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Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Lions acquire Cho as Mori free agent compensation


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The Saitama Seibu Lions announced their decision on Thursday to select RHP Yaku Cho (Yi Chang) as the free agent compensation selection from the Orix Buffaloes for the loss of Tomoya Mori.

Cho, who will be 29 in February, was both a spot starter and relief pitcher for the Buffaloes from 2019-2022. Most recently, he recorded a 2.38 ERA in 15 ichi-gun games, 22.2 innings with the Buffaloes in 2022. 

Due to the high competition of depth with Orix pitchers, he fell out of favor with other relievers taking his spot. His career-high of innings in 2020 reached 48 in 13 games of work.

Originally, Cho drafted as an outfielder in the Ikusei draft of 2016. At the farm level, he transitioned to being a pitcher in the middle of 2018 and switched his position registration in 2019, eventually earning a promotion from ikusei that year. 

The Lions hope he can be an ichi-gun contributor in the bullpen or starting rotation in 2023. His salary for 2023 will be about ¥12 million. 

While Cho was born and raised in Taiwan, he doesn't count as a foreigner because he graduated from both high school and university in Japan. 

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Track record:

The Lions have taken a player who they think can help immediately since 2013. Cho fits the quota as compared from past yrars. Here are the previous free agent compensation decisions when given the opportunity:

2013: 

P Taiki Nakago from the China Lotte Marines after losing Hideaki Wakui

IF Ryota Wakiya from the Yomiuri Giants after losing Yasuyuki Kataoka

2016:

Cash option from the Rakuten Eagles after losing Takayuki Kishi

2017:

P Hayato Takagi from the Yomiuri Giants after losing Ryoma Nogami

2018: 

P Tetsuya Utsumi from the Yomiuri Giants after losing Ginjiro Sumitani

Cash option from the Rakuten Eagles after losing Hideto Asamura

2022: 

P Yaku Cho from the Orix Buffaloes after losing Tomoya Mori

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With Mori as a Type A free agent, the Lions picked the option of half of Mori's 2022 ¥210 million salary at ¥105 million combined with an unprotected player. 

Alternatively, they could've taken the 80% salary option which was ¥168 million.

Orix sent their list to the Lions on December 9. A total of 28 players were protected by Orix and foreigners did not apply to this list. 

Playing with the roster and who was available, here was our mock protection list:

Pitchers:

(13 protected): Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Hiroya Miyagi, Taisuke Yamaoka, Daiki Tajima, Yoshihisa Hirano, Ren Mukunoki, Shota Abe, Yuki Udagawa, Soichiro Yamazaki, Motoki Higa, Hitomi Honda, Taisuke Kondo, Yuta Kuroki

Available: Ryota Muranishi, Daichi Takeyasu, Kohei Suzuki, Yuito Mae, Kaede Yokoyama, Atsuya Kogita, Nobuyoshi Yamada, Taisei Urishihara, Shunpeita Yamashita, Ryo Yoshida, Kohei Azuma, Yaku Cho

Most of the pitchers listed are no-brainers. One could debate that Hirano was available if they think he's too old and not valuable enough to protect for someone younger. However, he was an important closer for the team last season.

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Catchers:

(2 protected): Kenya Wakatsuki, Yuma Tongu 

Available: Ryo Ishikawa, Takuma Nakagawa, Sho Fukunaga

The Buffaloes recently acquired Ryo Ishikawa in a trade with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. They needed to protect him if they saw value, but given the Lions situation, it's doubtful they would pluck Ishikawa of all players. 

Orix also lost Torai Fushimi in domestic free agency, but Tongu and Wakatsuki were no-brainers to protect here. 

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Infielders:

(6 protected): Yuma Mune, Keita Nakagawa, Ryoichi Adachi, Tomoya Noguchi, Ryo Ota, Kotaro Kurebayashi

Available: Ryota Ishioka, Masahiro Nishino, Koji Oshiro, Tatsuya Yamaashi, Seiichiro Oshita, Sho Gibo

The infield is also clear cut on who to keep. Adachi is up there in age, but he had value to the team last season. Everyone else protected saw significant ichi-gun time to be protected. 

Nishino was the interesting option as he didn't play much, yet when healthy, he can be an effective bat on the infield. His issue is not staying healthy.

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Outfielders:

(7 protected): Masataka Yoshida, Shuhei Fukuda, Kodai Sano, Yutaro Sugimoto, Ryoto Kita, Ryoma Ikeda, Haruto Watanabe

Available: Kendai Gen, Yuya Oda, Takahiro Okada, Yukikazu Sano

Despite Yoshida being posted and reaching an agreement with the Boston Red Sox, he didn't sign the dotted line and the transaction couldn't officially go through when the protected list was sent on December 9. His agreement was pending a physical. 

The Lions would have gotten the posting fee money if Yoshida was unprotected and they claimed him.

This opened the door for an extra player being exposed as a result since they needed to protect him in order for the posting process to go through. If anyone was rooting for chaos, it would have been a silly scenario if Yoshida was unprotected.

Everyone else from Sugimoto and Fukuda are clear cut starters to frequent options off the bench. This is unit doesn't haven't the most value for the Lions to claim.

Takahiro Okada was potentially the most famous name available, but he's also past his prime and it was a tempting marketing option for the Lions much like how they saw Tetsuya Utsumi from the Giants.  Okada had a marginal 2020 and his last great season was 2017. 

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Factoring who was on the Japan Series team for 2022, it easy to come up with several pitchers for this protected list while some guys were exposed for having a good 2021, but not the best 2022. 

Personally had Ryo Yoshida, Nobuyoshi Yamada and even Kohei Suzuki as options among the pitchers available. Might have been tempted to go for Nishino given he fell out of favor, but relieved the Lions didn't select Okada for the marketing purposes. 

Yamashita could have been an interesting option too if unprotected, given he was a former first round pick and is in his early 20s, but we'll assume the pitcher position was mostly protected. 

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We also polled our Japanese following on Twitter. 


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