This post is the second in my weekly series on Japanese baseball. The first post was an overview of the Nippon Professional Baseball League and this post will provide you with some information on the minor league system.

We hear a lot about the major leagues in Japan but relatively little about the minor leagues which are not at all like those in the United States. In the Unites States most major league teams have at least five minor league affiliates while each professional team in Japan has only one, which is part of either the Eastern League or the Western League. Minor leagues teams in Japan usually carry the same name as the parent team and are differentiated by the term Second Team. The First Team being the major league equivalent in the United States.

The Eastern and Western Leagues are organized by region rather than by their division affiliation and break out as follows:

Eastern League
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters
Yomiuri Giants
Tokyo Yakult Swallows
Yokohama BayStars
Seibu Lions
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles
Chiba Lotte Marines

Western League
Hanshin Tigers
Hiroshima Carp
Fukuoka Softbank Hawks
Orix Buffaloes
Chunichi Dragons

Jim Allen is the author of the The Hot Corner, a weekly baseball column for the Daily Yomiuri, and provides some great information on his website. Jim Allen’s Guide to Japanese Baseball is a must read for anyone interested in the Japanese version of the game and is a great source for an overview of many aspects of the game. (Please note that some of the information is a bit out of date.)

Jim describes four unique rosters as follows:

Organizational – maximum of 70 players per team.
First team (majors) – 40 players which is set for the entire season with a few exceptions under the rules.
First Team Bench – 28 players
First Team Active – 25 players for any given game (a subset of the First Team Bench Roster)

This means that on any given day there are between 30 and 42 players on the minor league or Second Team roster. Any player assigned to the Second Team is required to spend a minimum of 10 days prior to being re-activated by the First Team which is limited to four foreign roster players, only three of which may be on the field at any given time. There is no such restriction in the minor leagues.

Most Second Team games are played during the day at facilities that don’t resemble an American ballpark at all. There are no grandstands at most minor league facilities and no food or souvenir hawkers. The minor league teams are owned and operated by the parent club and are there solely to prepare the players to move up to the big leagues. Most minor league players are required to live in company dorms and have curfews and rules that they are required to adhere to at all times. The photo above is of the Second Team field for the Chiba Lotte Marines (note the all dirt infield which is common in Japan).

If you want to follow the prospects on your favorite Japanese Professional Team here is a link to the Second Team Standings from 2007. (I will update the link when the 2008 information is available) Please review my Japanese Baseball – An Overview post to determine the Kanji for your favorite team as I was not able to find an effective translation of the previous link. You can also use this post to head off to your favorite teams website and click on the tab titled Farm (???? or 2?) for more information on the Second Team.

The countdown continues….16 days until the first baseball game of 2008!