Who Are The Japan Breeze?

The 2025 Caribbean Series started the other day and there's an unusual team playing in it.  For the first time ever, a team from Japan is taking part.  Unlike the other teams in the tournament, however, the Japanese team is not the most recent NPB champion (which, of course, would be the Baystars).  Instead, a team called the Japan Breeze in playing.  

Who are the Japan Breeze?  I took a look at the team's roster, did some digging and I think I figured out who 27 of the 28 players are.  I couldn't find anything out about outfielder Jin Yamamoto, but most of the rest of the players are from various independent league teams in Japan.  The Ibaraki Astro Planets, Oita B-Rings (which I'm not positive still exist), Ishikari Red Phoenix and Kochi Fighting Dogs have all contributed multiple players.  There's also three players who spent last year with the Kufu Hayate Ventures Shizuoka, the independent team that played in NPB's Western League farm league.  I think there's only one player from the corporate leagues - Tatsuhiko Sato who at one time was with Honda.  I'm not positive he's still with Honda, however, as the roster I got for the team at the industrial league tournament I went to last May didn't have him on it.  A couple of the other players have also played for corporate league teams but were most recently with independent teams.

I'm not going to list all the players with the teams that they've played on but I do want to highlight some of the more interesting ones.  Catcher Mitsuki Fukuda spent two seasons with the Ottawa Titans of the Frontier League and will be returning to Canada this season with the Chatham-Kent Barnstormers of the Intercounty Baseball League (the league that will also feature Ayami Sato and Fernando Rodney).  Outfielder Ren Tachioka has spent the past three seasons playing for Southern Indiana University.  Two pitchers - Isaki Ninomiya and Rintaro Hirama - played in the Venezuelan Winter League this winter.

There are five players on the roster who have spent time in NPB although none of them are currently the property of any NPB team.  The best known player is 44 year old Munenori Kawasaki who is also the only former MLB player on the roster.  Kawasaki's been out of NPB since 2017 and has spent the last few seasons with the Tochigi Golden Braves of the independent Baseball Challenge League.

2006 Hawks Team Set #52

The remaining four players all are former Yokohama DeNA Baystars which makes some sense since the team is managed by former Baystar player and manager Alex Ramirez (although only one of the players was on the team when Ramirez managed them).

2016 Baystars Team Set #80

That player is Shuto Sakurai, who was DeNA's fifth round pick in the 2017 draft.  He was with the Baystars until last year when he moved to the Eagles in the Active Player draft.  He had a pretty lousy year in Sendai, posting an 8.44 ERA in eight appearances.  (In fairness, those numbers were inflated by the game I saw him pitch in - the 21-0 thrashing the Hawks administered to the Eagles in Fukuoka.  Sakurai gave up six runs in one inning.)  The Eagles released him after the season ended.

2024 BBM Eagles #E015

The other three players were all development players with DeNA.  Dai Kato was the team's second round pick in the ikusei phase of the 2020 draft and spent three seasons on their farm team.  He spent last year with the Kanagawa Future Dreams after DeNA let him go after the 2023 season.

2021 Epoch Baystars Rookies & Stars #19

Takeru Ohashi came to the Baystars from Ibaraki as their third round pick in the 2021 development player draft.  Like Kato, he was released by the team following the 2023 season and he spent 2024 with the Quitana Roo Tigers of the Mexican League.

2022 BBM Rookie Edition #057

Aki Watanabe was another Ibaraki Astro Planet who ended up with the Baystars as an ikusei player.  He was their fourth pick in the 2022 development player draft and parted ways with the team after last season.

2023 Bowman NPB #BP-6

Some of the other players may have baseball cards but it's difficult to track cards for independent league teams.  However, I do have cards for two of the other players.

Pitcher Rintaro Hirama spent most of the four seasons between 2020 and 2023 with the Kochi Fighting Dogs (except for a few months in 2022 that he played in Mexico) and had a baseball card in their 2020 set:

2020 Kochi Fighting Dogs #04/31

I had previously mentioned Tatsuhiko Sato from Honda in the corporate leagues.  He is in both the 2021 and 2022 JABA sets although I only have his 2021 card:

2021 JABA #21JP081

Sato is the son of former Hawks and Swallows outfielder Shinichi Sato who was the MVP of the 1990 IBAF "World All Star Game" in Atlanta.