Articles tagged with scouting

Who Built Hanshin's 2020 "Divine Draft" - The Scouts Behind Each Pick and the Manager Who Pushed for the Late Rounds

A look at the nine players Hanshin selected at the October 26, 2020 draft, through their scouts and the words of manager Akihiro Yano. Under chief scout Shunji Hatayama, area scouts covered their own players, and the manager pushed for the fifth, sixth and eighth rounds. Counting titles together with MVP and Rookie of the Year awards, Shoki Murakami and Takumu Nakano won eight between them from 2021 to 2025.

Teams Estimated reading time: 6 min

The 1981 Draft: Yomiuri Picked Tadaaki Yoshimura After He Chose College - The Same Playbook Four Years Before Kuwata

At the 1981 draft Yomiuri took PL Gakuen captain Tadaaki Yoshimura in the third round although he had announced he would attend Hosei University, and after direct talks he signed. Using the scout's own testimony and contemporary reports, this article traces why Yomiuri made the pick, how the talks went, why it was the same pattern as Masumi Kuwata four years later, and how the 2004 pro declaration form shut that pattern down.

Controversies Estimated reading time: 6 min

Deepening Cooperation with Taiwan's CPBL - The New Asian Baseball Currents NPB Is Opening

Cooperation between Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) and NPB has deepened year by year, spanning bidirectional player transfers, joint training camps, development partnerships, and complex rivalry-cooperation in international tournaments. Players such as Wang Po-Jung and Chen-Ming Yang have moved from CPBL to NPB, and NPB-to-CPBL transfers are rising. As a new current in Asian baseball, we explain the meaning and outlook of the deepening NPB-CPBL relationship.

International Estimated reading time: 2 min