New Pawapuro keychains incoming
In the ongoing world of Japan-only official Pawapuro merch, a new competitor enters: Some rubber keychains via Bushiroad. Coming sometime this month, these guys are about $3 each and feature Pawapuro-kun, Gander, Dr. Daijoubu, Hayakawa, Yabe, and the Ikaris.
I look forward to tracking these down for about 4x the price on Buyee soon.
Keeping an eye on this offseason’s league switchers
It feels like there are a lot of MLB players heading to NPB already this offseason. I’ve counted eight so far:
Miguel Yajure, Jimmy Cordero, Franchy Cordero, Albert Abreu, Junior Fernandez, Thomas Hatch, Taylor Hearn, Andrew Stevenson
Last year I did a post with each incoming player’s abilities as they joined the eBaseball Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2022 roster update for 2023. This year I’m grabbing each player’s MLB The Show attributes first, in hopes we learn something there.
Will also keep track of the current eBaseball ratings for the likely NPB -> MLB transitioners like Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, Naoyuki Owasawa, and Yuki Matsui. Maybe we’ll come to a definitive formula for bringing players from one game into the other eventually.
YouTube Viewing Guide
- This took about 24 hours to finish rendering and processing due to the 4K, so please enjoy this CPU vs. CPU gameplay of MLB The Show 23 for PS5.
- Front Page Sports: Baseball Pro ’98 (PC) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – This is a gorgeous game from Sierra, with a mixture of sorta minimal 3D rendering for when the ball is in play and nicely-done 2D stadium art for each pitch. Stupidly I recorded this video in Riverfront Stadium, which is maybe the least impressive-looking stadium in the game. Will need to record some more later to show off just how nice it looks.
- Triple Play 2000 (PS1) Gameplay – Early 3D graphics on the PS1 can be hard to go back to sometimes, but this is still a pretty fun game to play for a little while.
- Major League Baseball 2K5 (PS2) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – Sometimes commenters on the channel ask for a little more offense. Unfortunately Tim Hudson and Russ Ortiz had other ideas in this simulation between the Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks. Generally this is a nice-looking game, so this is unfair to say, but the crowd closeups are hilarious. Lots of copies of the same hulking guy in a baseball jersey swaying around like a zombie and holding up an MVP sign for no one in particular.
Also there’s this character model for Raul Mondesi. See if you can tell which is the game version and which is real life:
