Braves, Mariners to make moves for fastballer Tazawa

Sunday 02nd November, 04:43 AM JST

TOKYO —

The Atlanta Braves and Seattle Mariners will contact people close to highly touted amateur fastballer Junichi Tazawa on Tuesday, baseball sources said Saturday. The Braves and Mariners are the first major league clubs to make business moves with an eye on acquiring the player of the Nippon Oil corporate team after Japanese baseball’s amateur draft held last Thursday.

Nippon Oil manager Hideaki Okubo is expected to handle the visits of officials from the two clubs. Tazawa is making preparation for the national championship beginning on Nov 13 and is unlikely to attend the meetings. In September, Tazawa made clear his intention to ply his trade in the major leagues and asked all 12 Japanese professional clubs not to name the 22-year-old in the amateur draft. His move has prompted baseball officials to change regulations in order to help prevent further outflows of top amateur prospects from the country by bypassing Japan’s pro leagues.

› Login to comment

9 Comments

LittleConcerned at 08:34 AM JST - 2nd November

Hope the lad does well, just so a media dilemma ensues. I mean are they gonna broadcast his every hit, base-steal and crotch-scratch, and remind everyone back in the land of second-best of his snub at inferior baseball?
hoserfella at 09:28 AM JST - 2nd November

what genius came up with "fastballer"? Some cricket fan who got stuck covering baseball?
Chessnutroastin at 10:40 AM JST - 2nd November

This "fastballer" better have a decent curve and either a slider or change up if he doesn't plan on getting shelled in AA ball here.
timorborder at 11:24 AM JST - 2nd November

Might want to define "fastball." There are differences between "fastball" (150km) and "fastball" (Nolan Ryan).
northlondon at 01:47 PM JST - 2nd November

This "fastballer" better have a decent curve and either a slider or change up if he doesn't plan on getting shelled in AA ball here.

Yep. Because all those Dominicans and Cubans dominate the American pro baseball leagues (I guess you meant the Major Leagues when you said 'here')..
northlondon at 01:51 PM JST - 2nd November

21-year-old Joel Zumaya for his Major League debut in a one-run game. What seemed like a major test for a young fastballer actually had reasoning behind it,

Jason Beck, a journalist for MLB.com, referring to the expression, 'fastballer'.
northlondon at 01:55 PM JST - 2nd November

Capellan, a 24-year-old fastballer, was acquired Dec. 11 after a rapid rise through the Braves' system.

espn.com (an American sports news corporation I believe), using the expression 'fastballer' in a report.
northlondon at 01:58 PM JST - 2nd November

what genius came up with "fastballer"? Some cricket fan who got stuck covering baseball?

Your predjudices against anything not American being associated with baseball, are as bad as the predjudices of Nippon Baseball and their over-protectionism of any decent Japanese player wanting to ply his trade abroad.
pathat at 05:57 PM JST - 2nd November

His move has prompted baseball officials to change regulations in order to help prevent further outflows of top amateur prospects from the country by bypassing Japan’s pro leagues.

The changes made will not stop amateurs from bypassing the NPB draft. All that NPB officials have done is put into place rules that will punish those who do so by preventing them from playing for a certain amount of years in NPB if they return from the U.S. If someone like Mac Suzuki or Kazuhito Tadano runs into the same situation in the future, there will be other options like playing in Taiwan or Korea.

What I have seen of Tazawa gives me the impression that he is a pretty good prospect, but he has a lot of development in front of him to truly make it in the big leagues. Mac Suzuki and Kazuhito Tadano got cups of coffee in MLB, but they were not good enough to establish themselves.

We'll see about Tazawa. He does not throw consistently as hard as the Japanese sports dailies would have you believe. I think his stuff is above-average as a prospect at this point, but I don't think he's that good.