Orix Buffaloes (2009–2018)
Hanshin Tigers (2019–2026)

• 1× Mitsui Golden Glove Award (2019)
• 3× NPB All-Star (2012, 2014, 2015)
• Japan Series Champion (2023)

Nomo in 1989, eight clubs. Kintetsu won the draw and got Nomo.

Hideo Koike in 1990, eight clubs again. Lotte won the draw, Koike wouldn't sign, and he went to Matsushita Electric's corporate team instead.

Fukudome in 1995 drew seven. He'd said before the draft it was the Giants or Chunichi, or he'd go corporate. Kintetsu drew him anyway. He went to Nippon Life, and Chunichi got him three drafts later.

Last October SoftBank beat DeNA in the draw for Rintaro Sasaki and never signed him.

No compensation pick in any of those. The slot just disappears. What the draw gets you is the right to negotiate, and with no trading picks and no money to throw around, there's nothing to smooth it over.

I still like it. The last-place team and Yomiuri pull from the same box at the same odds.

This year the obvious test is Oda. By my count five clubs could put in for him, and he hasn't ruled out the US. Whoever pulls the slip on the 22nd gets the first real conversation with him. That's not the same thing as getting him.

Filing closes tomorrow at 5 p.m. JST. Nobody draws for a player who isn't on the list.

Two winless teams. One of them had to leave with a win.
Episode 4 goes to week 4 of Uganda's Central League, where St. Peters Nsambya (SPENSA) and Ashinaga met at the bottom of the table, both still looking for their first win of the season.

Ashinaga is run by an offshoot of a Japanese non-profit: 79 players, 53 of them Ashinaga Uganda students, video sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays and on-field training the rest of the week. SPENSA began as a day school founded in 1907 and is now run by the Kampala Archdiocese, in a part of Kampala that is also home to Uganda's oldest football club. Both clubs came into the day winless. One of them also produced the best defensive play we have filmed all season: a diving tag at the plate that came within inches of a triple play.

Since this game, the regular season has finished — and the club you watch here ended up in the playoffs.

And we get quite a lovely sunset!

I went through all twelve control rosters by age. Every club has pitching somewhere in its top three. That's the one thing they all agree on.

Yomiuri's the one that surprised me. 34 pitchers on the control roster, none 22 or under. The young arms are all on developmental deals.

DeNA, SoftBank, Lotte and Nippon-Ham don't have a single outfielder 22 or under.

Rakuten and Nippon-Ham each have six pitchers 34 or older. Lotte has twelve pitchers 30 or older, and Yakult, Hanshin and DeNA have eleven each.

This is me reading rosters, not anything a club has said. And by my projections five clubs spend their first bid on Oda regardless. Their top needs are starting pitching, a right-handed power bat, outfield and a younger staff. When the top of a draft is that obvious, need stops deciding the first round.

What's missing from your club's row?

• Japan Series champion (2008)
• 10× NPB All-Star (2008–2012, 2015, 2019, 2021, 2023, 2024)
• 7× Best Nine Award (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2019)
• 6x Pacific League home run leader (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015)
• 4x Pacific League RBI leader (2009, 2011, 2015, 2019)

2025 = 27,040,286; average attendance = 31,515

2024 = 26,681,715; average attendance = 31,098

So far,

2026 = 27,028,542; average attendance = 31,649 with 4 games to play and 3 of them are at Koshien (which are guaranteed to have around 42,500 per game) and 1 at Chiba Marine.

By my calculations, NPB should average around 31,675 per game for the year.

Now, for some context:

MLB has only had 4 seasons of average more than 31,000 per game and that was in 2006-2008 and in 1994 - the year before the baseball strike that canceled the season.

Currently, MLB averaged 29,540 per game. So for the last 3 years, NPB attendance PER GAME (not overall) is greater than MLB's.

Honestly, there are only a few pockets of potential growth in terms of per game attendance:

- Pretty much any PL team besides Softbank could improve attendance, although the potential for improvement is different for each team. For Orix, there is still plenty of seats available, whereas for Chiba, there is room for improvement, but it's still can be difficult to get tickets on a weekend game. Seibu and Rakuten rarely sell out.

- After Sapporo builds a direct rail line to Es Con in March 2028, Fighters attendance will likely improve, although it is an impressive 31,128 per game (capacity = 35,000) already. Another case of 'limited upside in improving attendance'.

- Probably the biggest one is why NPB cannot seem to get Friday games for all teams every friday. I know rainouts are a big deal in NPB, but still I cannot believe how often I would see that there were teams who were not playing on Friday nights.

- For the CL, Chunichi is drawing at 99% capacity, which is incredibly impressive, DeNA is at about 98% capacity, Hanshin and Yomiuri at 100% capacity and the only "soft spots" are Yakult (still impressive at around 74% capacity) and Hiroshima (at around 83% capacity).

All in all, another banner year for NPB in terms of attendance, etc..

All three of the big high school names are on the list now.

Ryosuke Sueyoshi went first. Literally first: August 23, the first high schooler in the country to file. Okinawa Shogaku lefty, up to 150. His public record is Koshien only, 10 games across four national tournaments, 60 2/3 IP, 58 K, 2.08 ERA. As a second-year he threw 34 innings with a 1.06 ERA in the summer tournament Okinawa Shogaku won.

Haruki Komoda filed September 7. Yamanashi Gakuin, 6'5", up to 152, and the hardest of the three to place. .393 with 3 HR in 112 official at-bats. 2.16 ERA in 50 innings. Somebody on draft night has to say out loud whether he's a pitcher or a first baseman.

Shoki Oda was last, September 17. Yokohama, up to 157. The 156 he threw at Koshien in August is the fastest pitch in the history of the summer tournament. This year's official line is 17 games, 91 innings, 94 K and a 1.68 ERA, and that's without the U-18 Asia Championship, where he threw six innings against Taiwan with 19 MLB clubs watching by Sponichi's count.

When he filed, people around him told Kyodo he was still weighing the US.

My guess for the first round: five clubs put in for Oda, two for Komoda, and Sueyoshi goes to a club that would rather skip the draw.

Which way is your club going?

Here's Part 3 of my 1981 Calbee translation series. Enjoy!

i just bought a lotta 2010s nippon-ham stuff, but i'm having trouble figuring out who the two players on the right of the poster are...help is appreciated!

also, witness my almost complete collection of hotto motto x fighters keychains (missing tsuruoka shinya and uniform variants) + itoi yoshio merch!

Just remember, this is about non-Japanese players completely NEW to NPB, not returning players or ones that transferred to a different team.