RIP Takeshi Yasuda

Former Yakult Atoms and Swallows pitcher Takeshi Yasuda has passed away at age 73 from stomach cancer.  Yasuda had attended Waseda University in the late 60's before spending a couple seasons playing for Daishowa Paper in the industrial leagues.  He was the sixth round pick of the then Yakult Atoms in the 1971 draft and made his NPB debut as a 25 year old rookie the following season.  He went 7-5 with a Central League leading 2.08 ERA that year, winning the Central League Rookie Of The Year Award.  He also led the league with 50 appearances.  He led the league in ERA and appearances again in 1973 with a 2.03 mark and 53 games and made the All Star team for the first time.  He also set an NPB record with 81 consecutive innings in which he did not issue a walk.

He missed half the season in 1974 due to a right knee injury but became a regular member of the starting rotation for the Swallows for the next four years (although he still pitched in relief frequently).  He was named to the Central League All Star team in 1975 and 1977.  He started the first Nippon Series game in Swallows history in 1978,  taking the loss in Game One against the Hankyu Braves.  He also started Game Four and got knocked around by the Braves for four runs in 1 2/3 innings but the Swallows came back and won the game.  Yakult ultimately won the Series in seven games.

He suffered another injury to his right knee in 1979 and then hurt his left knee in 1981, causing him to retire at the end of the season.  He coached for the Swallows from 1982-86 and then again from 1990-94.

Yasuda had a number of baseball cards during his career in the Calbee, Yamakatsu, NST and Takara sets.  He appeared with some regularity in the OB player sets that BBM has issued over the past 20 years as well along with a few of the Epoch sets.  Here's a handful of his cards:

1974/75 Calbee #852

1976 Yamakatsu JY1

1977 Yamakatsu JY3

2007 BBM Draft Story #057

2011 BBM Legend Of Tokyo Big 6 #008

2013 Epoch All Japan Baseball Foundation Rookie Of The Year #08

2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #68

I believe that's Masayuki Kakefu squaring to bunt against Yasuda on that 1976 Yamakatsu card.

Card Of The Week February 21

Masahiro Tanaka played in his first exhibition game of the spring yesterday, taking on the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters at the Eagles spring training home in Kin, Okanawa.  He struck out the first batter then gave up a pair of singles before Sho Nakata came to the plate (and I love the juxtaposition of the kanji characters for the two player's names):

The three runs that scored on Nakata's home run were the only runs Tanaka allowed in his two innings of work.  The Fighters went on to win the game 6-3.  Tanaka's post-game comments were translated by Jim Allen and can be read here.

This week I thought I'd share a card I had showing Nakata's first ever spring training home run.  He was a highly regarded prospect coming out of Osaka Toin high school, having set the record for most home runs hit by a high schooler with 87.  The Fighters drafted him in the first round of the 2007 draft and all eyes were upon him during spring camp the following year.  He ended up homering in the first at bat of his first game.  This home run was featured on a card included by BBM in Sports Card Magazine #68.  BBM must have an incredible turn around time because Nakata hit the home run on March 1st and the magazine was published at the end of the month.

2008 SCM #96

Hirokazu Sawamura of the Boston Red Sox

The rumors have been swirling for a week or so but the news was finally official today - pitcher Hirokazu Sawamura, formerly of the Yomiuri Giants and (briefly) the Chiba Lotte Marines, signed a two year deal with the Boston Red Sox.  By my count he'll be the eighth Japanese player to pitch for the Red Sox after Hideo Nomo, Tomo Ohka, Hideki Okajima, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Takashi Saitoh, Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara.  As a Red Sox fan, I'm hoping he helps the team to another championship, just like Okajima, Matsuzaka, Tazawa and Uehara did.

Sawamura was the first round pick of the Giants out of Chuo University in the 2010 draft.  He moved immediately into the Kyojin's starting rotation in 2011 and pitched well enough to make the All Star team and win the Central League Rookie Of The Year award.  He remained in the Giants' rotation for the next several seasons, making the All Star team a second time in 2013, but shoulder injuries cost him about half the season in 2014 and the Giants moved him into the bullpen and the closer role.  He did extremely well in that role, recording 36 saves in 2015 and a Central League leading 37 in 2016.  He missed much of 2017 with another shoulder injury, only getting into nine games with the farm team that season.  He's pitched almost exclusively in middle relief since then.  He was traded in September of last season to the Chiba Lotte Marines for Kazuya Katsuki and pitched well down the stretch for them, posting a 1.71 ERA with 29 strikeouts in 22 games.

Sawamura made the All Star team twice (2011 & 2013) and played in three Nippon Series (2012, 2013 and 2019).  He pitched for Japan in both the 2013 World Baseball Classic and the 2015 Premier 12.

Sawamura's first card was from the 2011 BBM Rookie Edition set (#059).  Other cards from his rookie year include BBM's 1st Version (#240), 2nd Version (#601) and Giants (#G004) sets and Calbee's Series One (#D-09) and Series Two (#132) sets.  He's appeared in at least one of BBM's flagship sets every year until last year - although he did appear in the 2020 Fusion set.  He's been in BBM's Giants team set every year since 2011 and also appeared in the 2011 All Star and 2012 Nippon Series sets (BBM stopped doing those sets after 2012).  He had at least one Calbee card every year from 2011 to 2018 except for 2014 but he's not had a Calbee card since then.  He's appeared in the 2019 and 2020 Epoch NPB sets.  He's also appeared in several Bandai and Konami collectible card game sets.

As far as I can tell, there are only four cards depicting him as a member of the Marines - his 2020 BBM Fusion card (#607) and three 2020 Epoch One cards (#405, #407 and #491).

Here's a selection of his cards:

2011 BBM Tohto 80th Memorial #60

2011 BBM Rookie Edition #059

2011 BBM 1st Version #240

2011 SCM #178

2011 BBM All Stars #A70

2012 BBM 1st Version #328

2012 BBM Nippon Series #S03

2013 Giants Players Card

2016 Kabaya Central League Gum #07

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-06

2017 Calbee #T-17

2018 Konami Baseball Collection #201810-N-G015-00

2020 BBM Fusion #607

Yang Hyeon-jong of the Texas Rangers

 Former Kia Tigers pitcher Yang Hyeon-jong has signed a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers.  Yang was the second round pick of the Tigers in the 2007 draft out of Dongsung High School in Seoul and has played for them ever since.  He led the league in ERA in 2015 but his best season was undoubtedly 2017 when he went 20-6 and led the Tigers to the Korean Series Championship.  He was not only MVP of the Series but also MVP of the regular season, the first ever player to win both awards in the same season.

His earliest baseball card appears to be from the 2014 Superstar Baseball Season One set (#SBC01-107), the first licensed KBO set since the early 00's.  He appears in many of the sets done by SMG/Ntreav/Duael between 2014 and 2016 although his cards are frequently either a short print or an insert.  He also appears in most of the SCC sets from 2017 (well, 2017-ish - that set came out in 2018) to 2020.  There appear to be two pages listing his cards over at Trading Card DB - one under the name Hyeon-Jong Yang and the other under Yang Hyeon-Jong.  Here are some of his KBO cards:

2014 Super Star Baseball Season One #SBC-107

2015 Hell's Fireball #PA01-KI010

2016-17 Super Star Baseball Black Edition #SBCBK-020-AS

2017 SCC #SCC-01-KA11/N

2018 SCC KBO Collection #SCCR-01/009

2019 SCC KBO Collection 2 #SCCR-19/086

2020 SCC Premium #SCCP1-20/K05

Yang has played for the Korean National Team in a number of international tournaments, most notably the 2017 World Baseball Classic and the 2019 Premier 12.  The only card I know of that depicts him in a National Team uniform is his "Paper Prospects" insert from the 2017 Bowman set:

2017 Bowman #BP141

Card Of The Week February 14

I mentioned a few weeks back that Masahiro Tanaka was returning to the Eagles after seven years with the Yankees.  This past week another player officially returned to his old team from MLB and there's another player who is possibly returning.

Yoshihisa Hirano is returning to the Orix Buffaloes after spending the past three seasons in MLB - 2018-19 with the Arizona Diamondbacks and 2020 with the Seattle Mariners.  Additionally Shun Yamaguchi was released by the Toronto Blue Jays after just one season with them and is reportedly being offered a contract by his old team the Yomiuri Giants.  (To be honest, I'm not sure Yamaguchi has any choice but to return to the Giants since he was posted.  Hirano was a free agent.)  Here are cards of each of them from 2017 - the last year Hirano was in Japan and the first year Yamaguchi was with the Giants:

2017 BBM Icons-Japan Pride #17

2017 BBM Giants #G17

The NPB returns of Tanaka, Hirano and Yamaguchi means that there will only be seven Japanese players in MLB in 2021 - Yu Darvish (Padres), Kenta Maeda (Twins), Shohei Ohtani (Angels), Yusei Kikuchi (Mariners), Shogo Akiyama (Reds), Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh (Rays) and Kohei Arihara (Rangers).  That number may grow by one if Hirokazu Sawamura signs with the Red Sox.

UPDATE - Way late on updating this but Yamaguchi signed a deal with the Giants all right but it was the San Francisco ones and not Yomiuri so he's still in North America.

More New Releases

It's funny - I hadn't done a new release post in over two months until last Sunday but there were enough announcements over the last week I'm doing another one already.

- The 2021 edition of BBM's annual Icons box set will be out in late March.  The title/theme this year is "Progress" and BBM says that the set will feature players who "made progress" last year and rookies who "will progress in the future".  Each box will contain 37 cards - the 36 card base set plus a "special insert" card which could be a foil print card, a foil facsimile autograph card, an "Extreme 2021" card of a rookie or an autograph card.  I expect that the 36 cards will be split up evenly with three cards for each of the 12 teams.  BBM says that the set will include Ukyo Shuto, Yudai Ohno, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Dohbayashi, Keito Sano and rookie Takahisa Hayakawa.

- BBM has announced their first two "comprehensive" team sets for 2021 - the Buffaloes and the Fighters.  Both pack based sets will have 81 cards in their base set and will be released in early April.  The base set for the Buffaloes will have 68 cards for the players (and manager) plus four subsets - "New Wave" (three cards), "Step Forward" (three cards), "The Story" (three cards) and "First Four" (four cards).  The Buffaloes set will also have 18 "normal" insert cards split between "Storm & Urge" (nine cards), "Rough Diamond" (six cards) and "Once Again" (three cards) along with thirteen of the serially numbered "Phantom" and fifteen of the serially numbered "Esperanza" inserts.  The Fighters' base set will have 66 cards for the players and manager plus subsets called "Brightest Hope" (two cards), "Counterattack" (two cards) and "Mighty Gusys(?)" (nine cards).  It will also have 18 "normal" insert cards split between four sets although the sets aren't fully named at this time.  There will also be 15 "Phantom" and 15 "Esperanza" serially numbered inserts.  Both sets will feature a wide variety of autographed cards as well.

- With these announcements from BBM it's looking more and more likely that they will not be doing another edition of their "Time Travel" sets this winter.  I think it's possible that they will still do a "Shining Venus" set this year but obviously if so it will be delayed several months from its normal January release date.  "Shining Venus" is BBM's set for female athletes and it historically has always included one or two players from the Japan Women's Baseball League - with Epoch apparently no longer doing sets for the league it's the easiest way to get cards of any JWBL players.

- Dan Skrezyna has announced his latest "Foreign Attack" home brew set under his Vittum label.  This set will feature the KBO's foreign players from the 2019 season - remember that none of the official KBO sets include any foreign players.  It's a 39 card set - 38 player cards plus one checklist card - and includes a number of player who either had already played in NPB by 2019 (Jamie Romak) and or would in the future (Jerry Sands, Angel Sanchez, Mel Rojas, Jr.).  The sets are $16 and it's a limited press run of only 20 hand numbered sets.  I don't know if Dan has sold all 20 sets yet or when the sets will be available.  If you are interested in a set, I suggest you contact Dan at his blog or his Twitter account as soon as possible.

2020 SCC KBO League Premium Collection

I kind of cut back on KBO cards this past year which is somewhat odd considering ESPN's coverage of the league gave it a much higher profile than normal.  For me though ESPN's coverage actually made it harder for me to watch the league as we cut the cord several years ago on our DirecTV package so I have no way of watching the channel.  And ESPN's contract meant all the ways I normally would watch the league (NaverTV) got blocked.

I also wasn't real impressed by SCC first two KBO card sets last year - the Battle Baseball Card Game Volumes One and Two - as they combined two things I'm not a big fan of - collectible game cards and cards with the player's image is superimposed on a background.  That's not to say there aren't examples of either feature that I like but it makes it a harder sell.  But I did want to get at least one KBO set for the year so when SCC's Premium set came out in late September I asked Dan if he could pick me up one.  He did and it eventually made it's way to me last week (Dan didn't get a chance to ship the set until a few weeks ago) along with some extra goodies from both Dan and George.

The set was well worth the wait as it's very attractive.  As usual I just got the base set which contains 200 cards - 20 per team.  As is kind of standard for SCC's sets, the cards are split into several different types.  Based on what previous sets have had, I think the three types this time are "normal", "holo" and "rare" cards.  Don't be confused by the "rare" label, however, as I don't think these cards are short printed.  The teams don't have the same number of each type - each team has between 11 and 13 or the "normal" cards, 4 or 5 "holo" cards and 3 or 4 "rare" cards.  Each team's cards are numbered separately - the Doosan Bear cards are numbered D01 to D20; the Hanwha Eagles cards are E01 to E20; et cetera.

One of my favorite things about this set is the player's names are on the front of all of them in English.  I think this is the first time SCC's done a set with all the cards having English names on the front since their "2017" set (which was actually released in 2018).

As usual there are no foreign players in the set.  Also as usual I have no idea how well the set represents the best players in the league.  Pretty much every major player I could think of from the KBO is in the set - Kim Ha-Seong, Lee Dae-Ho, Park Byung-Ho, Yang Eui-Ji, Kim Hyun-Soo, Hwang Jae-Gyun, Choi Jeong, Han Dong-Min, Son Ah-Seop and Kim Tae-Kyun.  One player is making their licensed KBO card debut - former Hanshin Tiger, St Louis Cardinal, Toronto Blue Jay and Colorado Rockie pitcher Oh Seung-Hwan.  Oh had departed for Japan before the first licensed cards were released in Korea in 2014 - the only KBO card I know of for him was in the unlicensed 2010 KBO Game set.  He returned to the KBO in 2019 but wasn't able to pitch until a month or so into last season as he needed to serve a six month suspension for going to a casino in Macau in 2014 (it is illegal for a Korean citizen to go to a foreign casino, even in a place where gambling is legal).

Here's some example cards.  First up are a trio of "normal" cards:

#SCCP1-20/W01

#SCCP1-20/L05

#SCCP1-20/T14

Next are three "holo" cards.  It's a bit hard to tell in the scans but the cards all have a "holo" finish to them:

#SCCP1-20/N11

#SCCP1-20/D10

#SCCP1-20/K02

Finally three "rare" cards:

#SCCP1-20/S13

#SCCP1-20/H20

#SCCP1-20/E13

The backs of all the cards have the same design regardless of whether they are "normal", "holo" or "rare":

#SCCP1-20/G14

If you want to see what all cards look like, Dan has uploaded images of all of them to the Trading Card Database.

As always, thanks for picking the set up for me, Dan!