This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
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Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
Well, this is as good a time as any as this evening (June 7) the Yokohama BayStars are the first team to take advantage of the new rules, playing Rodriguez in right, Young in center, and Gulan at
second[correction: third] - three suketto fielders.While I'd like to follow up with more details about the new rule, since Yokohama doesn't have any foreign pitchers registered at 1-gun right now, all I can really say is that this confirms that teams may now mix and match how they use foreign fielders and pitchers with more freedom, as opposed to two registered fielders and two registered pitchers with a maximum of three foreigners on the field at a time. Remember, though, that even under the old rules, Hiroshima had a foreign pitcher play first base last year while another was playing short (I think) and still another came in for one-point relief. While one of the registered pitchers was actually playing a position spot, he was still registered as a pitcher and there were only three foreign players on the field at the time.
Nonetheless, I'm sure that there will be a good write up about it in the paper tomorrow. (If I can find it somewhere after all of the silly World Cup hype.)
In regard to Young's debut, he grounded out his first at bat, then hit a long fly ball his second. We're in the sixth inning as I write this, and Young just hit a line drive into the right field seats! Yokohama takes the lead 2-0! Yea!
By the way, thanks for the background on Young.