Third baseman Christian Villanueva is headed back for a second season in Japan. He has joined the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, per a club announcement passed along by Jason Coskrey (via Twitter).
Villanueva was one of the former big leaguers we covered recently in rounding up the year’s action in Asia’s top leagues. He struggled in his single-season stint with the Yomiuri Giants of Nippon Professional Baseball, slashing just .223/.325/.386 in 235 plate appearances, but obviously showed enough for the rival Fighters to give him another opportunity.
The 28-year-old Villanueva has demonstrated quite a bit more ability on this side of the Pacific. In 416 plate appearances with the Padres over the 2017-18 campaigns, he produced a .245/.303/.475 batting line with 24 home runs. And he’s a .263/.328/.457 hitter in over twelve hundred trips to the plate at the highest level of the minors.
MLB teams in need of a 2nd basemen lost out for a buylow with high reward candidate.
He’s played a total of 11 games at second base in his entire major/minor league career….
& in the MLB that means he’s a journey man.
Any questions? Ask Brock Holt
That is absolutely not what that means. Journeyman is a player who has bounced around to many teams. He’s played for only three organizations to this point. Not quite journeyman status just yet.
Also, to day they missed out on a buy low 2nd basemen would be ignoring the fact that there are roughly 25k 2nd buy low 2nd basemen on the FA market right now. I think teams will be ok.
Your name and photo are terrifying
This is the best comment I’ve seen this week #EasilyAmused
He has a giant hole in his swing. He also gets home run happy which further exploits that giant hole in his swing.
i was about to say some team like Baltmore could have looked into him, but then i saw his NPB numbers. the guy didnt even hit for Yumiuri’s farm team. now that’s bad.
*Yomiuri’s
Look out Hams!
He had a great month with the Padres and then completely fell off… When I watched him it felt like he was trying too hard and swinging at everything.
Yeah, one hot month or so. He is actually a very big anomaly in San Diego Padres history…
He was not prematurely given a six-year extension!
[Sigh]
Padre fans thought he was good is total hack in field