2008 Nippon Professional Baseball season

The 2008 Nippon Professional Baseball season is the 59th, and current, season since the NPB was reorganized in by|1950. The regular season started on March 20 with the Pacific League opener, and on March 28 with the Central League opener. On March 25 and 26, the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics played 2 regular season Major League Baseball games at Tokyo Dome. During their visit, they also played exhibition games against the Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants.

Changes

The Seibu Lions added the prefecture name "Saitama" in front of the team name starting with this season.

As to reduce the interference to teams whose main players would play in the Olympic games, this year's trade and new foreign players deadlines were pushed to end of July, instead of the end of June. Also, teams having more than three players selected by National teams were given an extra quota of foreign player limit during the Olympic Games.

The postseason playoff ("Climax Series") regulations have changed to give more advantages to League Champions, now the second stage series will play for 6 games, while the League Champion will have a 1-win advantage.

In late June, the Free Agency regulation was amended after negotiation between the players committee and owners. Players are now eligible for free agency after 8 years of service to a team (1 playing year = 145 days on the active roster), previously, players needed 9 playing years to obtain free agency.

tandings

Central League

"As of October 10, 2008"

"Note: Whenever multiple teams have same number of wins, the team having better standings in last year's interleague games will have advantage, thus Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks won the interleague title, despite Hanshin Tigers beating the Hawks 3 out of 4 games. A similar rule applies to other teams tied in wins."

Climax Series

The Climax Series does not affect the team's standings, nor an individual's record in the Regular Season.

6TeamBracket | RD1=1st Stage
RD2=2nd Stage
RD3=2008 Japan Series

group1=Central League
group2=Pacific League

RD1-seed1=C2
RD1-team1=Hanshin Tigers
RD1-score1=
RD1-seed2=C3
RD1-team2=Chunichi Dragons
RD1-score2=
RD1-seed3=P2
RD1-team3=Orix Buffaloes
RD1-score3=
RD1-seed4=P3
RD1-team4=Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters
RD1-score4=

RD2-seed1=C1
RD2-team1=Yomiuri Giants
RD2-score1=1
RD2-seed2=
RD2-team2=
RD2-score2=
RD2-seed3=P1
RD2-team3=Saitama Seibu Lions
RD2-score3=1
RD2-seed4=
RD2-team4=
RD2-score4=

RD3-seed1=
RD3-team1=
RD3-score1=
RD3-seed2=
RD3-team2=
RD3-score2=

References

*official|http://www.npb.or.jp/ (Japanese}
* [http://bis.npb.or.jp/2008/stats/std_c.html Central League standings]
* [http://bis.npb.or.jp/2008/stats/std_p.html Pacific League standings]