The Hawaiian league kicked off this week. The league boasts four MLB first rounders, several young Japanese players drafted within the past two years, and finally, after a several year hiatus, a KBO team has resumed sending prospects to the league. You can check out Baseball America’s preview of the league with full team rosters.
There are only four teams. Both teams under the Lotte umbrella, the NPB’s Marines and KBO’s Giants sent players to the North Shore Honu, a team that also features the much travelled, but ever-intriguing Jose Capellan. So if you’re looking for a team to root for in the Hawaiian league there you go. The Honu also features the Astro Jason Castro, the 10th overall pick in the June draft, who signed for $2,070,000.
Pitchers
Ryosuke Eguchi 5-9 170 L/L 8/12/1984 Chiba Lotte Marines
Yasutaka Hattori 5-8 157 L/L 9/10/1982 Chiba Lotte Marines
Tatsuya Uchi 6-0 165 R/R 7/13/1985 Chiba Lotte Marines
Jun Ho Ha 5-8 168 L/L 4/29/1989 Lotte Giants
Jun Hyeok Heo 5-10 190 R/R 12/15/1985 Lotte Giants
Sang Hwa Lee 6-2 209 R/R 3/1/1988 Lotte Giants
Catchers
Sung Woo Jang 6-2 209 R/R 1/17/1990 Lotte Giants
Infielders
Kyu Hyun Moon 5-11 172 R/R 7/5/1983 Lotte Giants
Outfielders
Kenji Sato 5-11 172 L/R 8/26/1988 Chiba Lotte Marines
The Waikiki Beach Boys will feature Japanese pitchers Yuhei Takai from Yakult, as well as Kazunori Yamamoto and Mitsuo Yoshikawa, from Hokkaido. Yakult infielder Yuji Onizaki has also joined the team. The Beach Boys also boasts 2008 sixth overall pick Buster Posey, the eighth overall pick in Yonder Alonso, and the Yankees first round pick from 2007, Andrew Brackman, a pitcher from North Carolina coming off Tommy John surgery.
Hanshin sent two pitchers to play for the West Oahu Canfires — Ryunosuke Yokoyama and Daiki Kiyohara. Seibu sent pitcher Fumikazu Kimura and infielder Haruki Kurose. Rakuten sent three players to the Honolulu Sharks, including pitcher Satoshi Nagai, infielder Shintaro Masuda and outfielder Ryo Hijirisawa.
Thanks to our Hawaiian-born reader Mark for the reminder.
3 responses so far ↓
1 yoshi // Oct 1, 2008 at 6:58 am
Back in the day Ichiro played in this league. I wish I got to see him while he was there. Before Hawaii Winter Baseball there was a summer team called the Hawaii Island Movers. Back in the day (once again) the once famous Barry Bonds played for the Movers. It would have been pretty cool to watch both Ichiro and Bonds play as young-ins. Baseball in Hawaii is a big deal. They won the LLWS 2 of the past 4 years. The only downside to being an athlete in Hawaii is the level of competition. Living in the mainland and playing sports exposes you to so many different things, including different levels of competition. Many of the Hawaii kids dont get to leave the island so they never know how good other kids are outside of Hawaii. Hawaii did produce a first round draft pick in Justin Wayne. He was drafted 5th overall to the Montreal Expos. There are a handful of Hawaii kids in the majors right now.
2 simon // Oct 1, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Great to see the KBO back in the fold.
3 Blue Hawaiian | // Dec 17, 2008 at 3:37 pm
[...] Six NPB teams and one KBO team sent players to Hawaii this past season. [...]
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