NPB Starters Announced

Also the head coaches will be:

Pacific League: Tsutomu Itoh (Seibu)
Central League: Hiromitsu Ochiai (Chunichi)

Other coaches (from 2nd and 3rd place teams):

Pacific League: Bobby Valentine (Chiba Lotte), Trey Hillman (Nippon Ham)
Central League: Tsutomu Wakamatsu (Yakult), Tsuneo Horiuchi (Yomiuri)

Sanyo All Star English Site

This list is kind of a joke as far as the Central goes. Kiyohara and the Hanshin Tigers. The one Tiger that gets snubbed is hitting .306 (Sheets) while Hiyama and his whopping stats are picked over Tamura of the BayStars who has done nothing but hit 20 plus home runs and put up a .330+ average for most of the season. Isobe and his 18 saves count for nothing. Yakult has won with no talent?

Hanshin is having a good season and if they had 6 or 7 I'd begrudgingly accept it. But this list is a joke. Fujimoto? Really?

And why is Kiyohara soooooooo popular? I didn't get a chance to see him when he was great, so I don't know what the buzz is about him, but he's really done little this year.

Please fill me in on this.

I meant Iwase not Isobe of my friggin' team. Kroon has made a case to start the All-Stars, too.

What the? The Central League is all Tigers except two Giants players. Shouldn't they at least include one player from each team that is doing good?

- Shouldn't they at least include one player from each team that is doing good?

The fans voted for Tigers players, so regardless of if we like the fact or not, this is what the fans wanted.

The head coaches will nominate more players at a future date. There are 17 players to be nominated by the CL coachs and 16 by the PL coachs. [More Info - Sanyo All-Star site]

Also, I agree there were a couple players snubbed of All-Star selections, like Andy Sheets, Kenshin Kawakami, Daisuke Matsunaka, and Hirotoshi Ishii. I voted for all of them, but they didn't make it.

Wow. That's 9 tigers out of 11 players for the Central League. That's rather ... amazing. >__<

It might be a joke (and it is), but that's how the voting process turned out. Maybe after this debacle, NPB might consider putting a limit on how many starters can be put on the lineup from one team. But that's just me.

Good call badteacher. Although I'm a one-eyed Tigers fan, the results are unfortunate for many deserving players. Tamura is probably the hardest done by being a possible triple crown contender, Hiyama's inclusion is baffling, and Kiyohara's selection is a vote for yesterdays' hero. The guy is a shadow of his former self.

I guess when you leave it up to the fans, this is what you get.

Actually, it's not amazing at all - this always happens when the Tigers are playing well. There are lots of loyal Tigers fans out there. They vote early and often.

The final vote announcement will be on July 7th. Hopefully by that time there will be some changes.

Tigers fans really love Hiyama and will vote in massive numbers for him. Both he and Fujimoto don't really deserve a place in the team. However, it will be the coaches' picks that are the more influential.

- However, it will be the coaches' picks that are the more influential.

I agree. This sort of thing happens every year, but they always manage to field a well balanced team. Remember, too that there are two All Star games this year - in past years they've sometimes had three. So it's not as if they'll have all the Tigers players on the field at the same time.

Man, that is insane. I'm all for supporting your team, but voting for Hiyama and Fujimoto? Wow.

As for the CL results - how crushingly dull. A genuine all-star team, with every team reperesented, is a truly exciting thing. Hanshin plus 2 Giants is not.

But I guess that's what happens with a fan/open voting system. People collectively tend to make poor judgements (see music award fan voting, etc., etc.). I guess I should just be thankful that it's not Yomiuri plus 2.

Plus, anyone else think that the all-star games have lost a little of their sparkle this year? Due to the start of inter-league play, we've all had a chance to see the players and stars of every team in NPB, making the all-star games a bit of an unneccessary extra.

Here are the final results:

Central League
SP-Hiroki Kuroda-Hiroshima
LR-Kyuji Fujikawa-Hanshin
CP-Ryota Igarashi-Yakult
C-Atsuya Furuta-Yakult
1B-Kazuhiro Kioyhara-Yomiuri
2B-Atsushi Fujimoto-Hanshin
3B-Makoto Imaoka-Hanshin
SS-Takashi Toritani-Hanshin
OF's-Norihiro Akahoshi-Hanshin,Tomoaki Kanemoto-Hanshin,Tomonori Maeda-Hiroshima

Pacific League
SP-Daisuke Matsuzuka-Seibu
LR-Yasuhiro Yabuta-Chiba Lotte
CP-Masahide Kobayashi-Chiba Lotte
C-Kenji Johjima-Softbank
1B-Nobuhiko Matsunaka-Softbank
2B-Tsuyoshi Nishioka-Chiba Lotte
3B-Michihiro Ogasawara-Nippon Ham
SS-Muneori Kawasaki-Softbank
OF's-Tsuyoshi Shinjo-Nippon Ham,Kohchi Isobe-Rakuten,Kazuhiro Wada-Seibu
DH-Julio Zuleta-Softbank

Source: Sanyo All Star Games Final Results - in English

The reserves for each league have been announced:

Central League
P-Kenshin Kawakami-Chunichi
P-Hitoki Iwase-Chunichi
P-Syuugo Fjii-Yakult
P-Koji Uehara-Yomiuri
P-Kimiyasu Kudoh-Yomiuri
P-Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi-Hanshin
P-Marc Kroon-Yokohama
C's-Motonobu Tanishige-Chunichi,Akihiro Yano-Hanshin
IF's-Masahiro Araki-Chunichi,Hirokazu Ibata-Chunichi, Akinori Iwamura-Yakult,Takahiro Arai-Hiroshima,Hitoshi Taneda-Yokohama
OF's-Noritika Aoka-Yakult,Tatsuhiko Kinjoh-Yokohama

Pacific League
P-Fumiya Nishiguchi-Seibu
P-Kazuyuki Hoashi-Seibu
P-Shintaro Yoshitake-Softbank
P-Toshiya Sogiuchi-Softbank
P-Satoru Kanemura-Nippon Ham
P-Naoyuki Shimizu-Chiba Lotte
P-Shunsuke Watanabe-Chiba Lotte
P-Hiroyuki Kobayashi-Chiba Lotte
C-Tomoya Satozaki-Chiba Lotte
IF's-Yoshihito Ishii-Seibu,Kuniyuki Kimoto-Nippon Ham,Matt Franco-Chiba Lotte,Kazuya Fukuura-Chiba Lotte, Seung-Yeop Lee-Chiba Lotte, Keiichi Hirano-Orix
OF-Katsuhiko Miyaji-Softbank

http://allstar.sanyo.co.jp/rosters/index_e.html

Well, at least Furuta and Maeda snuck onto the CL team but this year's team just shows how much fan support Hanshin has, and that's about it, although the Tigers do have an excellent team..

And I'd much rather see many meaningful interleague games than two meaningless all star exhibitions, so I'm pretty happy about the all star games losing their lustre..

- And I'd much rather see many meaningful interleague games than two meaningless all star exhibitions, so I'm pretty happy about the all star games losing their lustre.

I was hoping to go through and compare how many invalid Pacific League votes there were this year compared to past years to see if inter-league play helped education the Central League masses about the quality of players in the Pacific League. To me, if it's given those Giants focused fans a glimps into Pro Yakyu they don't normally see, then inter-league was more than successful.