The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters have signed free agent infielder Renato Nunez, according to multiple reports out of Japan (including Yahoo Japan). Nunez’s one-year contract will pay him 180 million yen plus incentives, which works out to roughly $1.6MM in U.S. dollars.
Nunez heads to Nippon Professional Baseball after six years in the majors, highlighted by a 31-homer season with the Orioles in 2019. Nunez has shown some power but not much in the way of average or OBP, and below-average corner infield glovework. As a result, the Orioles non-tendered him last winter, and Nunez could find only a minor league deal with the Tigers.
There wasn’t much playing time to be found in Detroit, as Nunez received only 55 MLB plate appearances last season and hit .189/.218/.472. After being released by the Tigers in August, Nunez caught on with the Brewers on another minor league deal but didn’t see any action in the big leagues. While Nunez didn’t hit much for the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate, he did put up some big numbers at Triple-A Toledo, hitting .291/.383/.585 with 20 homers over 311 PA for the Tigers’ top farm team.
Nunez had the ability to elect free agency after the season, and he took that option to return to the open market and subsequently land a deal with the Fighters. Nunez still doesn’t turn 28 years old until April, and he’d be far from the first hitter to rediscover their stroke after a stint in Japan. If Nunez can translate his power into more consistent production at the plate, he could carve out a nice niche for himself with the Fighters, or perhaps return to MLB down the road.
I hope he can help them fight ham.
Man this dude is a power stud, one of my favorite orioles and too bad the cardinals didn’t sign him 🙁
Wow, Hokaido must be really trust this guy since they offered him a big contract for a first timer. Usually they offer ex Major Leaguers half of that, usually around 500-800K
Probably because everyone figures he would have a DH spot with the universal DH as a potential option in 2022. He should be a considerable improvement over Ronny Rodriguez
Maybe he can duplicate the Numbers he posted during the 2019 season.
Do they have juiced balls in Japan?
Nope. But they do have pre tacked ball for more grip.
Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korea Baseball Organization both use pre-tacked balls. (The Olympics in Tokyo this summer will use Japanese-made baseballs, but ones that are not pre-tacked and instead will be rubbed up with mud sourced from America.) The pitchers who have experience with them generally approve.
“I really liked the ball,” said Matt Moore, a Phillies pitcher who spent 2020 in Japan. “When they first come out of the package, they’re in a tin foil package, and then they’re inside of a plastic package around that. So when you first take it out, it pretty much feels like a new ball — like the leather is not sticky — but the more you play catch with it, the easier it is to get a grip on it.”
Unlike the demonstrable adhesion achieved by various products stateside, the NPB ball won’t stick to the bottom of your outstretched hand, and Moore said there was no performance-enhancing effect.
“It’s just what all of us would consider a grip,” he said. “You can grip that baseball.”
And he’s convinced that if MLB cared to, they could commission something similar from Rawlings.
“Why not? I mean, the Nippon Baseball league is amazing,” Moore said. “They have a lot of stuff figured out. It’s not like they have to start from zero.”
sports.yahoo.com/why-a-new-baseball-may-be-the-ult…
To go to Japan and “rediscover his stroke” would require him having a stroke worth rediscovering in the first place. What he has is no average, no contact, and an occasional fly ball that lands in the seats.
I think the song Turning Japanese was about rediscovering your stroke.
I think one of the smartest moves a guy in Nunez’s position can make… he could become a household name in Japan against the weaker competition.
antithesis to the Alfonzo Soriano Award
I’m thankful for the hyphen between Nippon and Ham. I’d wondered for years whether people were fighting for ham or with ham, as a weapon.
Hyphen = mystery solved.