Professional Baseball Seibu has revealed that Hodaka Yamakawa, who has been suspended indefinitely from official games by the baseball team due to a series of problems involving a female acquaintance, has exercised the right of FA = free agent limited to Japan.

Initially, Yamakawa did not meet the conditions for obtaining FA rights for the number of days registered for the 1st Army, but the period when he was out of registration due to injury was added as a special measure, and he acquired FA rights limited to Japan, and the club announced that Yamakawa exercised his FA rights on the 14th, the last day of the period during which the FA can be declared.

The 10-year-old Yamakawa, who is in his 31th year as a professional, is a slugger who has won the home run king three times and the RBI king once, and participated in the WBC = World Baseball Classic this year, helping Japan win the championship.

However, he was suspended indefinitely from the club in September for a series of problems involving a female acquaintance, and this time there was a lot of attention on whether he would exercise his FA rights.

Yamakawa commented through the club, "I am very aware that the FA's decision to stay or transfer after listening to the thoughts of clubs other than Seibu will sound like a one-sided desire or selfish intention on my part, to allow me to embark on a new baseball life."

He added, "By making this declaration, I hope that you will understand that I am prepared to continue to take heavy responsibility for the rest of my baseball career."

Players who have made a declaration to the FA will be able to negotiate with each club, including their own club, from the 3th.

General Manager of Seibu Baseball Team: "Of course, we will continue to discuss this issue"

Regarding Yamakawa's exercise of his rights as a free agent, Mitsuo Iida, general manager of Seibu Professional Baseball Team, told the media, "I take it as a decision that he has made after thinking about various things up to today, and of course we will continue to discuss it in the future."

7 FA players exercising their rights

In professional baseball, the period during which the right to declare the right of FA = free agent is up to 14 days, and 7 people have exercised their rights.

[2 players exercising FA rights including overseas]
▽ Rakuten's pitcher Hiroki Matsui ▽ Lotte's Tatsuhiro Tamura and

pitcher
Matsui want to move to the big leagues, while Tamura has already decided to stay in Lotte.

[Exercise of FA rights limited to Japan: 5 players]
▽ Orix's pitcher
Fukuya Yamazaki ▽ Seibu's pitcher Katsunori Hirai ▽ DeNA's pitcher Kendai Ishida

▽ Hiroshima's Ryoma Nishikawa
▽ Seibu's Hodaka
Yamakawa
Hirai's base line is to stay.

Meanwhile,
Japan Ham pitcher Takayuki Kato and
Yakult pitcher Reito Taguchi remained without exercising their
rights.

Players who have been declared by the FA can negotiate with each club, including their own club, from the 16th.