: Japanese names are written family name first, then given name.

I'll work on getting 2004 data into the profile pages soon (within a few days). In the mean time, 2004 data is available from the teams page.