Nagisa Arakaki

Pitcher Nagisa Arakaki who was released by Yakult at the end of the season announced his retirement a few weeks ago after failing to get any offers after the "12 team tryout" session in late November.  Arakaki was drafted by both the Hawks and Orix in the first round of the 1998 draft out of high school and Orix won the lottery for him.  Arakaki really wanted to go to the Hawks, however, so he refused to sign with the Blue Wave and attended Kyushu Kyoritsu University instead.  The Orix scout who had been responsible for the team drafting him, Katsutoshi Miwata, subsequently committed suicide.

Arakaki was drafted out of college by the Hawks in the fall 2002 draft.  Actually to be completely accurate, he signed with the Hawks using something that translates as the "freedom acquisition frame" which I think means that Arakaki was able to choose the Hawks directly.  The Hawks signed both him and Tsuyoshi Wada via this route in the 2002 draft but I believe it cost them their first three picks in the draft.  He almost immediately moved into the starting rotation his rookie season, going 8-7 with a 3.34 ERA before being shutdown late in the season with an ankle injury.  He returned in time to make a couple appearances out of the bullpen against the Tigers in the Nippon Series that year.  He would go 34-19 over the next three seasons, combining with Wada and Kazumi Saitoh to form one of the strongest starting rotations in NPB.  He lead the Pacific League in strikeouts with 177 in 2004 and his 13-5, 3.01 ERA year in 2006 was probably the best season of his career.

His control started to abandon him in 2007 when he sent a new NPB record with 25 wild pitches on the season.  He still made 21 starts however and his overall numbers weren't too bad (3.60 ERA and 132 strikeouts in 137 1/3 innings).  It would be the last time he would make more than 15 starts or have an ERA less than 4 in a season.  He would fight injuries and ineffectiveness over the next four seasons, making only 19 starts with the ichi-gun team in 2008 & 2009 and spending all of 2010 and 2011 with the farm team.  The departures of Wada, Toshiya Sugiuchi and DJ Houlton forced the Hawks to put him back in the starting rotation in 2012 where he went 6-5 with a 4.58 ERA in 15 starts.  He pitched poorly again in 2013 and spent most of 2014 with the farm team until he was traded to the Swallows on July 22 with Hirofumi Yamanaka in exchange for Keizo Kawashima and Ryo Hidaka.  He went 4-14 over the past 2+ seasons with Yakult and the Swallows released him at the end of the season.

Surprisingly he only made one All Star team (2004) during his career (and was not included in the card set for some reason) and only pitched in one Nippon Series (2003).

His first BBM cards are #64 in the 2003 Rookie Edition set (which I don't have) and #274 in the 2003 1st Version set.  His first Calbee card (which I also don't have) is #144 from the 2003 set.  He also had a rookie card in Konami's Prime Nine set (#PN03B1097).  He continued to have cards over the years in the various BBM, Calbee, Konami and Bandai issues.

2003 BBM 1st Version #274

2003 BBM Nippon Series #03

2005 BBM 1st Version #516

2005 Calbee #009

2006 BBM 2nd Version "I Am Ace" insert #IA02

2008 BBM Hawks #H81

2012 BBM Hawks #H07

2015 BBM 2nd Version #371

2016 BBM Swallows #S32

Card Of The Week December 18

Kia Tigers pitcher Hyeon-Jung Yang was strongly considering making a move to NPB this off season and was close to a deal with the Yokohama DeNA Baystars but he backed off at the last minute.  He apparently decided to stay in the KBO and help Kia win a championship.

Yang has a handful of cards in the KBO sets that have been put out over the past three years but I only have two of them:

2014 Super Star Baseball Season One SBC01-107

2015 "Hell's Fireball" PA01-KI010

Masaru Takeda

Another player who retired at the end of the 2016 season was Fighters pitcher Masaru Takeda.  Takeda went undrafted out of college (Rissho University) in 2001 and played with SHiDAX of the industrial leagues for several seasons (including a couple when the team was managed by Katsuya Nomura).  He was taken in the fourth round of the 2005 draft by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and made his NPB debut on March 26, 2006 at the age of 27 against Nomura's Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.  He spent most of his first season working out of the bullpen but he gradually moved into the starting rotation over the next few years.  His best seasons were probably 2010 and 2012 where he went 14-7 with a 2.41 ERA and 11-7 with a 2.36 ERA respectively.  He made the All Star team in 2011 and pitched in four Nippon Series with the Fighters - 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2012.  His numbers started to deteriorate in 2013 - I'm not sure if there was an injury or if he just lost effectiveness.  He only made one appearance with the ichi-gun team in 2016 - his retirement game on September 30 where he started against the Marines and faced one batter, striking out Ikuhiro Kiyota.  The Fighters are sending him to coach with the Ishikawa Million Stars of the BC Challenge League next year - I don't know if there's some sort of working agreement between the two teams.

Takeda's rookie cards are #37 from the 2006 BBM Rookie Edition set, #174 from the 2006 BBM 1st Version set and #008 from the 2007 Calbee set.  In addition to his BBM and Calbee cards he also has cards in the Konami and Bandai "collectible" card game sets.

2006 BBM Rookie Edition #37

2006 BBM 1st Version #174

2007 Calbee #008

2009 BBM Nippon Series #S39

2011 BBM All Stars #A12

2011 Fighters Victory Card #068

2013 BBM Classic #038

2016 BBM Fighters #F20

BBM's Back In The Ultra High End Set Business

BBM issued the first Japanese ultra high-end set almost two years ago with a set called "Master Of Insert".  This set was issued in packs of six cards (well, five cards plus a checklist card) for 15,000 yen.  It apparently was quite popular but BBM pretty much ceded the market for these sets to Epoch since then - Epoch issued two sets along the lines of this in 2015 and almost all their sets this year have been along similar lines.  BBM is getting back in the ultra high-end game with their first set that has a "cover date" of 2017 - Rising Sun.

Rising Sun's base set (and I use the term loosely) contains 36 cards.  Unlike "Master Of Insert", all the cards are of active rather than OB players so as you've probably already guessed, there's three players per team.  Each card is serially numbered to no more than 99.  There's a parallel version of each card available as well that's serially numbered to no more than 50.  There's two insert sets - a 36 card set called "Night Breaker" (serially numbered to 50 or less)  and a 12 card set called "The Prime 3D" (serially numbered to 25 or less).  (And yes, one of the "insert" sets is the same size as the "base" set.)  There are 23 types of memorabilia cards (15 of which have a patch version), 19 autograph cards, 1 autograph and memorabilia card (not sure who it is) and 1 autographed ball card (for Yuki Matsui).  I'd be willing to bet that the memorabilia and/or autographed cards are serially numbered but I don't know that for sure and I don't know how many there would be.

The players included in the set are mostly the young stars of NPB - Shohei Ohtani, Tetsuto Yamada, Yuki Yanagita, Shun Takayama, Shintaro Fujinami, Shogo Akiyama, Yasuaki Yamasaki, Hayato Sakamoto, Seiya Suzuki, and Yosuke Nomura among others.  I think T-Okada of Orix might be the oldest player included.

Each box contains six cards and has an MSRP of 13,000 yen (although Discount Niki had it at 14,040 yen before they sold out).  I don't know if there's any guarantee of an autograph or memorabilia card in the box.  There are only 1500 boxes being produced.  It's being released in late December.

Card Of The Week December 11

When I did my post on the 2016 NPB Award winners a few weeks back, I neglected to mention that Kris Johnson of the Carp had won the Sawamura Award.  The award was announced in late October and it just kind of slipped my mind.  Here's his card for the new BBM Fusion set (#033):

Johnson was the first foreigner to win the Sawamura Award since Gene Bacque of the Tigers did it in 1964.  Now I mentioned when I did my writeup on the Fusion set that each active player was in the set because of something they did last season and each OB player was included because they had done something that was related.  I'm pretty sure the set went to the printers before the award was announced as it doesn't appear that Johnson's card is for the Award - it looks like it's for pitching back-to-back shutouts on May 17th and 24th.  The next card in the set (#034) is for Bacque but since Johnson's card is not for the Sawamura Award, neither is Bacque's - apparently Bacque pitched back-to-back shutouts a number of times during his time in Japan.

2016 BBM Fusion

Last month BBM released a new set called Fusion.  This set apparently is taking the place of the annual "Historic Collection" sets that BBM has done since 2001.  Like the "Historic Collection" sets, the set has 144 cards but there aren't many similarities after that.

In some ways, the set could have been named "3rd Version" or "Final Version".  There's four subsets in the set and two of them are continuations of the 1st and 2nd Version sets.  There's a nine card "1st Version Update" subset that features several players (well, nine actually) who for whatever reason did not appear in the 1st or 2nd Version sets this year.  There's four foreign players who signed midway through the season - Cody Satterwhite of the Tigers, Carlos Peguero and Felix Perez of the Eagles and Elian Herrera of the Baystars.  There are also four players who "graduated" from being ikusei players this season - Hiroki Kondoh of the Dragons, Satoshi Sonobe of the Buffaloes and Ryo Hirai and Yoshinori Satoh of the Swallows (the latter three were all returning to their team's rosters after being development players briefly).  The final player was Kazuki Kondoh of the Swallows who was traded from Orix mid-season.  Obviously unlike the "Update" subset from the 2nd Version set, there's not an equal number of cards per team.  The cards are numbered 601 to 609 (which is where the 2nd Version set left off).

#607

#604

The other subset that's a continuation of something from the earlier set is the nine card "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset.  Seven of the cards feature the usual actress/model/gravure idols that are pretty standard for these cards - Ayama Goriki, Manami Hashimoto, Ami Inamura, Moemi Katayama,  Ruriko Kojima and Sumire (Matsubara).  Goriki, Kojima and Inamura have been featured in previous "First Pitch" subsets - Goriki in the 2015 2nd Version bonus cards with SCM #113, Kojima in the 2nd Version sets in 2014 and 2015 and Inamura in the 2nd Version set this year as well as bonus cards from SCM #113 and #120.  The other two cards are for retired players - Hisashi Yamada and Isao Harimoto.  I think this is the first time that there's been a "First Pitch" card of a former player since Hiromichi Ishige in 2007.  The cards are numbered FP14 to FP22, again in continuation of the cards from 2nd Version (FP01 to FP13).

#FP18

#FP20

The third subset is a throwback to the "Leader" subsets that BBM's flagship sets had between 1991 and 2013.  This 24 card subset features the 2016 statistical leaders for 12 categories for each league - Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, Hits, OBP, Stolen Bases, ERA, Winning Percentage, Wins, Saves, Hold Points and Strikeouts.  Like the old "Leader" subsets if a player led the league in multiple categories then he has multiple cards - for example Yoshitomu Tsutsugoh led the Central League in both Home Runs and RBIs and therefore has two cards in the subset.  Unlike the old "Leader" cards, if there's a tie for a category then there's multiple players on one card.  For example, Yoshio Itoi and Yuji Kaneko shared the Pacific League Stolen Base crown with 53 each and therefore share the card.  In the old "Leader" subsets, each player would have had a card.  The cards themselves kind of look like the Genesis cards this year - I don't know if that's intentional or just a coincidence (or if I'm imagining things).  This subset is numbered as part of the Fusion set itself (#103-126).

#120

#113

The remaining subset for the set isn't really a subset - it's the 102 "regular" player cards for the set.  As you can guess by that number, they are not evenly split among the 12 teams.  There's 47 cards for players who were active in 2016 (including a couple guys who retired at the end of the year - Daisuke Miura and Hiroki Kuroda) and 55 OB players.  What I think is going on with these cards is that each of the active players did something or reached some milestone this year and each of the OB players has some relationship to one of these events.  For example, Kenta Imamiya of the Hawks got his 200th sacrifice this season.  This event is commemorated on card #043.  Card #044 shows OB player Masahiro Kawai getting HIS 200th sacrifice in 1992.  Since the cards are all in Japanese (as you would expect), it's not clear to me what all the events are or even if my assessment is true (although it appears to be backed up by BBM's original web page on the set).  The active players include Tetsuto Yamada, Yuki Yanagita, Louis Okoye, Shun Takayama, Shintaro Fujinami, Tatsuhiro Tamura, Tomoyuki Sugano, Yoshitomu Tsutsugoh and two cards for Shohei Ohtani - one pitching and one hitting.  Hideki Kuriyama (the Fighters manager), Koichi Ogata (Carp manager) and Shinichi Kondoh (a coach for the Dragons) are also included.  The OB players include Sadaharu Oh, Keishi Suzuki, Koji Yamamoto, Sachio Kinugasa, Koichi Tabuchi, Hisashi Yamada, Minoru Murayama, Katsuya Nomura (as Swallows manager in the 1990's), Koji Akiyama, Yutaka Fukumoto and Kazuhiro Sasaki.  Unlike most of the "Historic Collection" sets, the OB cards do not include anyone currently playing in MLB.  The design of the cards is original to the set - it doesn't appear to be a repeat or reference to any other design this year.

#053

#023

#029

#049

#015

#070

#005

#058

There are a lot of things I like about this set.  I love the "1st Version Update" subset and I'd like it to be bigger.  I'm pleased that the "Leader" subset has returned, even if it doesn't quite have everything it used to have (no award winners as the set was released before the major awards - MVP, Best 9, Rookie of the Year - were announced).  I can take or leave the "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset but I'm happy there were a couple retired players in this subset.  I have somewhat mixed feelings about the "regular" player cards - I like the idea of featuring player highlights (even if I don't know what the highlight is) but I'm not sure how much I like the OB player cards.  There tends to be a lot of repetition of players in BBM's OB sets - I like Hisashi Yamada a lot but I can count 13 BBM OB sets he's appeared in over the last 10 years.  Keishi Suzuki's been in at least 15 over that same time frame.  I understand that autograph cards make the world go 'round so BBM must have OB players in the set to have autograph cards of OB players but it's like being asked about when Shohei Ohtani's coming to the US - it gets old after a while.  I'm hoping that this set proves popular enough that BBM will do it every year.

All the cards card be seen at Jambalaya.

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan Set

Last month Calbee issued a set for the Samurai Japan, the Japan National Baseball team.  I suppose to be completely accurate I should point out that this set is for the professional version of the team - there's several different amateur versions (college, U18, U15, etc plus a woman's team which I think is professional).  This is the first set dedicated to the Japan National team since BBM's box set for the 2008 Olympic team and the first Japanese set to feature the team since the 2009 Konami WBC Heroes set.  This is also the first time Calbee has done cards for the team since the 2001 subset for the 2000 Olympic team.

The set contains 36 cards - one card for team manager Hikoki Kokubo and 35 cards for the players.  Let's see if I can phrase this right - the set contains all the Samurai Japan players who played in either the Premier 12 last November or the two friendlies against Taiwan this past March AND who spent the 2016 season in NPB.  Another way to say it would be that the set contains all the Samurai Japan players who played in either the Premier 12 last November or the two friendlies against Taiwan this past March except Kenta Maeda.  This includes most of the big names in NPB - Shohei Ohtani, Tetsuto Yamada, Sho Nakata, Shogo Akiyama, Hayato Sakamoto, Yoshitomu Tsutsugoh, Tomoyuki Sugano and Ryosuke Kikuchi.  There are three Nakamura's in the set - Akira, Takeya and Yuhei.  There's at least one representative from every NPB team with the exception of Hanshin.  The entire checklist can be seen here at Calbee's website (in Japanese of course).

The cards themselves resemble the "Star" insert cards from the regular Calbee sets - they picture the player superimposed over a false background and have a kira finish.  There's a parallel version with a large gold facsimile signature on the card as well.  I'm not a big fan of this look but I'm happy that this set exists so I'll live with it.  The downside is that the cards don't scan particularly well - they look much better in person.  Here's some examples:

#SJ-36

#SJ-23

#SJ-15

#SJ-07

#SJ-18

#SJ-13

I very much like this set and I'm hoping that Calbee will continue to issue them in the future.

All the cards can be seen at Jambalaya.