Monday, July 3, 2017

Missing From 2017 BBM 1st Version

A few months back when I did a post on BBM's new 1st Version set I had made my usual complaint that with each team only getting 27 cards to cover their manager and players and each team having ALL their non-ikusei rookies included that there were bound to be significant players left out of the set although at the time I couldn't come up with anyone.  I took a look at the All Star rosters that got announced last week and came up a list of 2017 All Stars who are missing from the 1st Version set - Alfredo Despaigne and Seiji Uebayashi of the Hawks, Takumi Akiyama and Ryutaro Umeno of the Tigers and Kazuki Yabuta of the Carp.  Now to be fair I probably shouldn't include Despaigne on this list as he didn't officially sign with the Hawks until February 15th and he didn't show up in training camp until late March since he was playing in the World Baseball Classic with Cuba.  But there's really no excuse for the others to have not been in the set and I would expect them to be included in BBM's 2nd Version set coming out in August - either in the "1st Version Update" or in the regular player cards.

There were a couple other guys I was a bit surprised to realize weren't in the set - Tomohisa Ohtani of the Marines and Luis Mendoza of the Fighters.  I was also surprised that Rafael Dolis of the Tigers was not in the set but he didn't sign with Hanshin until February 23rd which was probably after the cut off date to make the set.  I would expect all three of them to be in 2nd Version too.

A couple other names I expect to see in 2nd Version who signed too late to be in 1st Version are Munenori Kawasaki of the Hawks and Ramiro Pena of the Carp.  It's possible that Xavier Batista of the Carp and Chris Marrero of the Buffaloes may have signed in time to be in 2nd Version.  Batista was actually an ikusei player who didn't get registered onto the official roster until June 3 so he was around and BBM should have photos of him.  Marrero registered on June 1 but I'm not sure when he actually put on an Orix uniform for the first time.  Guys like Wily Mo Pena of the Marines and Stephen Fife of the Lions most likely registered after the deadline for 2nd Version.  Hopefully BBM will do the Fusion set again and include a "1st Version Update" subset for them and any other foreign players who have signed or will sign with a team between 2nd Version's cut off date and the end of July (the last date an NPB team can add a new player).

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