Akinori Iwamura
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Akinori Iwamura (岩村 明憲, b. February 9, 1979 in Uwajima, Ehime, Japan) is the infielder, third baseman for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows professional baseball club in the Central League. He represented Japan in the 2006 World Baseball Classic.
Iwamura, who played in the Central League from 1998 to 2006, won five Gold Gloves for being the Central League's top defensive third baseman; he also hit 106 home runs in his last three seasons in the Central League, including 32 (with a .311 batting average) in 2006.
During the 2006 offseason, Iwamura opted to be posted for Major League Baseball. The posts were due to the Major League Baseball Commissioner on November 10, 2006; the highest bidder would be rewarded with negotiations with Iwamura to sign a contract.
On November 14th, information leaked that the highest bidder that won the right to negotiate with Akinori was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Major League Baseball announced the next day that the Devil Rays had made the winning bid; Newsday reported that the Devil Rays had bid $4.5 million. [1] (By contrast, the Boston Red Sox bid $51.1 million to negotiate with pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, and the New York Yankees bid just over $26 million to speak with southpaw Kei Igawa. [2]) Iwamura was the second player that the Devil Rays had been able to obtain through the posting system; in 2005, they won the rights to negotiate with pitcher Shinji Mori. MLB.com reported that Iwamura's future role with the Devil Rays is currently unclear, since the Devil Rays already have third base prospects B. J. Upton and Evan Longoria in their organization, as well as shortstop Ben Zobrist. [3] At the end of the 2006 season, Zobrist and Upton were the team's regular starters at shortstop and third base, respectively; Longoria, who was drafted in 2006, ended the season with the Class AA Montgomery Biscuits.
[edit] External links
- (Japanese) Official site
- Iwamura's Central League statistics
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On Wednesday, November 15, 2006, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were announced by Major League Baseball to have won the rights to Akinori Iwamura with the highest submitted bid.
