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Carp cast off Batista after doping ban

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The Hiroshima Carp voided their contract with Xavier Batista on Monday, the day the slugger’s six-month suspension for doping ended, the Central League club announced.

His English language NPB is HERE.

Batista tested positive for clomiphene, a non-steroidal fertility medicine for women that is classified by the World Anti-Doping Agency as an “S4” violation, involving hormone or metabolic modulators. Clomiphene can be used to suppress the side effects of anabolic steroids.

According to the Nikkan Sports, Hiroshima’s director of baseball operations, Kiyoaki Suzuki, said, “I’ve decided to terminate the contract. We’ve been investigating this since the start, but in the end we were unable to determine the cause (for the test result).”

For five seasons, Batista toiled in the low minors for the Chicago Cubs. After he was released a friend suggested he look into the Carp’s Dominican Academy. Batista was the first product of the club’s successful new program of giving guys second chances after they failed in the U.S. minors.

After he and Alejandro Mejia tore up Western League pitching in the spring of 2017 on developmental contracts, they were signed to standard NPB contracts and signed six-year deals with Hiroshima.

Although the Carp reserved him, Batista was conspicuously absent from Hiroshima’s spring training camp and did not appear when on the club’s 2020 roster that appeared on NPB’s website.

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Maru goes behind fielding numbers

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I wasn’t the only one to take note of Yoshihiro Maru’s declining fielding metrics since 2016 with the Hiroshima Carp, but I may have been the most outspoken about them. The important thing to remember, however, is that they are measures of things. And those things only become place holders for skill and ability in our heads and don’t represent actual reality.

It’s important to remember that just because someone’s metrics have declined, things other than declining individual performance might be at the root.

The table below gives three metrics for each year: Fielding Win Shares, and his ARM and UZR 1200 ratings from Delta Graphs. While Maru’s skills may have not altered one bit, his numbers rebounded in 2019 after he moved to the Yomiuri Giants.

Maru’s fielding figures

YearFieldingARM1200
20144.3+1.9-7.4
20153.3+4.0+4.5
20164.7+4.1+11.1
20173.6+2.4+16.1
20182.9-4.6-4.9
20195.3+1.9+8.5

Maru’s story

“I don’t think my speed or the quality of my jumps improved any from when I was in Hiroshima. The difference was (Carp right fielder) Seiya Suzuki,” Maru said Sunday.

“As long as I’ve played, I’ve always gone to catch balls if there was ever any doubt. It wasn’t the case that I let Suzuki catch balls in the gap, but rather his being fast and getting to more balls first.”

“I think the reason my data in Hiroshima gradually shrank, was that Suzuki played more and got better.”

In 2018, Maru’s numbers took two hits, one from playing time when he missed 10 games, and another from having a good fielder in left, Takayoshi Noma, instead of the previous platoon combination of slow sluggers Brad Eldred and Ryuhei Matsuyama.

The Giants, on the other hand, put him in an outfield that frequently had Alex Guerrero (slow) in left and Yoshiyuki Kamei (old) in right, and voila! Maru’s best defensive win share season of his career.

Not my thing

One thing that took me by surprise was Maru’s opting for domestic free agency after the 2018 season instead of sticking with the Carp until he could go overseas under his own power. I always saw him as a similar player to South Korean star Choo Shin Soo.

“No that was never going to be my thing,” Maru said. “I just didn’t see myself doing that and had no interest.”