Official Signings & Daisuke Matsuzaka Pursuit News

Matsuzaka beef stocks rising

Since my last post there has been a little bit of movement on the Daisuke Matsuzaka saga. While team owner Bungo Shirai essentially called the former flamethrower useless, the following day he made a 180 degree turn and okayed the pursuit of the aging righty.

The latest news is that the Dragons have offered Matsuzaka an opportunity to

show off his wares in a "test" taking place in late January 2018. Dragons reps will be watching over Dice-K's progress in the meantime checking in on training sessions but the ultimate decision will likely be made after the one day trial at Nagoya dome. There's already a bit of fluff surrounding this as Matsuzaka will be taking his Yokohama High School catcher and former Chunichi Dragons player and staff member, Yoshio Koyama to catch for him during the trial.

The Dragons have more or less said that if he can still throw and has reasonable contract conditions, the team will have a serious look at him. This does seems to be a bit of a media masquerade but the Dragons haven't really been in the limelight for some time and it makes sense to make a move like this. Popularity is in a bit of a lull thanks to sub-par results and the Matsuzaka side-show might grab a few more headlines to keep the team relevant.

The team will make it's decision before Spring camp. We'll then see what we can expect after that.

Dragons add more Latin flavour

The team has otherwise made the signings of Zoilo Almonte, Steven Moya and Onelki Garcia official. All three players will be signing incentive laden, one-year, 50M yen (approx $500k) deals. This is, well, to say the least incredibly cheap. Alex Guerrero's one-year deal added up to about the sum that all three are getting. Whether this is an indication of their quality or not is something I'm not sure of but the signings of these players represent a low-risk high reward scenario for the Dragons. Whether Mori and the scouting department have really done a deal here, I don't know, but only time will tell. Personally I think Almonte is going to be a very good capture while I think that Garcia will be useful. Moya seems like a guy that will strikeout a lot, but if he can get some semblance of plate discipline together he could be a contributor. Numbers have also been decided. Almonte will wear Guerrero's 42 while Moya will wear Raul Valdes' 44. Garcia will wear the 70 which was vacated by Tetsuya Tani who took on the 58.

On joining the Dragons the 3 new captures had this to say:

Zoilo Almonte - 42

Zoilo Almonte
"I am extremely happy to be able to play for the Dragons in 2018. I am currently
playing in the Dominican Winter League. I would like to get ready for the season and help the Dragons reach the playoffs and contribute 100% of my power to helping the team win.
I'm also planning to grow my trademark beard before coming to Japan. I look forward to your support!"

Steven Moya - 44

Steven Moya
"I am very happy to be able to join Japan's Chunichi Dragons for the 2018 season.
I hope to proactively learn about Japan's language and culture and learn how to adapt to Japanese baseball as soon as possible. I would like to try my very best for my family and my incoming children to contribute to a Dragons victory"

Onelki Garcia - 70

Onelki Garcia
"I am very happy to say that I have signed a contract with the Chunichi Dragons for 2018. My motto is to throw with my heart and I will try my best to contribute to a team victory."








All three players are hoped to be available from the start of spring training unlike foreign captures in previous years who have been allowed to arrive a bit later than the Japanese players.

News and Rumours: Onelki Garcia incoming, the Heisei Monster to tear down Spring training?

A couple of interesting point to bring to you this off-season as the Dragons look to the strengthen, reboot and make themselves relevant.

One of the interesting pieces of news to come in is that the team will not only be installing Trackman, but are currently looking to establish a department devoted to analysing the data. This is quite a big step for a team that is on the conservative side of things. Even considering the Central League, which is generally filled with the more conservative old boys of Japanese baseball, the Dragons are a bit old school so this is a surprising move toward modern baseball thinking. The team is looking to get experts to give lectures on analysing Trackman data as well as getting club scorers and staff in on the ground level to ensure the team isn't left behind by the rest of the league.

In roster news, as mentioned in the previous post, the Dragons were after 2 foreign pitchers at the winter meetings. It appears as though one of those targets has been revealed as sources close to the Kansas City Royals have confirmed that Cuban southpaw Onelki Garcia is on his way to the Dragons.

The Royals have signed former Nebraska star and Phillie Cody Asche and former Giants right-hander Michael Broadway to minor-league deals. They also released LHP Onelki Garcia from a minor-league deal; he's signing with Chunichi Dragons in Japan.

— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) 2017年12月18日

This is certainly a relief signing but it also spells a bit of concern to me. Looking over Garcia's minor league numbers there's nothing to be overly impressed about. He has a high ERA, a high WHIP, bad FIP and so-so SO/9 numbers. The only thing that sticks out is his one season in Chicago with the White Sox where  he had a 12.23 SO/9 in 17.2 AA innings along with a 11.27 SO/9 in 38.1 innings in AAA. With the Omaha Storm Chasers (AAA) in 2017, Garcia started half of his 20 games with a pretty bad 4.88 xFIP. His BABIP was an insanely high .435 which indicates he was a bit unlucky while Fangraphs predicts that should get down to around .297 in 2018 which is just about right. A 7.4% FB/HR rating should play well in Nagoya with even bigger fields so there might be some upside to this signing.

Garcia started his MLB career with the LA Dodgers.

Garcia throws a 93 mph four seam pitch and generates a generous amount of spin with MLB clocking his average at 2,101rpm which should put him in good company in the NPB. I was pretty skeptical of this signing on first glance, but a look at Garcia's peripherals and what he can otherwise offer, I'm keen to see what he can do for the Dragons.

It will be interesting to see if Garcia will be expected to start, but it seems perhaps unwise to stretch him out too much. We might see him be a bullpen guy that will get spot starts. He's a lefty and with only Iwase really being the most active LHP in the bullpen last year, it makes sense to bolster those options. Toshiya Okada should however be back and Ryuya Ogawa is always there to bolster the bullpen.

Otherwise, if you've been keeping your finger on the pulse you may have noticed that former Boston Red Sox and Seibu Lions star, Daisuke Matsuzaka is looking for one last hurrah before throwing in the towel. The injury ridden starter had a torrid time at the Softbank Hawks pitching only one inning in the first team where he gave up 2 earned runs in the 3 years he was with the club after returning to Japan from the New York Mets. It was a generous $4 million a year deal that really didn't work out for the Hawks at all.

Will the former major leaguer ever see the first team again?

After being released by the Hawks in November, Matsuzaka and his team have been sounding out NPB clubs and even clubs in Taiwan for one last crack at the big time. The 37-year old received and offer for a try-out in Taiwan but it appears there has been a bite closer to home, you guessed it, the Dragons.

If the news can be believed, and there are half a dozen outlets reporting this, the Dragons look very likely to be targeting Matsuzaka and are extending an invitation to him to join Spring camp. The only major stumbling point is likely to be the wage that Matsuzaka will ask for. Outlets are claiming he'll drop his demands to the $150 - $200k range but even then that's a lot for a guy that's not guaranteed to be good enough to pitch innings in the first team particularly when you consider that his addition would upset roster flexibility and take away innings from young arms on the farm.

This signing is not the most unlikely thing to happen this off-season. The Dragons have been reportedly nosing around veteran help to foster the development of the young core of pitchers the team has. Whether Matsuzaka is the right kind of veteran is another thing, but if nothing else he will give the Dragons some much needed time in the spotlight as they force themselves to be newsworthy for their results once more. Cynically speaking, this a publicity stunt but perhaps the presence of the "Heisei Monster" will boost morale a bit and give the younger pitchers someone to look to for advice and guidance.

Realistically, outside of a pity appearance at the end of the season, I don't see Matsuzaka as fixable. His efforts on the farm last year were barely mentionable and his form seems to be in a complete mess. I am concerned that signing Matsuzaka means fewer appearances on the mound for guys that still have a lot to prove and can be the Dragons backbone for many years to come and give the state of the club I think the team needs to pass on this opportunity. Media attention will be much greater if "Dice-K" signs on in Nagoya, but I sincerely doubt it's worth the potential cost to player development.

2018 Off-season acquisitions: Guerrero gone; Zoilo Almonte, Steven Moya, Shota Ono in.

The Dragons have shed the roster along with most of their foreign players ahead of the 2018 season. Araujo, Rondon and Valdes were turfed early due to poor performance or optimistic contract expectations, while it has recently been revealed that Alex Guerrero will no be returning to the club after taking Central League homerun champions honours in 2017. Somewhat surprisingly as well, Jordan Norberto appears once again to have been released. The Dominican lefty was released from the club in 2016 only to be re-signed after few better options were found. This seems an unlikely course of action this time around as the Swallows are hovering to capture the former A's man.

That leaves only Dayan Viciedo whom was underwhelming in his second season aside from some hot streaks. He had his issues with injury and spent a month away from the team finalizing his US citizenship where he took a leave of absence. The club seems to like him however and I would be surprised if he weren't retained possibly at a slightly decreased rate than his initial signing of a two year $3.5M deal.

That brings us to speculation over who Mori and the scouting crew have found over in the US, DR and Cuba over the last month or so and who they've turned up in the FA market.

Through foreign recruiting three names have come up in the media. Former Baltimore Orioles slugger and 2013 American League homerun king, Pedro Alvarez is one but negotiations appear to have broken down.

Former Yankee Almonte with Aichi native, Ichiro Suzuki.

The second name mentioned from the get-go was Zoilo Almonte, a Dominican switch-hitting outfielder who previously played for the New York Yankees in the MLB. Almonte has recently come off a year playing in the Mexican Baseball League with Sultanes de Monterrey. Almonte appears to be able to hit for average and power and has a very appealing stat line in Mexico. He was previously well lauded within the Yankees organisation but fell on hard times and bounced around the minors in Atlanta before heading to Mexico. Almonte has the ability to hit for power and average who looks like a significant upgrade on Fujii but maybe not quite as good an acquisition as Alex Guerrero. The 28 year-old hit 35 homers in two seasons for Monterrey at an average of .321 and a .897OPS. Almonte actually looks like a very handy little acquisition. I had a quick chat with former Dragons 1st baseman, Matt Clark about Almonte whom he has come up against in Mexico and it was his belief that Almonte should do pretty well in Japan. I certainly hope so and I'm quietly optimistic he will add plenty of danger to the line-up.

Almonte has 5 HR's in 141ABs for Aguilas in the Dominican Winter League this year at a passable .262 average with a .755OPS. 

Moya was a top prospect with the Detroit Tigers in 2014

Steven Moya is a Puerto Rican outfielder from the Detroit Tigers organisation. As recently as 2014 he won the Tigers minor leaguer of the year award but somehow it's all fallen apart in recent years. Moya is said to moving to the Dragons on a one year contract. The former Tigers starlet stands at a staggering 2 meters tall which would make him one of top 3 tallest players in NPB alongside Fighters closer Chris Martin and Baystars starter Phil Klein. Moya's profile seems to be one of a frustrated power hitter who seems to strike out a lot. His stats in MLB with the Tigers aren't the worst with a .250 average 5HR and 11RBIs in 422 PAs but his 2017 season in AAA and later AA sealed his fate as a failed prospect in Detroit. He has been playing in the Dominican Winter League in the off-season which is where Mori and his team likely ran into him.  He hasn't been all that good in Winter League play either as he's currently averaging .203 with .619OPS with Toros del Este.

Moya is an outfielder, which if we add Almonte to the mix means we have a fairly busy looking set of positions. Almonte seems like a lock for left, while Moya, a right-fielder by trade, is likely to compete with Ryosuke Hirata for a shot. I don't know what the contract numbers are, but I can't imagine Moya will be on a lot. All murmurs surrounding Hirata is that he is working to get back to fighting fitness for next year. If fit, Hirata is certainly a lock for right-field given his defensive capabilities and high average with RISP. If Moya is on around $500-700k it represents a low-risk investment for if and when Hirata doesn't work out this year and it also offers insurance for injuries. It also however spells a vote of no confidence in the abilities of Yusuke Matsui, Atsushi Fujii, Hiroki Kondo, Masataka Iryo and others who were called up and did reasonably in those positions in the tail end of last season. As it stands however, I'll be surprised if Moya can turn it around even in the 2-gun.

Both Almonte and Moya have now been confirmed by various sources as having signed with the club and there is apparently an expectation on the Chunichi side that they both report with the rest of the Japanese staff on the starting day of Spring training. Foreign signings in the past have been given leeway on this point, but the Dragons want to get them and work with them as soon as possible.

No other names have been mentioned so far but Dragons representative are attending the Winter Meeting in Florida looking specifically for starting pitchers. The team is looking for two arms that can slot into the rotation. There is also a strong likelihood that development contracted Raidel Martinez will be added to the first team roster giving us a total of 3 international arms. The team is also on the look out for one more bat, but the rumours so far have been a catcher on a development contract from either the DR or Cuba.

Shota Ono will take the catcher's mask in Nagoya.

That brings us to one of the longer ongoing sagas of the off-season, the signing of Nippon Ham Fighters catcher, Shota Ono. Ever since the end of the season there have been murmurs of the team looking for a new catcher. I mentioned this in my post about the future of the Dragons early in November. As of the 11th of December however, Ono will officially sign-on as a Dragon after accepting a 3 year $2.5M deal. This works out to around $833,000 a year..ish which will make him the third highest earning fielder after Yohei Oshima and Ryosuke Hirata.

Ono's capture comes after the Dragons failed to find a regular catcher this year. Sugiyama, Matsui, Kinoshita and Takeyama all had significant spells in the first team this year and none of them really had it all. Matsui got the closest to being called the default starting catcher, but it was simply a continuing story of who will take over the dish full-time in the post-Tanishige era. After feeling unsatisfied with in-house options, the Dragons looked on the open market and found Shota Ono, a native of Ogaki in neighbouring Gifu prefecture open to a move closer to home.

If you look at Ono's 2017 slash line, as a batter he hasn't really done much better than Masato Matsui this year. Behind the plate, his ability to catch runners decreased as well but the hope will be that given his guidance, the younger group of pitchers at the Dragons might have the confidence to grow more and more. Ono helped mentor the MLB bound Shohei Otani, 2015 ROTY Kohei Arihara, 2016 ROTY Hirotoshi Takanashi, Takayuki Kato and a host of other pitchers to make in the professional baseball. One can't deny the prodigious talent of Otani, but Ono has surely left a mark on many of those named above which is what the Dragons are banking on. Also, as a recent Japan Series winner, I guess the hope would be that Ono can help bring in a winning mentality to the team.

The interesting caveat is not that the Dragons gain Ono, which is of course all well and good, but it's who the team stands to lose. With FA transactions in the NPB, the team who signs the FA player must then return compensation to the club that has lost that player. The Dragons can protect up to 28 players on the roster from being taken as compensation. This opens up an interesting conversation over who the Fighters would be interested in versus who the Dragons are willing to give up.
I've seen a couple of theories so far, but I'd like to take some time here to discuss who we can and should leave unprotected with reasons for the more eyebrow raising selections.

Pitchers
Shinnosuke Ogasawara	Shinji Tajima	Hitoki Iwase
Yu Sato	Katsuki Matayoshi	Yuya Yanagi
Shota Suzuki	Kazuki Yoshimi	Toshiya Okada
Yudai Ono	Koji Fukutani	Taisuke Maruyama
Daisuke Yamai	Takuma Achira	Daisuke Sobue
Takuya Asao	Takuya Mitsuma	Shotaro Kasahara
Kento Fujishima	Ryuya Ogawa	Keisuke Tanimoto
Shunta Wakamatsu	Ryosuke Oguma	Junki Ito

I'm playing the percentages a little bit here, but also throwing caution to the wind with others. What the Fighters want is pitching after losing Otani to the MLB and Hirotoshi Masui to the Buffaloes. First of all, there's no need to protect veterans as the Fighters won't want them. Yoshimi, Asao, Yamai and Iwase should be safe. Wakamatsu and Fukutani are the two that are enticing pieces that the Fighters might be interested in. My reason for including them is that whatever we're doing, it's clearly not working. Wakamatsu is still a one-trick pony and he's not particularly well liked in Nagoya. However, if he can develop a couple of more dangerous breaking balls, he's a good looking-starter. At present thought he has a fastball that can't take strikes and a change-up that is being sat on by batters all over the NPB. Fukutani I would leave unprotected because Hiroshi Suzuki is coming in, a very similar type of pitcher and because we have quite a few right-arm relievers that are doing the job. I've also protected anyone under 21 and anyone drafted last year. Tanimoto I leave out simply because I doubt the Fighters would take him back so soon after letting him leave.

Catchers
Takuya Kinoshita	Masato Matsui	Takuma Kato
Iori Katsura	Shota Sugiyama	Shingo Takeyama

I am not a fan of Matsui and given his closeness in age to Ono, it makes little sense to keep him. Kinoshita and Sugiyama have the highest ceilings out of this group and are still young enough to challenge Ono for the position in the future. Kato and Katsura have fallen down the pecking order and should be left unprotected. The Fighters aren't likely to take a catcher as they seem to have a few.

Infielders
Masahiro Araki	Shuhei Takahashi	Toshiki Abe
Shun Ishikawa	Issei Endo	Masami Ishigaki
Ryota Ishioka	Taiki Mitsumata	Hayato Mizowaki
Yota Kyoda	Kyohei Kamezawa	Nobumasa Fukuda
Naomichi Donoue	Tetsuya Tani

I was very tempted to leave Donoue out before I realised it would leave us with no immediate cover at short so he stays for his glove and as the club's only real utility infielder. Araki stays unprotected as like the veteran pitchers he's very unlikely to be poached while the other unprotected players would no significant loss. Ishigaki and Mizowaki could be the future of the infield so they stay and Kamezawa just had his best season in Dragons colours and is a clubhouse leader so he definitely stays. The others speak for themselves.

Outfielders
Shota Tomonaga	Atsushi Fujii	Ryosuke Hirata
Yohei Oshima	Masataka Iryo	Kei Nomoto
Yusuke Matsui	Takahito Kudo	Hiroki Kondo

Outfielder decisions are a little easier. Hirata and Oshima are arguably two of the clubs best hitters while Matsui had a great hot streak at the end of this year. Fujii had a great year too but he's 37 and an unlikely choice. Kondo is the only one I was a little worried about, but I don't think he's done enough to be an appealing piece.

Largely, I think the Fighters will look to take a pitcher in compensation or some cash. Leaving Wakamatsu and Fukutani unprotected should focus the Fighters pursuit of some of our other talent. Personally, I don't think the team is missing out if we put those two out to dry. I really like Fukutani and would love for him to stay but something tells me he'd thrive at the Fighters so I'd be okay with him leaving if he goes on to bigger and better things.

Overall, is there enough here to get excited about? Kind of. I think Almonte and Ono will big big deciding factors on how our season goes this year. Ono's ability to lead the pitchers is going to be important and his acquisition will also remove any doubts over who will be wearing the mask the majority of the season. Someone with considerable experience catching is going to be a positive I feel for this team and will aid the development of the likes of Suzuki, Yanagi, Ogasawara, Kasahara and co.

We're still on the lookout for pitchers at the Winter Meetings, but we'll see what comes back. I'm not going to hold my breath and in a way I'm okay with the team the way it is.