Relief pitcher Tom de Blok will not head to Japan for the time being. The Rakuten Golden Eagles showed interest in the 20-year old closer and invited him for a two-day tryout. According to a source within the club of L&D Amsterdam Pirates, De Blok has decided not to try his luck in Japan. A…
The Yakult Swallows and Wladimir Balentien have agreed on a new one-year contract worth $3,000,000 + incentives. After you could read here that the Yakult Swallows had made an offer to Wladimir Balentien, one of my sources in Japan informed me about an article at sponchi.co.jp about the Swallows and Balentien signing a new deal. Masayuki…
The Adelaide Bite announced its roster for the new Australian Baseball League season, that will start tomorrow. One of the familiar faces is Loek van Mil. The Dutch right handed pitcher joined the Bite in the course of the 2015/2016 season. Van Mil has quite some experience under his belt. Before he returned to the…
Yesterday, Tom de Blok threw some pitches in a test session for the Rakuten Golden Eagles. The 20-year old, hard throwing Dutch reliever has drawn the attention of the 2014 NPB champion from Sendai a while ago. After the success of Rick van den Hurk with the Softbank Hawks, Japanese teams start to roam the…
Yesterday you could read here that the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles had shown interest in L&D Amsterdam Pirates pitcher Tom de Blok. The 20-year old can easily throw a 93 mph fastball and that is always something interesting for a baseball club, especially in times in which the focus is on speed. After posting…
According to the Japanese sports website nikkansports.com, Tom de Blok appears to attract a lot of attention of a Japanese team. With the success of Rick van den Hurk in Japan, it seems that the NPB is looking further than the USA and Central and South America. Now teams seem to check out the European…
The newest team in the Dutch Hoofdklasse, De Glaskoning Twins, has struck a deal with former Rakuten Golden Eagles and Hanshin Tigers pitcher Keiji Uezono in a very surprising move. The 32-year old relief pitcher pitched for the Hanshin Tigers from 2007 through 2011. In 2007 he won the Central League’s rookie of the year…
The games between the Softbank Haws and the Rakuten Golden Eagles of Friday and Saturday were cancelled due to the earthquakes that struck the area south of Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. After the area was hit by a powerful earthquake on Thursday, another one…
Since I didn’t hear much about Loek van Mil and his preparation for the upcoming season, I decided to check the roster of the Minnesota Twins’ AAA affiliate, the Rochester RedWings. Of course it was announced earlier this week that the Twins had sent Max Kepler to theirAAA farm team, but it didn’t ring a…
Andruw Jones attended the Atlanta Braves FanFest this weekend. To reporters he unveiled that he will likely announce his retirement soon. In October 2015, Jones participated with team Kingdom of the Netherlands in the WBSC’s Premier 12 tournament in an attempt to showcase himself for a roster spot with any MLB club. The 38-year old…
