Japan & US farm teams
1. the people there are far away from big cities to entertain themselves. Thus, they watch minor league baseball games.
2. A number of other fans feel disgusted by the greed of the owners or MLB players. The players look as if they are lazy. This is also why collegiate baseball is increasing in attendance. (But also the colleges are installing lights for night games. Stanford increased its attendance by 5% simply by adding night lights. University of California, Berkeley still has sparse attendance since its ballpark STILL does NOT have night lights.)
What about how the farm teams relate to the big leagues? I notice that the US' farm teams are independent, in that MLB teams have to buy the contract of a farm player. It seems to me that (in theory, anyway) this would be more conductive to competitiveness in players, therefore more entertaining, and therefore a marketable product in itself.
Putting aside the economic recession, and the fact that many corporations are getting rid of their sports teams, would Japan's farm leagues not benefit from being independent from the NPB? If, for instance, the Hanshin Tigers' 2-gun team was the Nishinomiya Cubs, and could market themselves by themselves, and could earn extra cash by "selling" their best players to Hanshin, wouldn't that be better for all concerned?
Hanshin wouldn't be "obliged" to take anyone they didn't want, and the players they did acquire would be more competitive; and the farm team would be compensated for losing their star players.
Even with my non-baseball background, it seems pretty clear to me; I wonder if it would work.
As for selling good players and getting top quality minor leaguers as compensation, this transaction will help in the short run. Repeating this transaction simply for profit will result in a Montreal Expos type of team: always producing good players but NEVER winning a championship and NEVER breaking attendance records.
> minor leaguers as compensation, this transaction will
> help in the short run. Repeating this transaction
> simply for profit will result in a Montreal Expos
> type of team: always producing good players but NEVER
> winning a championship and NEVER breaking attendance
> records.
I heard a rumour that the Expos are being sent to Puerto Rico or somewhere like that! Could that possibly be true?!
Anyway, I see your point, WhiteElephant-san. As the goal of any team should be to get the best players it can and win the league, one would assume that those transactions would only be used until the team got a decent roster of players, i.e., short term (perhaps that's a mite idealistic, though).
Either way, Japan's second-tier soccer league, J2, is very popular and is featured on the nightly TV sports news programmes, and it seems to me that Japan's baseball farm teams could be just as popular.
Would independent, perhaps regionally-based teams not be viable?
- To be an extended bench to replace players who aren't performing (or who need to be punished).
- For rehabilitation.
- For player development.
- To prevent other teams from getting stronger.
Yes, farm reform is one of the big things that needs to be addressed.
Yokohama, a number of years ago, renamed their farm team to the Shonan SeaRex. Other than Orix, who made a similar move, all 2-gun (pronounced like "knee goon" literally meaning "2nd troop") teams have the same names and uniforms as their top teams (1-gun - "ee-chee goon"). Their goal was to make their farm team more independent. They started off by creating a lot of comic characters to sell licensed goods for. Other than on Keihin Kyuko busses in the area, I haven't seen them marketed that much, but it is a start. The biggest positive impact that they've had has been getting games against Industrial League opponents granted.
The second major farm reform point that would need to be done is move the farm teams to rural areas. As it is, the farm teams are all located near to the top teams. This is used by the teams to let their young bench players get real playing time at 2-gun by day with the slim chance of being put in as a pinch hitter at 1-gun by night. But by having them so close, they can't compete for any kind of fan base whatsoever, as somebody else pointed out as being an advantage of many North American minor league teams.
In the Kanto area (Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama), the Giants, Yakult, Lotte, Nippon Ham, Yokohama (Shonan), and Seibu make up the Eastern League. Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama are essentially suburbs of Tokyo. And not only are these farm teams located in Kanto, but each of their 1-gun teams are as well. That's 12 teams in a single area the size of some Californian counties.
Related to this are the Industrial League teams throughout Japan. It is true that the recession is taking a toll on them. But of all places, ameteur baseball is very big in the Hokkaido and Tohoku (northern Honshu - the main island) areas. A friend wakes up a 5 a.m. in Hokkaido to play baseball before going to work. Now that's dedication! I wonder how attendence of ameteur ball will be effected when the Fighters move to Sapporo permanently.
Well, these are just a few observations of farm life in Japan. There is a great deal of potential, but I don't think that any of the team owners are willing to let the system change any time soon.
> team to the Shonan SeaRex. Other than Orix, who made
> a similar move [...]
Right. Orix became "Surpass" (promounced Surpass for some reason). That seemed to me to be the right thing to do, but I suppose it's a bit pointless when others don't follow the example.
> I don't think that any of the team owners are willing
> to let the system change any time soon.
That's a pity - it makes sense to me. Surely the teams would be attracted to the idea of not having to pay all those millions of yen to maintain unprofitable teams?
Ironically, while Hanshin were cellar dwellers every year between 1998-2001 and "improved" to 4th out of 6th this year, the 2-gun team has consistently won their league (including this season).
I had totally missed this one in Nikkan Sports as it was on the front page with more Matsui hype. (I'm getting to the point that if I see Matsui, I skip the article.)
At the owners' meeting in Nagoya on Friday (Sept. 8), the main topic was building a "dream team" to get the gold in baseball at Athens in 2004.
The above Daily Yomiuri article is kind of misleading. At least, I got a different meaning from it and the Nikkan Sports' article. Namely:
Japanese pro baseball owners agreed Friday to study a plan for setting up a second minor league to give more players a chance at gaining experience, while abandoning the current 70-man roster system.
What I took from that (probably influenced by some of the above posts) was that they were going to make a more competitive minor league system with a smaller rosters of reserved players. But Nikkan Sports reported Watanabe as saying,
In order to expand baseball's base, we must increse the number of players under our rule (control), or with the numerous industrial teams being abandoned, create some sort of orangization to absorb those people, or have ideas submitted to the Commissioner and both leagues' chairmen.
Was this the same quote that the Daily Yomiuri used? No, there was no mention of another minor league. Or is that what they interpreted the absorbing organization of being?
Nonetheless, they are trying to lock in even more players under a single team's control ("rule"). This does not look like the expanded minor leagues that we've been talking about here.
Do you have any data on the average number of players in Japan's industrial leagues who sign NPB contracts each year -- either in, or outside of, the draft? Is the steady reduction in the number of "Shakai Yakyu" teams (down from a high of 300 in the late 1980's to 1990) affecting this flow? Also with the new rule allowing professionals to coach in the industrial leagues, do you think the overall quality of players being produced there will improve substantially in the near future?
The NPB Commissioner's office likes to call the industrial leagues Japan's de facto farm system. How would you compare it to what exists in North America? Anyone else have any thoughts?
Bob Whiting
Another thing on my TODO list is to enter pre-pro histories for players. The biggest thing holding that up is not knowing how to read so many school names. But adding fields for entering via high school, university, shakai, KBO, MLB, etc. That should be somewhat doable (along with my ever growing list).
- Also with the new rule allowing professionals to coach in the industrial leagues, do you think the overall quality of players being produced there will improve substantially in the near future?
While looking for draft information, one of the first sites I checked was the Japan Amateur Baseball Association site (in Japanese), and on it they have a list of former professional players who registered in 2002 to with the JABA to play for and/or coach amateur teams.
But more than these players and coaches, Nagashima-zen-kantoku being put in charge of the 2004 Japan Olympic team will have the biggest impact on improving the amateur baseball. With Mister in the lime light, pro-amateur games are being recognized as a great way to help the Olympic bid. Amateurs training with professional team is but one inititive that is being proposed. In 2002 there were a large number of pro-am games (in Japanese - most, if not all, were 2-gun pro teams), and I expect that to increase this year.
- The NPB Commissioner's office likes to call the industrial leagues Japan's de facto farm system.
I hadn't heard that before, but it's a positive statement. Considering that the official NPB web site has links to JABA and university baseball web sites but not their own Players' Association site tells me that the Commissioners' Office considers the Industrial Leagues to be more important than their own players. (I have a tendency to read into what isn't said a lot.)
Nonetheless, I'm not familar enough with the Industrial Leagues nor North American minor league teams to make a qualified comparison. I'll stick with looking up data for the time being. (If I don't follow up by the end of the coming weekend, feel free to remind me.)
Sorry for the delay.
Year HS Univ. Indust. Other
1986 42 (60.0%) 11 (15.7%) 17 (24.3%) 0 (0.0%)
1987 42 (62.7%) 11 (16.4%) 13 (19.4%) 1 (1.5%)
1988 47 (67.1%) 6 ( 8.6%) 17 (24.3%) 0 (0.0%)
1989 37 (52.1%) 10 (14.1%) 23 (32.4%) 1 (1.4%)
1990 33 (45.8%) 18 (25.0%) 21 (29.2%) 0 (0.0%)
1991 31 (44.3%) 15 (21.4%) 21 (30.0%) 3 (4.3%)
1992 47 (51.1%) 19 (20.7%) 17 (18.5%) 9 (9.8%)
1993 33 (42.3%) 15 (19.2%) 29 (37.2%) 1 (1.3%)
1994 31 (48.4%) 13 (20.3%) 20 (31.3%) 0 (0.0%)
1995 28 (44.4%) 13 (20.6%) 21 (33.3%) 1 (1.6%)
1996 31 (45.6%) 17 (25.0%) 20 (29.4%) 0 (0.0%)
1997 23 (31.9%) 25 (34.7%) 23 (31.9%) 1 (1.4%)
1998 34 (43.0%) 19 (24.1%) 24 (30.4%) 2 (2.5%)
1999 30 (40.0%) 21 (28.0%) 20 (26.7%) 4 (5.3%)
2000 32 (42.1%) 19 (25.0%) 21 (27.6%) 4 (5.3%)
2001 35 (40.7%) 23 (26.7%) 24 (27.9%) 4 (4.7%)
2002 35 (40.2%) 24 (27.6%) 25 (28.7%) 3 (3.4%)
2003 36 (40.0%) 33 (36.7%) 18 (20.0%) 3 (3.3%)
=========== =========== =========== =========
627 (46.4%) 312 (23.1%) 374 (27.7%) 37 (2.7%)
The "Other" column is players who were "teamless" when they were drafted. Some were returnees to Japan from the Majors/Minors, others were Japanese from Taiwan or other international leagues.
The above data includes players who did not sign the first time they were drafted, so they may be included twice - once in high school, again in collage or the industrial leagues.
Hope this helps.
Bob W.
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I've attended farm games in Japan, but not in the US. The games I attended here were very sparsely attended. In fact, at Fujiidera Stadium, the Kintetsu Buffaloes' old stomping ground, only the seats behind the plate and above the dugouts are open: the outfield seats are all closed off. In fact, the relievers for both teams warmed up by playing catch-ball out in the bleachers!
But the games themselves were pretty good. So my question is this: why are Japan's Western and Eastern (farm) leagues languishing and under-promoted, while the US' lower-tier leagues seem to be thriving?