NPB Japanese Professional Baseball Draft Guide

by Brandon Siefken, JapanBall.com

(This page to remain posted until just before 2010 season.)

For the first time in years the draft for the 2009 season subjected all amateur levels (high school, university, and industrial league) to the same draft.

Each team is ranked and graded using three criteria:

1. How a team met its needs;
2. What talent was drafted...and passed by; and,
3. The value received for the round.

A brief recap of team statistics are given before the analysis.

The Tigers had a great 2008 season and had no glaring needs to be remedied in this draft.

First Round:  Sho Ikketsu is a Taiwanese exchange student from Nara Sangyo University. I think this was too early to take him. Sho is big-league material, but I believe they could have taken him later since there were more talented pitchers available.

Second Round:  Kohei Shibata from Budo International University. Shibata is a smallish, inconsistent base-stealing outfielder. He'll not play there in the pros and he needs help before being able to play at this level.

Third Round:  Hiroki Uemoto, the third pick from Waseda University, is another smallish base-stealer who's too inconsistent to contribute this year.

Hanshin doesn't have many needs, so they're drafting to stockpile talent.  But when you're doing that, it makes more sense to draft younger high school kids.  Hanshin took only took one such player with their seventh pick.