[tehsuigi]

2029-30 Offseason Summary

2029 Awards Season
* Arrows pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto and catcher Yasutoki Kato have won their respective Mitsui Golden Glove awards
* Three Arrows finished with Rookie of the Year Votes, including DH Kikuo Kawamoto (who had the most first-place votes but finished 2nd behind Lions catcher Shinichiro Hattori), 1B Hirotaka Hayashi (3rd), RHP Hironori Watanabe (4th), Kikuo Aoki (T-5th)
* Andre Ethier won Manager of the Year
* RHP Ethan Smith finished 4th in Eiji Sawamura Award voting
* Arrows with MVP votes - Smith, CF/RF Shizue Uchino, 2B Meiji Onishi

Personnel
* Arrows pitching coach Luis Miguel Navas and hitting coach Jack Wilson have left the organization; Jorge Moncada and Scott Beerer respectively have been hired.
* Arrows scouting director Chris Murphy has retired; Tony Abreu has been hired (after the draft, dangit) to replace him
* AA manager Steve Gibralter and pitching coach Randy Keisler have left the organization; Tu-Hsuan Lee has been hired as AA manager
* AAA pitching coach Brian Mallette has been moved to AA; ex-Swallow Ryo Akiyoshi has been hired to replace him with the Grandserows

Arbitration
* The following players have been declined arbitration: RHP Takahide Ikeda, C Takateru Toyoda, 1B Ichizo Nishio, 3B Yuki Nomura, SS Kohsuke Sakata
* The following players will be leaving through free agency: LF Kota Inoue, RHP Taiki Ono, RF Seiya Suzuki, RHP Kohei Morihara
* The Shizuoka Arrows have sent RHP Yuto Kanakubo and 3B Jo Endo to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles for 3B Yohsuke Matsumoto.
* The Shizuoka Arrows have sent LH Shuji Shibata and RF Soichi Shiotani to the Ehime Honda Comets for LF Seisaku Ishikawa, who agreed to a 1-year deal at 1.62M.
* The Arrows have gone to arbitration with RHP Konyo Nakayama, and the hearing sided in the teams' favour.

First-Year Draft
(sidebar: you ever tried to draft without a scouting director? basically a lost cause!)
1. CF Shigejiro Matsunaga, because we're short on CFs, and his defense could turn into a strength.
2. RHP Yuifumi Nishimura, best reliever in the draft by far, and could even turn into a starter with some luck
3. 2B Shigeru Nakashima, I like his makeup if the OSA is true. If not, who knows.
4. RHP Kameji Tsuboi, I skipped him last round because I'm not sure if he'll sign. High school arm with two decent pitches, he'll likely be a reliever if he can harness his control
5. C Tokita Yamano, the usual high-ability catcher
6. SS Katsuyuki Kosaka, noodle bat but a rocket arm at short. Could probably play 3B too.
7. 2B Takenori Koga, probably better suited to 3B or 1B. He's got pop.
8. RHP Yasuo Sawada, who's already got three plus pitches. If his control develops, he could be a decent chip.
9. 1B Kameji Matsushta, best power potential left in the draft
10. LF Hideshi Tamai, his combination of contact and base-stealing could be potent

(update: now that I have a scout, most of the above picks were trash. Letting Tsuboi walk too)

Winter Meetings and After
Budget's still tight, so I'm likely passing on adding through free agency unless the price is extremely right. Not seeing any upgrades for LF or CF that would make sense just yet. For once...gonna just enjoy Okinawa's weather.
* The Shizuoka Arrows have acquired 27-year-old CF Eric Santana from the York Revolution of the Atlantic League.
* In a surprise splash just before spring training, the Shizuoka Arrows announced the signing of 35-year-old right-hander Jon Duplantier to a one-year contract. Duplantier brings 196 games of major league experience across the Diamondbacks, Reds, Brewers, and Red Sox organizations, the last of which he won the World Series with in 2028.