International Free Agents

Continuing our coverage of free agents for this current 2009-10 off season, here is the list of international free agents according to Nikkan Sports:

Team	Name	Pos
YOM	Fujita, Soichi	P
YOM	Furuki, Shigeyuki *	IF
YOM	Kimura, Takuya	2B
YOM	Ohmichi, Noriyoshi	IF
YOM	Ramirez, Alex *	LF
YOM	Takahashi, Hisanori *	P
YOM	Takahashi, Yoshinobu	RF
YOM	Tani, Yoshitomo	OF
YOM	Toyoda, Kiyoshi **	P
CHU	Araki, Masahiro	2B
CHU	Hirai, Masafumi	P
CHU	Ibata, Hirokazu	SS
CHU	Inoue, Kazuki [R]	RF
CHU	Iwase, Hitoki	P
CHU	Morino, Masahiko *	3B
CHU	Tanishige, Motonobu **	C
CHU	Tatsunami, Kazuyoshi [R]	IF
CHU	Yamamoto, Masahiro	P
YAK	Fukuchi, Kazuki *	LF
YAK	Igarashi, Ryota *	P
YAK	Kida, Masao **	P
YAK	Miyamoto, Shinya	3B
YAK	Shiroishi, Noriyuki [R]	3B
HAN	Hiyama, Shinjiro	OF
HAN	Imaoka, Makoto	3B
HAN	Kanemura, Satoru	P
HIR	Higashide, Akihiro	2B
HIR	Ishii, Takuro	SS
HIR	Maeda, Tomonori	LF
HIR	Ogata, Koichi [R]	OF
YOK	Kinjoh, Tatsuhiko	CF
YOK	Kudoh, Kimiyasu	P
YOK	Morikasa, Shigeru *	LF
YOK	Nishi, Toshihisa **	2B
YOK	Saeki, Takahiro	1B
NIP	Inaba, Atsunori	RF
NIP	Nioka, Tomohiro	3B
NIP	Kaneko, Makoto	SS
NIP	Nakajima, Satoshi	C
NIP	Tateyama, Yoshinori *	P
NIP	Tsuboi, Tomochika *	LF
RAK	Isobe, Koichi	RF
RAK	Kawaguchi, Kenshi	1B
RAK	Kosaka, Makoto	2B
RAK	Yamasaki, Takeshi	DH
SFT	Honma, Mitsuru	1B
SFT	Matsunaka, Nobuhiko	DH
SFT	Muramatsu, Arihito	LF
SFT	Shibahara, Hiroshi	RF
SFT	Tamura, Hitoshi *	RF
SEI	Etoh, Akira [R]	1B
SEI	Hirao, Hiroshi	1B
SEI	Nishiguchi, Fumiya	P
LOT	Fukuura, Kazuya	1B
LOT	Hashimoto, Tasuku *	C
LOT	Hori, Koichi	1B
LOT	Komiyama, Satoru [R]	P
LOT	Ohmura, Saburo	OF
LOT	Ono, Shingo *	P
LOT	Shimizu, Naoyuki *	P
LOT	Takagi, Koji	P
ORX	Kawagoe, Hidetaka *	P
ORX	Kitagawa, Hirotoshi	3B
ORX	Ohmura, Naoyuki	LF
ORX	Rhodes, Tuffy	DH
ORX	Takanami, Fumikazu	LF

* denotes reached international free agency for the first time
** denotes reaching IFA for multiple times
[R] denotes players who have announced that they are retiring
No mark indicates that a player had reached IFA in a previous year

Once again, the standard disclaimer applies with regard to the likelihood of any of these players actually exercising their free agency rights. Furthermore, some of the above players are currently under multi-year contracts (i.e. many of the Dragons), so while they are free agents, they don't have the ability to jump to the MLB without special negotiating with their respective clubs.

The filing period starts the day after the Japan Series concludes and lasts for 7 working days. I won't speculate, but will rather revisit the list once the filing deadline is complete and a list of declared free agents is published.

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