NPB Players In Winter Leagues

Now that the Premier 12 is over I feel like it's time for the various winter leagues around the globe to start up although actually the Caribbean ones have been going for a couple weeks now. 

The Australian Baseball League will kick off their 2019/20 season this Wednesday.  The ABL delayed the start of their season a week or so due to the Premier 12 - the Australian team was still playing as of yesterday and had they beaten Taiwan in yesterday's game it would have been them rather than the US playing Mexico today for the Bronze medal. 

There are eight Japanese players who are on NPB rosters who will be playing down under this winter.  For the second straight year the Baystars are sending four players to the Canberra Cavalry - Shingo Hirata, Takamasa Kasai, Shinich Ohnuki and Kosuke Sakaguchi:

2014 BBM 1st Version #293

2017 BBM Rookie Edition #092

2019 BBM 2nd Version #536

2019 BBM Baystars #DB03

For the past eight seasons the Melbourne Aces have received a handful of players from the Saitama Seibu Lions.  That streak has come to an end this season as Melbourne is getting four players from the Orix Buffaloes instead,  The four players are Yuma Mune, Hayato Nishiura, Kodai Sano and Ryoga Tomiyama:

2018 BBM Fusion #013

2019 Calbee #163

2015 Orix Players Card #12

2019 Epoch Pacific League Rookies #25

There's one other Japanese player of note who will be playing in the ABL this winter but he's not a member of an NPB organization - he's a member of the Dodger's organization!  Yujo Kitagata will be a member of the Auckland Tuatara this season.  He's taken a rather unique path to the Dodgers.  Kitagita was originally with the Baystars - he was their number one pick in the 2011 draft out of Karatsu Shogyo High School.  He spent three years with DeNA without getting off the farm team and was released following the 2014 season.  He spent 2015 with the ikusei squad of the Hawks but was released again after the season.  After that he kicked around the indy leagues, going from the Gunma Diamond Pegasus of the Baseball Challenge League in 2016 to the Ehime Mandarin Pirates of the Shikoku Island League in 2016-17, then back to the BC League with the Shinano Grandserows  in 2018 and the Tochigi Golden Braves in 2019.  He got his big break this season when a Dodgers scout clocked him throwing a 162 kph (100 mph) pitch and Tochigi released him so he could sign with LA when the first half of the BC League season ended.  He spent about six weeks playing for the Dodgers Arizona Summer League, getting into 13 games and going 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA.  He struck out 21 and walked 17 in 15 innings pitched. 

2012 BBM 1st Version #316

There are another nine Japanese players who are playing winter ball in the Western hemisphere - eight in the Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente (Puerto Rico) and the other in the Mexican Pacific League.

The Chiba Lotte Marines have three players with the Caguas Creoles - Hiromi Oka, Daiki Yamamoto and Hisanori Yasuda:

2018 BBM Fusion #606

2018 Epoch Pacific League Rookies #36

2018 Epoch One #580/CM-065

The Hawks have put three players on the Carolina Giants - Masaki Mimori, Kazuki Sugiyama and Seigi Tanaka:

2017 BBM Hawks #H54

2019 BBM 1st Version #049

2018 Epoch NPB #7

The Yomiuri Giants have placed two players on the Mayagüez Indians - Yuri Furukawa and Hosei Takata.  Furukawa started the 2019 season with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles but was traded to the Giants in early July - I don't have a card of him with Yomiuri yet so I used his Eagles card from this year:

2019 BBM Eagles #E30

2019 BBM Giants #G27

Lastly Kodai Hayama of the Baystars is pitching for Venados de Mazatlán (Mazatlán Deer).  Hayama is another player who started this season with the Eagles but got traded during the season.  In Hayama's case he got traded on Opening Day (March 29th) to the Baystars for Kento Kumabara - it was actually the final NPB trade of the Heisei Era.  Due to the timing of the trade, Hayama does not appear in any BBM team set this year as he was traded after the Baystars team set went to press and before the Eagles set did.  As a result I don't have a card of him as a Baystar yet so I'm using his Eagles team set card from last year.  (And of course because of the same timing Kumabara had cards in both the Baystars and Eagles team sets.) 

2018 BBM Eagles #E20

I'm sure there are additional players I've missed - I'll either update this post or do another one when I become aware of them.