SABR Zoom Talk With Tatsuo Shinke On January 28

The SABR Asian Baseball and Baseball Card Research Committees are hosting a Zoom meeting with Tatsuo Shinke, the CEO of Mint, on January 28, 2026 at 8:30 PM EST.  Details are here.  

Shinke used to work for both Baseball Magazine (BBM) and Upper Deck and has been with Mint since 2010.  He was profiled/interviewed in Rob Fitts' recent book "In The Japanese Ballpark" - in fact, the photo of him at the above link is the same one that appears in the book.

Japanese Players In Baseball United

Baseball United, a winter league with four teams representing Middle Eastern and Asian countries - India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - kicked off their inaugural season today in Dubai with the Karachi Monarchs beating the Mumbai Cobras 6-4 on the strength of a five run, ninth inning rally.  The league will play an 18 game season with each team playing nine games through early December.

I was a bit surprised when I looked over the 2025 team rosters that there didn't appear to be any Western players who had played in Japan.  The initial rosters back in 2023 had included former gaijin like Willin Rosario, Brandon Laird, Courtney Hawkins and Dovydas Neverauskas but there aren't any on the current rosters.  There are, however, a number of Japanese players on the roster for the Mid East Falcons.  Actually, eleven of the twenty players on the roster are from Japan and I believe that two more will be named on November 19 - there was a TBS* reality show called "Tryout: Plan D" where players competed for the last two roster spots on the team.

* That's Tokyo Broadcast System, not Turner Broadcasting System

The eleven players on the roster can be split up into three groups.  The first, and largest, are the eight former NPB players.  Let's run through them quickly:

2007 BBM 1st Version #101

Shuhei Fukuda was the Hawks first round pick in the 2006 high school draft and played for the team until he left as a free agent after the 2019 season.  He spent the next four years with the Chiba Lotte Marines and played for the independent Kufu Hayate Ventures Shizuoka in 2024.

I didn't see him play for Hayate at the game I went to last year but his name and image was on a banner outside the ballpark:

2017 BBM Eagles #E21

Kodai Hamaya was the Eagles 2013 third round draft pick.  He spent five years in Sendai before being traded to the Baystars before the 2019 season.  He's played all over the place since DeNA released him after the 2020 season including indy ball in Japan (Ibaraki Astro Planets) along with teams in Mexico (Veracruz) and Italy (Nettuno).

2023 BBM Baystars DB18

Shingo Hirata spent his entire ten year NPB career with the Baystars after they drafted him in the second round of the 2013 draft.

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-05

The Dragons took Shotaro Kasahara in the fourth round of the 2016 draft.  He was a member of the Samurai Japan team that played against the MLB All Stars in the 2018 off season.  The Baystars plucked him off Chunichi's roster in the first "Active Player Draft" in December of 2022 but they released him after the 2023 season.  He split 2024 between the TSG Hawks of the CPBL and the independent Oisix Niigata Albirex Baseball Club.

2017 Epoch Hawks #21

I probably don't need to say much about 44 year old Munenori Kawasaki.  He was the fourth pick of the 1999 draft by the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks which I believe makes him both the last active player drafted in the 20th century and the last active Daiei Hawk.  After 12 seasons with the Hawks (which included eight All Star appearances, two Best 9 awards, two Golden Glove awards, a stolen base title and two Nippon Series championships), he departed Japan for the Seattle Mariners.  He spend four seasons in MLB between the Mariners, Blue Jays and Cubs before returning to the Hawks in 2017.  After one season with Softbank, he played for the Wei Chuan Dragons of the CPBL and has spent the past six seasons with the Tochigi Golden Braves of the indy Baseball Challenge League.  He played on both the 2006 and 2009 WBC teams for Japan as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympic team (which didn't go as well as the WBC).  He was also a member of the Japan Breeze team that participated in last winter's Caribbean Series.

2006 BBM All Stars #A28

Hiroyuki Nakajima was the fifth round pick of the Seibu Lions in the 2000 draft.  Like Kawasaki, he spent 12 years with the team that drafted him, racking up similar accolades - eight All Star appearances, four Best 9 awards, three Golden Gloves and two Nippon Series championships - before heading for North America.  He spent two seasons in the Oakland Athletics' farm system and never reached the majors before returning to Japan.  He'd spend the remainder of his career with the Orix Buffaloes (2015-18), Yomiuri Giants (2019-23) and Chunichi Dragons (2024).  He was a teammate of Kawasaki's on the 2008 Olympic and 2009 WBC teams.

2019 Baystars Spring Camp #41

Shuto Sakurai was taken by the Baystars in the fifth round of the 2017 draft.  After six years with DeNA, he was selected by the Eagles in the 2023 Active Player draft but Rakuten released him after the 2024 season.  He also played for the Japan Breeze last winter before joining the TSG Hawks of the CPBL for the 2025 season.

2017 BBM 1st Version #357

The second round pick of the Carp in the 2014 draft, Kazuki Yabuta would spend nine seasons in Hiroshima and made one All Star team.  He has spent the last two seasons with the independent Oisix Niigata Albirex Baseball Club.

The second group of players are the current NPB players.  The Yokohama DeNA Baystars have dispatched two "prospects" to play with the Falcons - Manato Tanai and Haru Yoshioka:

2025 BBM Baystars #DB56

2025 Epoch Baystars Premier Edition #35

The final group consists of a single player - Shotaro Usui.  As far as I can tell, he has never played professional baseball in Japan at any level but I've not been able to find out a lot of details about him.  I've seen him referenced with teams in both Austria and Germany as well as a club team in Australia but that's about it.

Japanese Players Playing In Winter Leagues Abroad

The 2025-26 Caribbean Winter Leagues are already underway and the Australian Baseball League will be starting their season later this week.  This means that it's time for my annual post about which Japanese players have been dispatched by their NPB teams to get some overseas experience over the winter.  Well, I say "over the winter" but typically the players only play in these leagues for a month or so, usually returning to Japan in time for Christmas or New Years.  As usual, I'm relying on the WinterLeagueJP website for much of this information.

The Australian Baseball League is going to look a little different this year.  They lost two teams over the off-season, with the Melbourne Aces departing the league for the KBO Fall League and the Canberra Cavalry just flat out disbanding.  That leaves the league with just four teams - the Brisbane Bandits, Sydney Blue Sox, Adelaide Giants and Perth Heat - which is half of what the league had six years ago.

Adelaide will welcome four Giants of the Yomiuri variety - Yu Aramaki, Yusei Ishuzaka, Yamato Shiroki and Tomoki Tamura:

2025 BBM 1st Version #025

2025 Epoch NPB #016

2023 BBM 2nd Version #541

2023 Bowman NPB #BP-10

Brisbane is getting Kyosuke Mashiko and Hayate Nakagawa from the Yokohama DeNA Baystars:

2021 BBM Baystars #DB37

2024 BBM Baystars #DB74

Moving over to the Western hemisphere, four NPB teams are sending players to three teams in the Puerto Rican Winter League.  Most of these players are on the young side with only a few years of professional experience with one exception - the Swallows are sending 30 year old and 12 year veteran Kazuto Taguchi to the Leones de Ponce:

2023 BBM 1st Version #170

The Gigantes de Carolina are getting four players from two teams - Ryuta Hirose and Kazuo Ohno of the Hawks and Ren Mukunoki and Kaisei Tohmatsu of the Buffaloes:

2024 BBM Hawks #H49

2023 Epoch Hawks Premier Edition #15

2022 Epoch NPB #246

2024 Topps Stadium Club NPB #45

Lastly, the Lions are sending three players to the Senadores de San Juan - Minato Aoyama, Shinya Hasegawa and Taishi Mameda:

2024 Epoch NPB #288

2022 BBM Fusion #620

2024 BBM Lions Collection #LC11

There is another winter league that is starting up this winter that has some Japanese players - Baseball United.  Most of those players are not under contract to an NPB team anymore, however.  I will discuss them in a post that I hope to get to later this week.

NOTE - any 2025 cards in this post are images swiped from Jambalaya.

Discord Server

I was contacted a few weeks ago by someone who had just gotten into collecting Japanese baseball cards and wanted to know if there was any sort of on-line community.  When I said that I really didn't know of one, he decided that he'd go off and try to set one up.  What he's done is set up a Discord server called "Japanese Baseball Cards" and if you're interested in joining it, you can use this link.

When I started this blog back in 2007, I had two goals.  The first was to inform folks about what cards were out there and I think I've succeeded at that.  The second was to provide a place for collectors to connect with each other and I don't think I've really done that at all.  I tried doing some swapmeet posts way back when but I don't think anyone every really got anything out of them and I stopped doing them.  So maybe this Discord server can do a better job than I did.

Japanese Baseball Cards Checklist and Price Guide Vintage Edition 4.0

The fourth edition of Gary Engel's "Japanese Baseball Cards Checklist and Price Guide Vintage Edition" was just released last week.  Like the previous editions, it covers cards issued between 1929 and 1990.  The new version contains updated checklist and prices and (I assume) includes previously uncataloged sets.

It's available only as a pdf file and costs $35.  You can buy it here.

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.

Japanese Players In the Australian Baseball League (And Other Winter Leagues)

The 2024-25 Australian Baseball League season will start later this week and, as has been standard for most of the league's current incarnation, several NPB teams are sending players Down Under for the first half of the season.  As usual I'm relying on the WinterLeagueJP website for most of the following information.

Three members of the Yomiuri Giants will become Adelaide Giants for six weeks - Yuto Akihiro, Makoto Kyomoto and Ryusei Yamada.  

2023 Epoch One #216

2022 BBM Rookie Edition #028

2022 Epoch NPB #103

In addition to those three players, Adelaide will also have former Hiroshima Toyo Carp pitcher Oscar Nakaoshi on their roster.  This will be the second straight season Oscar's been with Adelaide and his third season in the ABL - he was with Auckland for the 2022-23 season:

2016 BBM Carp Autographed Edition #10

The Perth Heat will host Fumiya Kurokawa of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles:

2020 Eagles Team Set 1st Version #72

The Melbourne Aces will have three players from the Orix Buffaloes on their roster - Taiki Ono, Kyosuke Saitoh and Taito Takashima:

2023 BBM Buffaloes #B27

2023 Epoch NPB Luxury Collection #03

2024 Epoch NPB #194

The Yokohama DeNA Baystars are loaning Atsushi Katsumata to the Canberra Calvary:

2019 BBM 1st Version #268

Canberra will also have another Japanese player - Ryo Kohigashi.  As far as I can tell, he never played in NPB.  His listing on Baseball-Reference indicates his only pro experience was with Auckland two years ago (with Oscar) and with Quebec in the Frontier League this past summer.

The Chiba Lotte Marines will send five players to the Sydney Blue Sox - Shinya Matsuishi, Hikaru Ohtani, Ryusei Terachi, Daito Yamamoto and Yuto Yoshikawa:

2024 BBM Rookie Edition #074

2024 BBM Marines #M14

2024 BBM 1st Version #216

2023 BBM Marines #M67

2023 Bowman NPB #BP-41

The Brisbane Bandits will be the only one of the six ABL teams to not have any NPB players (although they will have several CPBL and KBO players).

In addtion to Australia, a couple NPB teams have sent players to the Western hemisphere for the winter.  Four teams in the Puerto Rican Winter League are getting players from Japan.  The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks have sent two players to the Gigantes de Carolina - Haru Matsumoto and Fuga Ohtake:

2023 Epoch Hawks Premier Edition #13

2022 Epoch NPB #360

Those two Hawks players will have an additional Japanese teammate as Shintaro Fujinami, currently a free agent after spending this past season in the Mets farm system, is also on Carolina's roster:

2021 Epoch One #144

The Dragons have sent Koji Fukutani to Leones de Ponce:

2021 Calbee #OP-09

Junpei Azuma of the Baystars is spending his second straight off season abroad.  He was with the Canberra Calvary last winter and he'll be with the Senadores de San Juan this year:

2024 BBM Baystars #DB41

The Giants have sent Teppei Mataki and Yuhi Nishidata to Cangrejeros de Santurce:

2024 Epoch NPB #112

2024 BBM 2nd Version #428

The Baystars are also sending players to a third league and country this winter - the Mexican Pacific League.  Haruhiro Hamaguchi and Taiga Kamichatani will spend part of the season with Algodoneros de Guasave.  Hamaguchi spent last winter with Santurce in Puerto Rico:

2023 Baystars Official Fan Cluib #26

2020 Konami Baseball Collection #20200-N-DB027-00

And finally, Taiki Sekine will be returning to the Yaquis de Obregon for the third straight year (and fourth year since 2019):

2024 Topps NPB #133