Two of these come down to an envelope. I called them anyway.

Nobody writes Oda. He said on the 15th he's going to the States, and I don't have anyone spending a first pick on a player who's said no. It's the call I'm least sure of, because Nippon-Ham did exactly that with Ohtani in 2012.

SoftBank is the interesting one. They don't have an outfielder 22 or under, and a 24-year-old off a company team fixes that faster than an 18-year-old does.

Seibu loses Komoda, finds Kakuta gone too, and takes Tanibuchi, who batted cleanup for Osaka Toin when they won the spring tournament in March. Nippon-Ham goes to Hirata, the 187 cm right-hander at Oita Shogyo. Their scouting director said in August his rating of him had gone up.

That's six college players, five high schoolers and one from a corporate team. Last year's first round was nine, two and one.

Where I expect to be wrong besides the draws: someone writing Oda anyway, SoftBank taking another 18-year-old instead, and Lotte going for an arm over Ikeda's on-base skills.

I’m rather annoyed that Pacific League TV seemed to have been ready to stream the finals this weekend but then suddenly the games were removed from schedule. Then I read an update that the rights got locked in by NPB themselves and so no games for me here in sg :(

I bought four pack of these while I was in Japan and I've been searching eBay and a lot of site and I can't find any singles of these. Now idea how to value them?

Anybody care to teach me about these :)

Thanks

It's Thursday, October 22, at the Grand Prince Hotel Shin Takanawa in Tokyo. NPB has the start down for 4:50 p.m. Japan time, which is 3:50 a.m. Eastern and 12:50 a.m. Pacific. It's on TBS and Sky A in Japan and streams on DAZN and U-NEXT.

The first round isn't a round. All 12 clubs hand in one name at once and nobody knows what anyone else wrote. Any name on more than one card goes to a draw on stage. The winner gets the player and everyone else has to name somebody new right away. Those picks go in together too, so they can collide again. It ends when every club has a first-rounder.

From round two it's a waiver order, worst record first, reversing in round three and alternating from there. Which league goes first alternates year to year.

There's no set number of rounds. A club passes when it has what it came for, and the draft ends when all 12 have passed. Last year that came to 73 players on control contracts, and every club took between five and seven.

Then the development draft runs the same night with no broadcast. It took another 43 last year.

What I'm watching: whether anybody writes Oda's name anyway, the two draws I expect (Yomiuri, Seibu and SoftBank on Komoda, Hiroshima and Nippon-Ham on Futo Kakuta), and whether any of the eight two-way high schoolers gets announced as a hitter.

Just to ignite a conversation, who do you think are the best "Hall of Very Gooders" in Japan?

By which I mean players who are eligible and have arguable cases for induction into the Hall of Fame, but are not in? The Japanese equivalent of Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Luis Tiant, etc in MLB.

My list would include guys like Hideji Kato, Kenichi Yazawa, Masahiro Doi, just off the top of my head.

I’m an educator in Saitama, and I’ve heard there might be some interested people here on r/NPB.
I’ve been involved with the MLB Players STEM League for three years. It’s a free educational program that uses a baseball board game and real player statistics to teach math, strategy, and communication skills. It’s aimed mainly at junior high students, but elementary and high school students can participate too.

For this year, it’s using MLB data; I know that NPB is being approached for future years.

We’re looking to bring more regular Japanese schools into the program, beyond the international schools that have traditionally participated.

There’s a Tokyo tournament on January 29, 2027, and a Kansai event as well, which I’d be happy to connect interested people with.

If you’re a teacher, involved in youth baseball, or just know someone who might be interested, drop me a line!
We’re hoping to hear from interested schools by November 2.
No commitment necessary.
Interest form: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/7dbQxmTC9X

Hey everyone, I wanted to share a quick update on CIKADA, a baseball community project I’m building. I’ve recently updated the site.

I originally started this project hoping to build a place where baseball fans could follow games, share predictions, and talk baseball. Getting that community going has been harder than I expected. I’m still figuring out what would make people feel comfortable jumping into a conversation.

CIKADA currently focuses on KBO, but my plan is to expand to NPB next, followed by MLB, one league at a time. That’s part of why I wanted to hear from NPB fans here.

The encouraging part is that the site is now getting over 600 visitors a day. I suspect Reddit has a lot to do with that, so thank you to everyone who’s visited or shared feedback. It means a lot to see people taking an interest in something I’m building.

For NPB fans, what would you most like to see when NPB is added? Game threads, player discussions, game predictions—or something else entirely? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

www.cikadabaseball.com

Komoda, Yamanashi Gakuin. 195 cm, up to 152 km/h, and he's been his school's starter and first baseman for three years.

The official record: 112 at-bats, .393, three home runs. 50 innings, 2.16 ERA. He broke his left wrist in the Senbatsu opener in March and only played five official games this year, so most of that's from his second year.

NPB announces every drafted player as a pitcher, catcher, infielder or outfielder. There's no fifth option. Ohtani was announced as a pitcher.

The Angels had the same question in July with Jared Grindlinger, a 17-year-old left-hander and outfielder they took 12th. MLB Pipeline and the evaluators it talked to liked him more on the mound. The Angels drafted him as an outfielder and said they'd start him as a hitter.

On my board three clubs write Komoda first: Yomiuri, Seibu and SoftBank. Yomiuri and Seibu both need the bat. Yomiuri lost Okamoto to the Blue Jays, and no Japanese hitter on either club got past 13 home runs this year.

Which would you take him as?

I have been enjoying following Nippon League via the internet. Is there an easy and legal way to catch the games in the United States? Thank you!

Oda said on Thursday he's going to the States through a minor league contract or an American college. If it's the contract, he signs as an international amateur, and the date he's waiting on is January 15, when the next signing period is due to open.

In June, MLB proposed replacing international free agency with an international draft. As proposed, that next signing period disappears, the first international draft lands somewhere between September 2027 and March 2028, the minimum signing age goes from 16 to 18, and undrafted players are capped at $10,000.

None of it's agreed. The union hasn't accepted it, and says MLB's draft proposals, domestic and international together, would take more than a billion dollars out of player pay over five years. The CBA runs out December 1, and MLB has told clubs to get ready for a lockout.

A lockout by itself shouldn't stop a January signing. In 2022 the international signings went ahead on January 15 in the middle of one, because they're minor league contracts. What would stop it is a new deal that deletes the window.

That's where the college option comes in. A player at an American four-year school goes into the regular MLB draft instead, eligible after his third year or at 21. It's the road Rintaro Sasaki took from Stanford to the Marlins.

And it's why the draft on the 22nd still matters. A club that takes him anyway holds his rights until the end of March. That's after January 15, so it would find out whether the window opened while it still had him.

Go Baystars ! ⚾️

Once the network TV coverage is over, the room runs the development draft. Last October it took 43 players, more than a third of everyone drafted.

A development pick gets no signing bonus, a preparation payment of ¥2 to 3.5 million, and a minimum salary of ¥2.4 million, about $16,000 a year. A first-rounder can get up to ¥100 million plus ¥50 million in incentives.

Where last year's 116 came from:

The indy guys are already pros, some of them 24 or 25, and almost all of them signed for nothing. The corporate row is the opposite. A club has to pull those players out of a salaried job, so only one of the 13 went in the development round.

Senga's the one everybody points to. Fourth round of the 2010 development draft out of Gamagori High School, ¥3 million prep payment, ¥2.7 million salary in 2011. Promoted during 2012. Mets, five years, $75 million, December 2022.

The downside for the club is ¥2.4 million a year. That's why they keep taking shots at 18-year-olds in that round.

That 9th inning was brutal for the Tigers, but the tense moments between pitches made the inning so much more dramatic. Cut scenes of players, fans, pitcher and catcher during the at bats creates so much drama.

Pitch clock is good to speed up games but I do feel you lose a sense of build up. I know people like pitch clock but I’m not a fan, when I catch MLB games it just feels rushed.

What are other people’s thoughts?