Translators for Foreign Players

In the MLB, Japanese translators are part of individual players' contract. In the NPB, teams directly hire translators outside of individual players' contract. The language translated to may not be the first language of those players (e.g. Japanese to English for Spanish speaking players).

I'm guessing someone else has answered this already and it's in the queue, but yes, there are tons of translators/interpreters working for the teams in Japan to support the foreign players. It's usually Japanese<->English, but teams like Chunichi often have Japanese<->Spanish translators as well -- Tony Blanco, for example, always does his hero interviews in Spanish. I know the Giants also had a Japanese<->Spanish translator, but right now I'm blanking on who it was for.

However, I have to admit I'm not sure whether it's a one-to-one translator-to-player thing or if there's just one or two guys assigned to work with all of the foreign players. The Fighters, for example, often have translators hanging out with the ni-gun team as well... and a few weeks ago YakyuBaka translated an article about how the Hanshin Tigers pretty much set up someone to be 24-hour translation support for the foreign players and their families.

However, a counterpoint to Guillen is that there are Latin players who have translators in the big leagues. I remember when Felix Hernandez first came up with the Mariners, he always had a translator with him at fan events, although that stopped after a year or two when he became more comfortable in English.

(...of course, before that, the Mariners had pitcher Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who was infamous for pretty much being a translator himself...)

NPB teams assign translators to foreign players. Often, the translators are office workers pulled from the the team's "parent" corporation.

NPB teams provide translators who often come from within the workforce of each team's 'parent' company.

And I believe that Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean players who had to work their way up from the minors to reach MLB usually don't have translators. Gotta compare apples to apples.