NPB Japanese Baseball Draft Winners: Hiroshima Carp

The Hiroshima Carp came away from the NPB Japanese baseball draft the hands down winners on Thursday. After swiping up Ren Nakata last year from hometown Koryo High School, the Carp added to their young pitching corps by snagging Takeru Imamura from Seiho High School with their first pick, and adding pitcher Shota Dobayashi from Koshien winners Chukyo High School in round two. Imamura is thought to be the second best player in the draft behing Yusei Kikuchi, who was awared to the Seibu Lions by lottery.

If that was not impressive enough, in the third round they grabbed Hisashi Takeuchi, arguably one of the best pitchers at the college level from Hosei University and infielder Hayato Shoji from Tokoha Kikukawa High School in Shizuoka, who improved his stock greatly in the 2009 Koshien tournament.