Welcome to 2020, a new decade and a brand new beginning for Hanshin Tigers baseball! The team has had a busy offseason, and while H-TEN has been reporting most of the moves as they happened, perhaps you were taking your annual hiatus from baseball to pursue other things. We don’t blame you.
Still, you deserve a quick briefing on who left in 2019, and who has joined in 2020. Here’s a table for quick-and-easy reference. Click on the players’ names for links to articles.
| Gone in 2019 | New in 2020 |
|---|---|
| Takashi Toritani (38, SS) - Released | Junya Nishi (18, SP) - Draft 1 |
| Yosuke Okamoto (34, RP) - Released | Kota Inoue (18, OF) - Draft 2 |
| Hiroaki Saiuchi (26, RP) - Released | Masaki Oyokawa (18, SP) - Draft 3 |
| Shinji Komiyama (34, C) - Released | Jo Endoh (18, IF) - Draft 4 |
| Yuto Morikoshi (31, IF) - Released | Kento Fujita (18, C) - Draft 5 |
| Noriharu Yamazaki (33, IF) - Released | Ippei Ogawa (22, RP) - Draft 6 |
| Yangervis Solarte (32, IF) - Released | Dan Onodera (22, OF) - Dev Draft 1 |
| Efren Navarro (33, 1B) - Released | Kota Okuyama (22, OF) - Dev Draft 2 |
| Pierce Johnson (28, RP) - Released | Justin Bour (31, 1B) - Free Agent: Angels |
| Rafael Dolis (31, RP) - Released | Jerry Sands (32, OF) - Free Agent: KBO |
| Shintaro Yokota (24, OF) - Retired | Robert Suarez (28, RP) - Free Agent: Hawks |
| Akifumi Takahashi (36, RP) - Retired | Joe Gunkel (28, SP) - Free Agent: Marlins |
| Randy Messenger (38, SP) - Retired | Jon Edwards (32, RP) - Free Agent: Indians |
| Kenichi Nakata (37, SP) - Trade: Hawks |
We failed to report on Kenichi Nakata, who joined the roster at the end of 2019. He was basically given to us by the pitcher-rich SoftBank Hawks, who did not have room for him in 2019. Still, instead of forcing him into retirement, they did him right by finding him a new home. Nakata has always been good against Hanshin, and led the Western League (farm) in ERA in 2019. Whether or not he has anything left in the tank remains to be seen, but his maturity and experience will help our farm pitchers some even if he never gets a Koshien mound in 2020.
The cuts who do not have links were pretty easy to predict – none played very many minutes on the top squad last year, or even the year before in most cases. You gotta make roster room for the new draftees, after all.
Speaking of which, in case you missed the draft, here is our report. Then there’s the boys’ first press conference. Also, we put up a decade’s worth of drafts plus some analysis. Lastly, check out the complete 2020 roster if you want to jog your memory about who’s still around.
OK, that should tide you over until the arrival of the new imports later this month, at which point we will translate all their press conferences for you.
Happy January, everyone!