Sponichi: Yokohama thinking about offering Norihiro Nakamura extension for 2013 season
by Gen on Jun.16, 2012 @ 10:06 pm, under NPB
According to report filed by Sponichi, the Yokohama Bay Stars are leaning towards offering Norihiro Nakamura (38) a contract extension for the 2013 season.
Nakamura is currently 100 hits away from 2,000 (or ninety-five if you include his five MLB hits). He has also done fairly well for the Bay Stars this season.
"[Nakamura] is doing a great job for us. He is a solid player and we would like to have him around for as long as possible. ... He could become the first player on our team to reach 2,000 hits, we would like to see him do it in a DeNA uniform," said team president Jun Ikeda.
Kiyoshi Nakahata added, "We can not lose if Nakamura is hitting the ball. He is a huge presence on this team. He is someone we turn to when we are in trouble."
Nakamura has also been popular with the fans -- he leads all CL first baseman in All-Star votes with 93,451 (as of June 15, 2012).
Should the Bay Stars sign the thirty-eight-year-old Nakamura to an extension? Or let him walk?
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2012 Regular Stats (through 6/15)
| G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | TB | RBI | SB | CS | SH | SF | BB | HBP | SO | DP | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 54 | 211 | 187 | 24 | 52 | 14 | 1 | 5 | 83 | 26 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 22 | 0 | 31 | 7 | .278 | .351 | .444 | .795 |
2012 RISP (through 6/15)
| AVG | AB | H | HR | RBI | SO | BB | HBP | SH | SF |
| .409 | 44 | 18 | 2 | 21 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Sign him for another year. It wont make any difference in the teams standings either this year or next year.
Are you, in any way, insinuating that they will be in the last place this or next year?
Ah, Steve, it’s not even the halfway point of the season yet. Don’t lose faith!
Yes and in the words of James Hetfield, “Sad but True”.
Novosel, not losing faith, but the Baystars need to play some baseball full bore or they will end up in last place, see you all at yokohama on july 3rd.
Nakamura the only clutch batter they have so they better keep him
the girl selling beers in the stands is a better clutch hitter.
That is probably true. But he is better than anyone else they have. If the beer girl starts having to bat too then she is too busy to bring my beer. That’s not good.
Now THAT would be a tragedy. We can all deal with a loss, but we can’t deal with no beer.
Honestly I would be more worried about Tsutsugo not being able to hit at this point than DeNA signing Nakamura to an extension. Tsutsugo is (hopefully) their future…