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random Kyojin foo (so I remember to go read up on it later)
The Yomiuri Giants' list of possible free agents:
P Kudoh Kimiyasu
IF Kiyohara Kazuhiro
IF Etoh Akira
IF Kokubo Hiroki
IF Nishi Toshihisa
OF Gotoh Koji
OF Tuffy Rhodes
OF Shimizu Takayuki
OF Ide Tatsuya
Hooooooly crap. I doubt most of them will leave the team (though Nishi and Shimizu have already posted for free agency, and I wouldn't be surprised if Kiyohara decides to retire in a year or three), but still, that's a scary list. The 7 best hitters on the Giants this year were Takahashi, Kokubo, Shimizu, Abe, Petagine, Nishi, and Rhodes... and 4 of those guys are up for free agency.
I guess the real big hole here would be if Nishi left. He's definitely an above-average second baseman by Japanese standards. Maybe the Mariners should pursue him if he wants to come to the MLB -- he might be an upgrade on Boone :) I suppose that either Motoki or Nioka could do a decent job as the starting 2B if it came down to it, though (but it's better with Motoki at 3rd, Nioka as SS, Nishi as 2B, and Kiyohara at 1B)
Still, a great amount of the runs produced by the Kyojin as a whole this year were by Rhodes and Kokubo. Losing them from the lineup would hurt a great deal as well.
Especially since the team currently has very little in the way of pitching aside from maybe Koji Uehara. Ugh.
Hey, maybe Ide will go back to the Fighters. Ha.
(On another note, I saw in the possible FA list people like Atsuya Furuta and Yukio Tanaka. Why do they even bother listing -- someone who's spent 18 years with a team isn't going to leave them now, y'know?)
P Kudoh Kimiyasu
IF Kiyohara Kazuhiro
IF Etoh Akira
IF Kokubo Hiroki
IF Nishi Toshihisa
OF Gotoh Koji
OF Tuffy Rhodes
OF Shimizu Takayuki
OF Ide Tatsuya
Hooooooly crap. I doubt most of them will leave the team (though Nishi and Shimizu have already posted for free agency, and I wouldn't be surprised if Kiyohara decides to retire in a year or three), but still, that's a scary list. The 7 best hitters on the Giants this year were Takahashi, Kokubo, Shimizu, Abe, Petagine, Nishi, and Rhodes... and 4 of those guys are up for free agency.
I guess the real big hole here would be if Nishi left. He's definitely an above-average second baseman by Japanese standards. Maybe the Mariners should pursue him if he wants to come to the MLB -- he might be an upgrade on Boone :) I suppose that either Motoki or Nioka could do a decent job as the starting 2B if it came down to it, though (but it's better with Motoki at 3rd, Nioka as SS, Nishi as 2B, and Kiyohara at 1B)
Still, a great amount of the runs produced by the Kyojin as a whole this year were by Rhodes and Kokubo. Losing them from the lineup would hurt a great deal as well.
Especially since the team currently has very little in the way of pitching aside from maybe Koji Uehara. Ugh.
Hey, maybe Ide will go back to the Fighters. Ha.
(On another note, I saw in the possible FA list people like Atsuya Furuta and Yukio Tanaka. Why do they even bother listing -- someone who's spent 18 years with a team isn't going to leave them now, y'know?)
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Actually, that's not true. As I said, Yukio Tanaka is up for free agency, but he's been on the team for 18 years and is more likely to retire than ever leave. Narahara and Kaneko being up is a little more interesting. Narahara is more likely to retire in a few years rather than go the FA route as well, though. It'll be interesting to see what Kaneko does, if anything. He's a decent shortstop and not too bad with a bat, and only 28 years old. I'd hope he stays with the Fighters. Ueda's been a decent backup outfielder the last few years but hasn't actually had a major role on the team in quite a while, especially since they got Tsuboi and Shinjo.
But overall, the thing is, this is like if the Phillies had one or two random infielders and benchwarmers up for FA, but the Yankees had their entire starting lineup ready to split. Actually, it's more akin to the Red Sox, who are going to have a surprising number of FA's coming out of that world series team...