An Ode to a season gone: How are we shaping up for next year?

 In Nagoya, Tatsunami did coach,

But rice for his Dragons, he'd approach

With a stingy demeanor,

Their year grew much leaner,

No victories, just hunger, encroach!

I thought I'd start things off on a lighter note with a limerick. It's been an odd season and Tatsunami's hardassery has gotten tiring. Banning his players from eating rice was just seasoning on the onigiri he refused to give to his players. 

The team finished the year in 6th place. Had they won or tied their final game against the Giants they would have finished ahead of the Swallows. However, 56 wins is the total which is somehow better than I thought they'd end up. What has started happening however is a number of moving and shaking to make next year a better one for the team. Whether this will actually make a positive difference is yet to be seen but let's go through a few things. 

Roster Moves

Firstly, we already have an idea of who is staying and leaving. In terms of retirements, the team bid farewell to long-serving infielders Nobumasa Fukuda and Naomichi Donoue while former Fighters team-mates, Keisuke Tanimoto and Shota Ono said so long to their professional careers. We will be seeing three of them again next year in a different capacity but I will get to that a little bit later. 

In terms of other outgoings, big-money signing, Aristides Aquino has been shown the door after mastering a single homerun in 1-gun after one season. Zoilo Almonte has similarly been shown the door after a disappointing year for him as well. Who will stay is Orlando Calixte, who impressed down the stretch while mid-season additions Humberto Mejia and Michael Feliz are looking to be retained. With Dayan Viciedo becoming a "Japanese" player for roster purposes next season, the Dragons have a lot of roster flexibility with their import options next year. Calixte, Mejia, Feliz and closer Raidel Martinez are the only four foreign players on the full-time roster ahead of the 2024 season. I would 100% expect the team to pursue another slugger in the off-season however. 

The first line of senryokugai notices has also gone out with only three players being announced as being unrequired for next year. Righty pitcher Yuichiro Okano, outfielder Kosuke Ito and development contracted southpaw, Hiroaki Matsuda are on the way out. Okano was an older player drafted out of the industrial leagues in 2019 but failed to make a substantial impact. Matsuda was a media darling to start his life with the Dragons given he'd never thrown a baseball until he reached high school and was the ace of the Nagoya University team. Unfortunately after some early promise, he is on the way out. The most surprising however is the removal of Ito. The Aichi native was drafted out of Toho High School and played some first team games early in his career with the 1-gun side mostly in left field. He has had frequent issues with injury including this season. I'm surprised they didn't try to re-sign him on a development deal at least. It also baffles me they'd keep him over a 33-year old Shohei Kato, but I guess the veteran's current utility suits Tatsunami's philosophy about winning in the here and now. 

After the draft in October, we may see some further shake-ups but for the time being these are the main outgoings.  

Coaching Staff Shuffle

This is perhaps where some of the biggest changes are happening. The coaching staff is getting a shuffle after a derelict two years. On the outgoing side, we have the long-serving infield coach Masahiro Araki, battery coach Shuji Nishiyama and hitting coach, Nori Nakamura. Nishiyama left at his own volition, while the other two apparently seem to have been ousted. 

There is however a few new incomings confirmed. As I previously mentioned, three of the retirees will be joining the coaching ranks. Naomichi Donoue (infield defense), Nobumasa Fukuda (hitting) and Shota Ono (battery) have already been confirmed to replace the outgoing trio. It has also been reported that former outfielder and most recently, Hanshin Tigers head coach, Kazuki Inoue has been invited to take over the farm team from Atsushi Kataoka. The kicker however is that Kataoka will now become Tatsunami's right-hand man with the top-team while Eiji Ochiai will slip into a pitching coach only role. It has yet to be announced how the two coaching groups will be lining up but I can pitch my assumptions. My guess for the new formation would be: 

Kazuyoshi Tatsunami (Manager)

Atsushi Kataoka (Head Coach)

Eiji Ochiai (Pitching)

Akinori Otsuka (Pitching)

Kazuhiro Wada (Hitting)

Masahiko Morino (Hitting)

Kohei Oda (Battery)

Naomichi Donoue (Infield Defense)

Takayuki Onishi (Outfield Defense) 

I think we'll see a promotion of Oda to the first-team given he's a trusted confidant of Tatsunami's and the more experienced coach now that Nishiyama has been replaced by Ono. I also assume that between Yuito Morikoshi on the farm and Naomichi, that the team will go with the latter. Naomichi is still relatively young and many of the infielders he will be working with are also on the younger side of things which makes me think they'll stick him in a first-team coaching role. On the farm we can figure out the rest: 

Kazuki Inoue (Manager)

Daisuke Yamai (Pitching)

Takuya Asao (Pitching)

Yoshinori Ueda (Hitting)

Nobumasa Fukuda (Hitting)

Shota Ono (Battery)

Yuito Morikoshi (Infield Defense)

Yutaka Nakamura (Oufield Defense)

Hiroyuki Watanabe (Position player development)

I think this makes the most sense. Watanabe could be moved back into a scorers role if they wanted to, although he could also be a wild card for the infield-defense job on the top team as it is a role he's fulfilled before under Motonobu Tanishige's tenure. Yutaka Nakamura is an interesting one as his connection to the team was through Kataoka. I can't however see the Tatsunami agreeing to his mate Onishi being demoted to the farm. In the end, Nakamura will probably be fine on the farm having spent a year with his fellow coaches. He'll be familiar with Inoue as well as the two were both at the Tigers in 2020 and 2021. Ono's addition here makes more sense. Between Miya, Yamaasa and to a lesser extent, Kota Ishibashi, there's a lot of younger catchers that could benefit from his mentorship. There' also a good chance the Dragons chase another catcher at the draft this year. 

That's what I envision the shake-up to be. Kataoka' appointment as head coach seems like...fun. He wasn't successful in a similar role at the Tigers. There were murmurs that Kazuhiro Kiyohara, another former PL Gakuen alumnus, was going to be invited to fulfil the role for Tatsunami but rumours go that Chunichi Shimbun Co. blocked the move due to the image that Kiyohara brings with him as a former drug user. I don't really see a lot of difference here but maybe Kataoka coming in frees up Ochiai to work on the pitchers a bit more. Apart from that, unless some of this new appointees just say something that clicks with players, I can't see what would change. We'll just have to wait and see. 

Phoenix Fall League Squad

Before we get into fall camp, we will have the annual Phoenix fall league. A number of first teamers are going to join the team here. 

Postion	Player	Notes
RHP	Akira Neo	Join from 13th of Oct
LHP	Yuki Hashimoto
LHP	Taisei Ishimori
RHP	Hiroto Mori
RHP	Reia Nakachi
RHP	Hiroshi Suzuki
LHP	Yoshiki Sunada
RHP	Tatsuya Shimizu
LHP	Shota Fukushima
LHP	Ren Kondo	Will join half-way
RHP	Tsubasa Kato
LHP	Kenshin Kakigoshi	Join from 13th of Oct
RHP	Yuta Matsukihira
RHP	Tento Nonaka	Will join half-way
C	Taisei Miya
C	Ryunosuke Yamaasa
C	Kota Ishibashi
IF	Kaito Muramatsu
IF	Takaya Ishikawa
IF	Ryuku
IF	Mao Hoshino
IF	Hiroki Fukunaga
IF	Seishu Higuchi
OF	Hironori Miyoshi
OF	Kenta Bright

The thing that sticks out for me here is, who's playing in the outfield? Miyoshi and bright can probably cover all three spots between them, but who's going to play left-field if Bright is in centre and Miyoshi is in right. Or who is going to play right if Miyoshi is in centre and Bright is in left? I really have no idea. None of the players being brought along have ever played in the outfield apart from those two. So, that's certainly going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Perhaps they think Hoshino or perhaps even Ishibashi could play in the outfield? We'll see. The rest of the team is about what you'd expect but interesting to see Ishikawa and Ryuku here as well given they've just played a full-season of first team ball. 

Notes 

• Kosuke Ukai and Kotaro Ueda are heading to the Dominican Winter League to develop their games. They're the first since 2015 to make the trip when it was Katsuki Matayoshi who travelled to the Caribbean League. Ukai also becomes the first position players since Atsushi Fujii and two others who went in 2008. 
• Former all-star, golden glove, short-stop, Hirokazu Ibata has taken on the Samurai Japan job. Kudos to the former Dragon who had recently been coaching the Japanese U-12 side. He looks to be managing the U-15 side concurrently with the senior team. 

Seiya Hosokawa's Remarkable Year

While the season still isn't over yet, Seiya Hosokowa has already broken into a group of auspicious Dragons hitters with his power hitting prowess. 

Since arriving in Nagoya from Yokohama through the active player draft, Hosokawa has been a revelation in the heart of the Dragons line-up. For all the ills of the team, Hosokawa along with Yuki Okabayashi and Takaya Ishikawa have been lights through a very dark season. Hosokawa in particular has blossomed with the Dragons from someone who forever had potential with the Baystars, to someone who has the ability to be one of the Central League's premier hitters. 

I won't go into a lot of detail in this post, but I did want to bring attention to a few records that Hosokawa has achieved. I contextualise this with the caveat that these are all major achievements for a Dragons hitter in the uniform ball era that started in 2012. This, perhaps serendipitously, is the start of the period of power-hitting ills for the Dragons. 

1. Hosokawa is the first Dragon to hit 20+ homeruns in a season since Dayan Viciedo in 2018. 

Yes, it has been 5 years since we last saw a Dragons hitter pop more than 20 homers. It's a little sad when you think about it. Even our iconic first baseman has had trouble hitting more than 15 homers a year but has achieved the 20 homer mark in 2 of his 7 seasons. This year has been pretty bad by Viciedo's standards, and Hosokawa has truly taken over the mantle. The only other hitters to reach the mark in the last 10 years have been Alex Guerrero (35HR, 2017) and Matt Clark (25HR, 2013). 

2. Hosokawa is the first Japanese Dragons' slugger to hit 20+ homers since 2010. 

This is perhaps the biggest issue the Dragons have had in the past 13 years. There has been no Japanese hitter that has shown elite power. Shuhei Takahashi was supposedly meant to be and Ryosuke Hirata similarly seemed to have the potential, but neither of them reached these heights with the former in particular perhaps never really having that level of power to draw on. Nobumasa Fukuda was the closest in recent memory as he had a glorious run down the stretch in 2018 and ended the season with 18 homers. Hosokawa has however become the first Japanese Dragon since current batting coaches, Kazuhiro Wada (37HR, 2010) and Masahiko Morino (21HR, 2010) to send 20 balls over the fence.

3. Hosokawa is only the 4th Dragons hitter in the uniform ball period to log 20+ homers

Right? In 2012 the uniform ball was introduced. Before then, each team supplied their own ball for home games. This seems to have had a disastrous impact on the Dragons. However Hosokawa has stemmed the tide of this trend. As mentioned previously, only Dayan Viciedo, Alex Guerrero and Matt Clark have popped 20 homers in a Dragons shirt in the uniform ball era. Hosokawa becomes the first Japanese-born player to do so. Hopefully more can follow in his footsteps. 

4. Hosokawa is only the second Dragons hitter in the uniform ball era to hit 10+ homers at Vantelin dome

Here's where it really gets crazy. Vantelin Dome (formerly Nagoya Dome) has been one of the most pitcher friendly parks in NPB history. But, for a while, this didn't seem to stop hitters like Tyrone Woods, Kosuke Fukudome or Kazuhiro Wada from going ham on the ball. The uniform ball era seems to have heavily affected homerun numbers in the dome, but somehow Hosokawa has managed to hit 11 homers (so far!) in the cavernous home ground of the Dragons. This puts him second on the list since 2012. The first? You guessed it, Da...Alex Guerrero. Yep. Mr "El Solo Jonrón" whacked 17 of his 35 homers in Nagoya. That actually puts him equal third on the all-time list for single-season homers at the dome. Hosokawa, is safely number two on this list since 2012. Where does he however figure on the all-time list? Let's have a quick look:

Rank	Player	Homeruns	Year
1	Tyrone Woods	21	2006
2	Kosuke Fukudome	18	2003
3	Tyrone Woods	17	2005
-	Alex Guerrero	17	2017
4	Tyrone Woods	16	2008
-	Tony Blanco	16	2009
5	Kazuhiro Wada	14	2010
-	Tony Blanco	14	2010
6	Tyrone Woods	13	2007
-	Leo Gomez	13	1999
7	Takeshi Yamasaki	12	1998
8	Kazuhiro Wada	11	2009
-	Kosuke Fukudome	11	2004
-	Seiya Hosokawa	11	2023
9	Leo Gomez	10	1998
-	Motonobu Tanishige	10	2002
-	Kosuke Fukudome	10	2002

If the season finished today, Hosokawa would be equal 8th in single-season homeruns at the Vantelin Dome. Quite an achievement for someone who is essentially a rookie. Feel free to have a look over this list, but it's Fukudome and Woods' power that I am in awe of when I look at this. The most random of names to appears here is probably Tanishige, who had a couple of good years offensively but was by no means ever considered a power hitter. 

There is still time left for Hosokawa to leave a further imprint on some important Dragons records. He has had a prodigious first season in Chunichi blue, and has been bright light in what has otherwise been a very sullen year. Looking forward to the future however, he, Ishikawa and Okabayashi in particular make for a very interesting core to build around in the middle of the line-up. If a successful international signing can be made in the off-season to support them, the top-half at least of the Dragons line-up could be very potent next year. 

Active Player Draft 2022: Shotaro Kasahara OUT, Seiya Hosokawa IN

Happy New Year. To commemorate the beginning of 2023, I'd like to recap on some old news. 

The first NPB 'Active Player Draft' took place on the 9th of December this year. Modeled on the MLB Rule 5 draft, this draft was established to ensure middling players could move to greener pastures to try to revive their stalled careers or get better opportunities elsewhere. It has been a mission of the NPB's Player Association of the past few years and this dumbed down version is the start of freer player movement between clubs. The clubs themselves still hold the power over players and can nominate three players they feel would benefit from this system. The Rule 5 draft however is more systematic in that roster allowances and organizational years are taken into account to determine who is eligible. Somewhat unsurprisingly the first step toward this kind of player movement still has clubs with reigns in hand. 

Some commentators have mentioned that this system is a glorified trade table but at least one good thing to come of this is teams have to move at least one player. In the future it is hoped that there will be more rounds to the Active Player Draft but it seems this year was conservative with clubs only opting for one round. 

Amongst all this, the Dragons moved on 2018 opening day starter, Shotaro Kasahara. The lefty has had heart problems that knocked about his development. An arrhythmia knocked him out for roughly a year after he had broken into the top team and he hasn't quite been the same since. A 4+ ERA on the farm last year is a far cry from the results he was putting with the first team in his second year as a professional. Some concern lies over the velocity difference between his change-up and fastball making some think he's just a left-handed Shunta Wakamatsu who similarly got dominated as he lacked a higher velocity fastball to mix with his change-up. Kasahara can throw a cutter as well to decent effect and, I think, has more to him than Wakamatsu but his development has somewhat stagnated. Talk around the Dragons team before he packed his bags was that he might be a bullpen option in 2023. This conversation is no longer necessary as the Dragons have turned Kasahara into outfielder Seiya Hosokawa. If we take into account this drafting and the previous trade with the Baystars, we've traded two lefty pitchers and an outfielder for an infielder. Baystars get Kyoda and Kasahara, we get Hosokawa and Sunada. 

Who is Seiya Hosokawa? Hosokawa has been a fan favourite of Baystars fan since he was drafted. A native of the Kanagawa area, Hosokawa hit 62 homers in high school before being drafted in the 4th round with the Baystars in 2016. Hopes have been high for the slugger with some expectation that he might have been able to turn it on and replace Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh when he made his move to the Majors, but it hasn't quite happened. Hosokawa has been good in spurts but overall not good enough to solidify a place the line-up for more than a few games at a time. In the end, Hosokawa is still only 24 years old, 9 months older than Kosuke Ukai who profiles perhaps similarly. Kasahara on the other hand at 27 is at a stage where he really should be a starter by now and have developed a role. On that balance alone, it might be safe to say the Dragons have traded for more potential upside. Hosokawa has hit 10+ homeruns for the Baystars every season bar one with a high of 16 in 2021. He won the homerun champion title in 2020 with 13 homers in 212 plate appearances. Hosokawa only hit 11 this year, but this is still significantly better than any Dragons hitter has done in recent years. It is worth noting however that the Eastern League is much more home-run friendly than the Western League where the Dragons' farm team plays. Either way, if Hosokawa can go some way to replicating this form in the Western League, he'll be sure to see plenty of chances with the top-team.

In terms of weaknesses, it's hard to really point at any one thing. His OPS gradually improved every year until 2022 where it went down 100 points from .968 to .834. A down year really with little explanation apart from an uptick in strikeouts. Overall, Hosokawa's consistency on the farm is relatively encouraging. That shift from the farm to the top-team seems to be the most difficult but with players like Keita Sano ahead of him in left-field, he has only been able to secure scattered appearances in right-field challenging the likes of Taishi Kusumoto and Kazuki Kamizato. Hosokawa did not do very well in his first-team appearances this year with only 20 PA and a single hit to his name. With Taiki Sekine also returning to favour under Daisuke Miura, it seems as though there's not much room to experiment with Hosokawa.

To see how this affects the roster, well, it adds a bat a removes a pitcher at the most basic level. But if we consider it in the context of the trade with Sunada and Kyoda as well, we've swapped a good defensive short-stop for a high potential, younger, power-bat while the pitcher trade is more or less just shuffling the deck with like for like lefties. 

Hosokawa adds more depth to the power-hitting stocks for the Dragons who honestly have lacked much in that department over the years. To restate, I think his best comp is likely going to be Kosuke Ukai with the two likely competing for those corner outfield jobs. Alongside Ukai and Hosokawa are the foreign bats of Aquino and Almonte while the other options in outfield like Kenta Bright and Hironori Miyoshi could yet still surprise with some hidden power of their own. I don't think adding Hosokawa moves the needle a whole lot for the Dragons, but considering Kasahara's value was rather low within the organisation and Hosokawa is young with upside, it's an agreeable move.  Hosokawa offers more upside than Kasahara currently presents but one could argue that point if we consider Kyoda as the other move in this transaction.

What this does open up potentially is the ability to drop or rest Aquino, and still maintain some potential power in the line-up. Similarly, Hosokawa could enter the competition for the left-field as well. Overall, I see this addition as one that increases competition for the outfield spots which I only see as a good thing. It also diversifies the options available to the team to be able to chop and change based on roster demands. There has also been some suggestion that Hosokawa could play first-base as well which could add more depth to an area that really doesn't have much to it.

In other more whelming news, on the 27th of December the Dragons announced they would be welcoming back catcher, Takuma Kato from the Chiba Lotte Marines after completing what is essentially a free agent signing. A trade was made with the Marines for no compensation. In some odd miscalculation, the Dragons found themselves short at catcher despite releasing long tenured Iori Katsura just after the draft. The team must have thought they would have been able to trade for someone better but in the end left the active player with only Hosokawa to show and no further trade deals made. Perhaps there was an impression another club was willing to give up a certain catcher but perhaps the right parameters weren't met or they simply changed their mind. Either way its probably the safest of back-up options as Kato is only one-year removed from working with the Dragons pitchers and will be familiar with many of them making the transition relatively simple. I don't think there's any expectation Kato will challenge for the first-team mask, but he will plug a hole in what looks more or less like a complete roster now.

While we're here, some comments made by Tatsunami to the media regarding recruiting:

• In their pursuit for a foreign slugger, the Dragons apparently had Nomar Mazara as their top pick (someone I mentioned in one of my podcasts) while Luis Brinson, most recently of the San Francisco Giants, was their second choice. Mazara was more interested in returning to the MLB, while Brinson was also receiving interest from the Yomiuri Giants. Mazara certainly would have been my first choice as well, and it is a pity the Dragons missed out on him this time.

• The second pick at the 2022 draft, Kaito Muramatsu, was apparently a last minute choice as the team were set on going after Tenri University's short-stop Atsuki Tomosugi. It was Tatsunami's last-minute close-up look at Muramatsu that tipped the scales with the Dragon's manager impressed with the hitting prowess of the Meiji University captain. Tomosugi ended up going to the Chiba Lotte Marines immediately after Muramatsu was selected by the Dragons.

DragonSoulcast: Aristides Aquino signs on

 Literally the day after I release my last podcast, the Dragons announced their signing of former Cincinatti Reds slugger, Aristides Aquino. He signs on for big money which I hope will lead to big things. I break down the signing, what he best compares to and where he will fit into the team. 

I also make mention of the new uniforms the Dragons have announced which you can view here:

DragonSoulCast: We signed some more dudes; Calixte and Almonte edition

 As of a few days ago the Dragons have been active in bringing in more players ahead of the 2023 season. Former Royals and Giants utility, Orlando Calixte joins the team while Zolilo Almonte makes a surprising return after a 3 year absence. This however doesn't look to spell the end of the Dragons roster shake-up...