Sponichi is reporting that Junichi Tazawa (田沢純一) will be submitting his request to decline entry into the Amateur Draft to all 12 NPB teams on September 11th. I'm not sure if this has been confirmed by Tazawa personally, but the articles makes it seem as though it's more or less official. And at this point, the Red Sox appear to be the front-runners in landing Tazawa. Sponichi claims that they had sent Jon Deeble to scout Tazawa as far back as March of this year during the Sponichi Tournament.
Tazawa won't be able to negotiate any contracts until the end of November, when the Amateur season ends. But assuming everything goes smoothly with the negotiating process and his medial check-up, it might be possible to see him with an MLB team before the year closes out. Sponichi takes things even further by predicting Tazawa will be in a Red Sox uniform next season.
The article also mentions that Tazawa declined entry into the Amateur Draft last year because he wanted to spend one more year paying his dues at the amateur level and then enter the draft. Then in November, after getting a taste of baseball on the international stage at the World Baseball Cup in Taiwan, Tazawa decided that he wanted to take on the challenge of playing in the Majors. And it appears that from pretty much the beginning of this year, he was making it known that he had an interest in playing overseas.
Based on what he said last year, I have a feeling a lot of NPB clubs won't be happy with Tazawa's decision.
09-09-2008 01:33 AM 
