I was looking through the newspapers in the train station on my way home today, and the front page of Nikkan Sports is dedicated to a kid named Shuhei Fujiya. Don't worry, you can click on that link, it's in English... and goes to his profile page for the USC Trojans baseball team.
(See, while this post is not Japanese college baseball related for a change, it is related to a Japanese college baseball player. Japanese article here, though if you can get your hands on the Oct 12th Nikkan paper, it has a LOT more detail.)
Anyway, supposedly the scouts for the Fighters and Swallows have both had their eye on this kid for a while -- he's a 6'3" 170 pitcher (who tops out at 96 mph supposedly) for the University of South California, who also played for the University of North Iowa before their baseball program dissolved. He's been pitching primarily as a reliever, and had a record for saves as a closer at Iowa, and has also been a closer at USC apparently.
Also in his favor, the San Diego Padres chose him in the 18th round of the 2009 draft out of Iowa, but he didn't sign. It's unclear why exactly he didn't sign, but he apparently moved on to USC to finish his college career.
Shuhei was born in Tokyo and moved to California during middle school due to his father's work, and went to high school in Irvine before going to college at Northern Iowa; he became a regular on the Iowa team in his sophomore year.
Intriguingly, despite that he doesn't have any REAL baseball experience in Japan, since he IS a Japanese passport-holding true-blood and all, he can enter the draft here just like any other Japanese college kid without counting against any limits.
I don't really know anything about him beyond just reading this story today, but I can say that he certainly sounds like an intriguing prospect. I mean, if he was good enough to be drafted by the majors, then I certainly HOPE he can do well over here in Japan!
Plus, the Fighters are notorious for working with guys who have "interesting" backgrounds (read: Darvish, Dass, Micheal, Tadano, Unten...); I'm guessing that a guy who didn't go through the typical regime of being in the Japanese HS/college system here would probably need slightly different approaches from the coaches on how to work on stuff, but we have right in our ranks a genuine former MLBer in Masato Yoshii.
It's intriguing -- VERY intriguing. And only 16 days left until Draft Day...
Which reminds me that I still wonder which teams, if any, are looking at Naoya Washiya (who played HS baseball at Komadai Tomakomai and was in the Nats system for a year or two after going to college in the US). He's also very intriguing to me.
10 comments:
Very intriguing.
Thanks for the update...
I know it's early, but who are the interesting prospects for the upcoming draft? Any news would be awesome. Thanks
I really gotta figure out a way to turn on requiring names, yet not requiring a Google login. I hate trying to figure out how to answer a comment without any context on who the commenter is and what they know already.
It's not early for the draft, being as it's in less than 3 weeks, but people are still registering for it. I was thinking to make a draft post, but I don't think anyone would want to read my thoughts on it, since I mostly go on gut feelings and talk about the guys I've seen play, ignore the guys I haven't seen play, and so on. I'm not a scout, I'm not an analyst. I'm just a fan who goes to 100+ games a year and manages to choose some very good players to follow by complete random chance.
The player I am most concerned about his whereabouts in the 2011 season is pitcher Kisho Kagami from Hosei. I don't think he'll go in the first round (except as a fallback for people who don't get Saitoh or Ohishi or Sawamura), but I think he will get drafted.
I see that Yuki Saitoh has now registered for the draft. The Kyodo newswire article said that this ends speculation that he was thinking about going to the majors right away. Was there really speculation about that?
When Yuu-chan won Koshien, I think there were articles suggesting that he wasn't going to go pro at the time because his intentions were to try for the majors after graduating from Waseda University. I have no idea whether that was from what he said or from what other people made up, though. There was so much ridiculous hype about him that I never really knew what to believe. (I would seriously be a big Saitoh fan if not for the hype, he really seems like a good kid from the interviews that I DO believe are real, but...)
Oddly, in an interview a year or two ago with him and Tatsuya Ohishi, there was something where they asked "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" and Saitoh said something like "I hope I'm happy and that I continue playing baseball," while Ohishi said "Well, I'll be a pro baseball player. In the majors, maybe, even?"
BTW, I have a hunch -- but no confirmation of this, it's just my thought -- that Saitoh probably heard straight up from some MLB scouts what the deal would be if he seriously tried for the MLB, and exactly how good his chances are, which are to say, he's not a shoe-in by any means (a 5'9", 165-pound pitcher in the MLB these days? Really? Who tops out at like 92 mph?) and so he probably realized that the best thing for him to do is to continue playing ball in the country where he already has a ridiculous fan following and will easily be a #1 draft pick and be treated like royalty. And hopefully there will be some more Handkerchief-Makun rematches along the way as well, I bet they'd like to keep challenging each other too.
(For the record, Ohishi is built a hell of a lot more like a potential MLBer, at 6'1" 185 with a fastball topping out at 96mph. Even the very first time I saw him as a freshman, I was like "Now THIS kid is going places...")
A couple years back, Upper Deck put jersey cards of the 2007 Japanese collegiate National Team as inserts into 2008 Team USA box set. I've been picking up some of them off eBay - the Yuki Saitoh card always goes for something way over what I'm willing to pay. So there are people out there who must think he's a good investment...
I've got Ryoji Nakata's card - I figure that there must be a lot of them since that must have been one big jersey they cut up to make the cards...:-)
Do you know where the people are located, that are buying his cards off Ebay? They could be in Japan, in which case paying a ton for rare Saitoh stuff makes perfect sense (well, if you are into collecting stuff like that). Or Japanese expats in the US -- I've heard that Saitoh gets mobbed for autographs when he's over there with college teams. (I actually have an autograph from one of those times; one of my readers in Hawaii went to the Big 6 All-Star games, asked if I had any photos of Saitoh he could get signed, and so he got one signed for me too :) The funny part being that it was actually easier for him to meet Saitoh in Hawaii than it is for me to meet Saitoh despite that I go to tons of Big 6 games.)
To be fair, even if he makes it in Japan as a player and never comes to the MLB, I bet the Upper Deck cards of him will be super-valuable over here in Japan regardless -- those aren't exactly easily accessible to most Japanese people...
Those are all good points. Ebay hides the name of the other bidders now, so I don't know where the folks who are winning the cards are from.
I'm actually really curious to see those cards sometime -- did you actually make a post about them and I just missed it, or what?
I guess just like people from the US buy Japanese cards off Ebay, it could certainly go the other way too. I'm just too lazy to do either, of course :)
Mr Anonymous back again. Deanna, I am from your old stomping ground... I am born and raised in South Jersey... Right outside of Philly. I am a casual fan of Japanese Baseball who is looking for the top 10-20 prospects in the upcoming draft. My favorite team in Japan is the Giants (ok now, stop booing me...). I always like to follow the draft process (in any sport) and that includes NPB. I remember a couple of years ago when Yuki Saitoh caused lots of interest when he choose college instead. Looks like he is back in the draft. And your thoughts are good enough for me... I promise I will not rip you if they are wrong.
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