The Atlanta Braves scouting program has produced another international signing from Japan, though this Japanese pitcher is still just a teenager. From the Daily Yomiuri Online:
The Atlanta Braves announced the signing of 18-year-old right-hander Yoshinori Yamarin to a minor league deal on Monday.
The 1.86-meter [aprrox. 6 feet, 1 inches tall], 85-kilogram [187 pound] hurler out of Nissei Gakuen Daisan high school in Hyogo Prefecture, drew attention from the team despite never having appeared in high school tournaments at Koshien Stadium.
The Braves announced the signing and introduced Yamarin at a press conference in Osaka, where the pitcher said he has lofty goals.
"I want to become the kind of pitcher who can throw alongside [Kenshin] Kawakami," an all-star right-hander from the Chunichi Dragons whom Atlanta signed as a free agent earlier this month.
"I always feel like I want to be the best at whatever I do, and I wanted to play baseball where the sport was born."
Yamarin is scheduled to join the Braves instructional league in Australia following his June graduation.
Keep 'em coming. It's not the right reaction to get excited about every one of these types of signings, but the more of these types of guys we sign, the higher the liklihood that one will develop and help the major league club.
0 recs | 27 comments
Hopefully now that we have a couple of Japanese guys in our system it will inspire other Japanese talent to join the Braves orginization.
Fischerking - January 26, 2009
Let the flood gates open
The more areas we have to mine for pitching the greater the chance some will be solid MLBers, like gondeee mentioned. If Japan can produce for us the way Latin America can we can count ourselves lucky. Not every team has successful international scouting and recruiting.
bbxxj - January 26, 2009
Looking good
bbxxj - January 26, 2009
in this picture...
…he sort of looks like a ventriloquist dummy….
sddbaker - January 26, 2009
LOL
He does.
nick9314 - January 26, 2009
+1
Smoltz's Beard - January 26, 2009
+1
why is there some guys hand on the back of his head
SayHeyWerd - January 27, 2009
Maybe that’s the way of saying “Welcome to the club!” in Japan.
Fischerking - January 27, 2009
Here's another photo...
with scout Hiroyuki Oya.
This article says Brave won bidding over Twins for this kid…
BTW Japanese school system (and most of business) annually starts on April 1st and his graduation is in February. In between he will train in Osaka until June.
dragonsfanatic - January 26, 2009
Was this signing similar to the Red Sox’ signing of Yu Darvish (in essence breaking the gentleman’s agreement by signing Japanese high schoolers to minor league contracts)?
mattdiaz4life - January 26, 2009
It was not Yu Darvish that was signed by the Red Sox. Darvish is an ace starter in the Japanese Pro league. He is not a high schooler signed to a minor league contract.
Dutch Braves Fan - January 26, 2009
My fault. I meant Junichi Tazawa. Definitely should have fact-checked before I blindly posted that question.
mattdiaz4life - January 26, 2009
YOSHIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!
aka…yummy yama
bwellnjonesco - January 26, 2009
This guy looks ridiculous.
mvandonsel - January 26, 2009
Ooooh, young guy. Thats gonna piss the Nippon guys off.
bigjoe - January 26, 2009
Yamrin applied...
…for NPB draft back in Nov (all students have to send application if they want to go to pro), but no club picked him up. He also went to a couple of tryouts but finally failed. Don’t know exact reasons why…
dragonsfanatic - January 26, 2009
I'm curious
Do teams in Japan routinely draft high school players? If so, is it similar to MLB teams targeting HS kids to fill their minors? Sorry, I’m way behind the curve on Japanese baseball culture.
scstrato - January 26, 2009
Yeah, they draft high school players in Japan
There is a minor league system, though each pro team only has one affiliate club, and there are college leagues and corporate leagues (like Tazawa, who just signed with the Red Sox played in) that players can go to after high school, they’re a pretty big deal, but not as big as high school or pro ball.
Their draft is really different though. IIRC, each team basically picks who they want without picking in any order (in the first round), and then a sort of lottery is used if more than one team picks a particular player, with the teams that miss out then picking someone else, and the process continuing. Once they get into the 2nd or 3rd round they start picking in a set order. And the draft basically keeps going until nobody wants to make anymore picks.
High School baseball is a really big deal in Japan, it’s more like the way we look at College Football or Basketball, with the private schools often heavily recruiting star players away from the public schools and the Tournaments receiving a huge amount of attention on television and in the press.
Lennox - January 27, 2009
Anbody know anything about him, like what he throws, and how hard he throws.
Falconzfan284 - January 26, 2009
Another article stated he had a 92MPH fastball and good projectability.
bbxxj - January 26, 2009
I expect him, Hayward, Shaffer, and Tehrane to get us the World Sereis in 2009..
TradeAndruw - January 26, 2009
dude u spelled Series wrong
Swo12bv - January 26, 2009
fatazfoot?
Smoltz's Beard - January 27, 2009
Don't forget Spruill and DeVall
buzzdeadwax - January 27, 2009
You typoed real bad there…Its obviously Sprul (KRISS SPRULES!?!?) and DeVal.
bigjoe - January 27, 2009
Devil?
Swo12bv - January 27, 2009
Krull?
That movie was cool.
buzzdeadwax - January 27, 2009
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