Update on North American Players in Japan, Part VII: “N”, “O” & “P”

Maximo Nelson, Chunichi Dragons.  What a great name!  Nelson is a 27 year old right-handed pitcher from the Dominican, who The Baseball Cube lists as having the improbable proportions of 6′5″ tall and 160 lbs, which was probably accurate when his professional career began many years ago.  He played briefly for the Yankee’s Gulf Coast League (a rookie league) in 2004, where he had a 2.63 ERA with 54 K’s and only 12 BB’s in 54.2 IP.

Nelson pitched in the Dominican Summer League in 2006, posting a 1.18 ERA in 36 IP.  In 2007, he played for the Modi’in Miracle in Israel’s professional baseball league, the Israel Baseball League, which played that one season (a 45-game schedule) and then closed down for financial reasons.  Nelson went 5-3 that year with a 3.55 ERA and lost the six-team league’s championship game to Rafael Bergstrom and the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox.  Former ‘69 Miracle Met Art Shamsky was the Miracles’ manager.

In 2008, Nelson found himself in Japan.  He apparently spent most of 2008 with the Dragons’ minor league team, as he appeared in only six games for the Dragons.  This year, after logging eleven innings with the minor league squad and posting a 1.64 ERA, he was called up to the Dragons apparently for good.  He’s now pitched in 15 games for the Dragons, has one save and has posted a respectable 3.62 with 29 K’s and 10 BB’s in 32.1 IP.

Wirfin Obispo, Yomiuri Giants.  Obispo is a 24 year old Dominican right-hander.  He had a fine season playing on the Reds’ Dominican Summer League team in 2006, going only 4-5, but posting a 2.04 ERA and recording 93 K’s while allowing only 47 hits and 18 walks in 79.1 IP.  The DSL must be an extreme pitchers’ league, because his 2.04 ERA was only good for about 30th in what appears to be a league of more than thirty teams, but his 93 K’s was good for second in the league that year.

Wirfin has apparently pitched in Japan the last three years, mostly at the minor league level.  He appeared in two games for the Yomiuri Giants in 2007, and has made six appearances for the Giants this year, with a 2.53 ERA and 11 K’s in 10.2 IP.  At the minor league level, he had a 1.33 ERA after 15 appearances with 31 K’s in 27 IP with only 16 hits and nine walks allowed.

Given his age, Obispo could have a long and successful career in Japan.

In recent years, the Japanese Leagues have been making a big effort to find and sign young Latin American players, who start at the Japanese minor league level.  These players are much cheaper than U.S. players (www.japanesebaseball.com says that Wirfin has been paid about $50,000 for each of the last three seasons, although he probably gets a bump in salary for time spent on Yomiuri’s major league roster), and so long as they are not playing in the U.S., there seems to be no gentlemen’s agreement to prevent them from being signed by Japanese organizations, even while they’re still young enough to be good prospects.  Needless to say, though, once they establish themselves as NPB stars, their salaries jump to the level of other foreign players.

Jose Ortiz, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.  Jose Ortiz is a 32 year old Dominican middle infielder who went to high school in Hayward, California and was drafted by the A’s.   He played in the A’s and Rockies’ organizations.  He is a player who appears to have just missed establishing himself as an MLB star.

In 2001, after playing poorly in a brief stint with the A’s, he was traded to the Rockies.  Playing his home games in Coors Field, he hit .255 with 13 HR’s in 204 AB’s, awfully good for a 24 year old 2Bman even with Coors Field taken into acccount.  In 2002, he hit .250 in 192 AB’s for the Rockies but his power disappeared, and he signed to play for the Orix BlueWave in Japan’s Pacific League for 2003.

Ortiz had a great year in Japan in ‘03.  He only hit .255, but he belted 33 HR’s, again awfully good for a middle infielder.  In 2004, his HR total dropped to 24, but his batting average jumped to .289.

However, Jose did not return to Japan for 2005.  This had a lot to do with the financial difficulties that Japan’s Pacific League teams were having then, and particularly the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes, who were purchased by the Orix Group and merged with the Orix Blue Wave to form the new Orix Buffaloes.

NPB briefly threatened to reduce the number of major league teams to 11, but after the Japanese players conducted their first ever (and only) players’ strike (lasting two days, Saturday and Sunday, September 18 and 19, 2004), the owners agreed to allow an expansion team to keep the Pacific League at six teams.

The new team was the Rakuten Golden Eagles.  Frankly, given the incredible good will, advertizing opportunities and publicity the Japanese major league teams generate, it’s hard to imagine that the owners really had any trouble finding a 12th Japanese corporation to underwrite an expansion team.

Jose made about $1M in each of 20o3 and 20o4, and this was too rich for the new Orix Buffaloes.  However, no other Japanese team picked him up either.

Jose was,  in a sense, a man without a country, at least in the professional sense, because the MLB organizations weren’t interested in him at age 28, and he ended up playing for the Lancaster Barnstormers of the Independent A Atlantic League at the end of that league’s 2005 season.  He had a big year for the Barnstormers in 2006, hitting   .289 with 18 HR’s in 384 AB’s, and was signed by the Chibe Lotte Marines for 2007.

In ‘07, Ortiz hit .284 but with only seven HR’s in 250 AB’s.  In 2008, Ortiz hit .288 with 11 HR’s in 337 AB’s.  The Marines apparently felt he was overpaid (at about $600,000) for those numbers, because Ortiz was released.

He signed with the Hawks for 2009 at about a $100,000 pay cut.  He’s been worth every penny for the Hawks so far, having his best year since at least 2004.  He’s hitting .311 with 12 HR’s in 190 AB’s so far this year.  Given his age and past performance, however, I suspect that ‘09 will be his last really great year in Japan.

Nelson Payano, Chunichi Dragons.  He’s a small, 26 year old Dominican left-hander with good stuff but no history of control.  He played six seasons in the Braves’ minor league system with a brief stint at the Mariners’ AA club at the end of 2008.  His career minor league ERA of 4.17 isn’t impressive, but his 276 K’s in 246 IP gets your attention.

The Dragons signed him to an approximately $140,00o contract for 2009, and he’s been a pleasant surprise for them.  After seven solid but unspectacular appearances at their minor league club, the Dragons called him up, and he’s pitched better at the major league level so far.  In 20 appearances as a left-handed short man, he has a 3.38 ERA with 20 K’s and 9 BB’s in 16 IP.

If he ever finds his control, Payano could be a big star, but you can say that about dozens of pitchers in every professional league everywhere.

Andy Phillips, Hiroshima Toyo Carp.  I posted a short piece about his signing with the Carp on June 26th.  Phillips is a classic 4-A player who the Japanese teams love, but at age 32, he’s looking a little too much like Kevin Mench, who bombed in his brief tenure with the Hanshin Tigers this Spring.

He’s hitting .219 for the Carp in his first eight games (7 for 32), but he has hit two HR’s and a double already.