Foreign Player Signing Summary

I haven't done a great job of staying up to date with NPB transactions this offseason. To catch up on things, here's my tally of who's signed so far this autumn:

• Bryan Bullington signed with Hiroshima
• Chad Tracy signed with Hiroshima
• Dennis Sarfate signed with Hiroshima
• Jonathan Albaladejo signed with Yomiuri
• Carlos Torres signed with Yomiuri.
• Micah Hoffpauir signed with Nippon Ham
• Marcos Vechionacci is about to sign as an ikusei player with Hanshin.
• Robert Zarate signed as an ikusei player with Hanshin
• Wladimir Balentien signed with Yakult

In addition, Hiroshima added Scott McClain as a US-based scout.

This year, I published my list of picks for Japan-bound players over at FanGraphs. So far I've gotten two correct, Bullington and Torres. I took a long look at Sarfate and Albaladejo, but I left Sarfate off because of his walk rate, and Albaladejo off because I thought he'd get a job in the Majors. I also asked FanGraphs' readers to suggest players who could go over, and so far that list has produced one correct prediction, Hoffpauir.