Lotte to Purchase Shikoku IL Team

Awesome. I like.

Interesting, the NPB has long been overdue for extra minor leagues for player development and it looks like Chiba Lotte has taken the lead in that category.

Where this helps is that they're able to develop more players for the top-team, further develop catchers and pitchers (which was a problem with the one minor league setup), and they have the ability to create more room for player development. Also it's nice to know that Valentine has ownership on his side in this measure.

Also, I've read this report [Japan Ball] that says the Marines plan on acquiring 30 players in the upcoming amateur draft, and have at least 20 sent to the newly acquired independent league.

Furthermore, it also says that the new move is likely to catch opposition from others in NPB, since from what it says poses a threat to other teams as an alternate route to the majors and leaves a shortage of other players in corporate leagues.

Kazuo Hasegawa, executive director for the NPB commissioner's office, had this to say about the purchase:

"If one of the pro clubs is investing in a particular team, the fairness of the draft might be called into question."

Hasegawa continued on by saying:

"Getting approval of the other pro baseball teams and having a good explanation for the corporate league will be necessary for the process."

It already seems the fire has been lit around NPB by Lotte's acquisition of a IL team. Though, this is largely an excuse by the rest of NPB to just continue down the same old path they always do, i.e. Watanabe.

Why the rest of NPB hasn't caught on to further minor league development with extra leagues is one of the biggest puzzlers to me. With more leagues, you can sign more players and develop them. You have a better chance of discovering a player who can help the parent team down the road, because there's a better chance you can discover such a player. Also, it means you can expand the draft to sign more players and include more rounds (which is what NPB needs to do next) because as currently is, the current status quo is anti-development. Ultimately it's to the benefit of all of NPB, now only if the rest figure that out.

- Why the rest of NPB hasn't caught on to further minor league development with extra leagues is one of the biggest puzzlers to me. With more leagues, you can sign more players and develop them. [...] the current status quo is anti-development. Ultimately it's to the benefit of all of NPB, now only if the rest figure that out.

Blame this on a management which isn't really interested in baseball as a sport but as a brand recognition aid. Add to that coaches who are so conservative that fire is a dangerous innovation and it becomes clear that it would take an outsider (Valentine) to come up with such an idea.

At the moment developing minor league teams and extra leagues does not fit the business model of most teams. Furthermore, I suspect that none of them have the faintest idea how to go about it.