The Rakuten Eagles announced today that they will not offer Kelvin Jimenez (32), Jose Fernandez (38), Luis Garcia (34), Brett Harper (31), and Luis Terrero (32) contracts for the 2013 season.

Source: official announcement

According to Sponichi, there is a very good chance Jose Fernandez, Luis Garcia, Brett Harper, Luis Terrero, and Kelvin Jimenez will not return to the Rakuten Eagles next season.  Further, it seems the Eagles have put together a list of about twenty foreign players they are interested in.

The only foreign players from this year that will probably return next year are Jim Heuser and Brandon Duckworth.

Source: Sponichi 10/31/2012

According to Sponichi, the Rakuten Eagles may only bring back Jim Heuser back next season.  They do have some concerns about his slide-step and his off-speed pitches, but feel that he will be able to help the team out in 2013.

Darrell Rasner, Kelvin Jimenez, and Brandon Duckworth have had respectable seasons and may still return, but the team will most likely wait until after the season to decide on their fates.

Luis Terrero and Brett Harper most likely will not return.  Jose Fernandez and Luis Garcia are also questionable.  An unnamed team source told reporters that some in the organization felt that if the foreign position players had done better this year, the team would have gone much farther.

Source: Sponichi 10/1/2012

===

The Eagles held evening workouts on Wednesday at Kleenex Stadium (start time of 6pm).

===

There is a good chance Luis Garcia will bat clean-up.

===

Twenty-seven players visited about 228 kids at Fujigaoka Elementary School in Natori, Miyagi on Wednesday.

===

Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi could make his first regular season start on April 1 vs Lotte at Kleenex Stadium.

Kazuo Matsui will start the year at Ni-gun because of his nagging lower back.  He could make it back to the active roster either during the Orix Buffaloes' series at Kyocera Dome (April 6-8), or the Nippon Ham Fighters' series at Sapporo Dome (April 13-15).

===

Luis Garcia left Friday's game after feeling tightness in his left hamstring while running out a grounder in the 1st inning.  Garcia was not in the starting line-up today.

The Rakuten Eagles announced today that they decided to hold on to Darrell Rasner (30), Kelvin Jimenez (31), and Luis Garcia (33).

Rasner will be paid 100M yen in 2012, Jimenez 65M yen, and Garcia 50M yen.

Darrell Rasner, Ryan Speier, Luis Garcia all left Japan on Thursday -- Rasner and Speier to the US and Garcia to Mexico.

There's mention that Rasner might try his luck at a return to the Majors next year without much on Speier or Garcia.