Keep your eye this coming season in Japanese baseball on catcher Tsubasa Aizawa of the Hiroshima Carp. The 27-year-old, eight-year veteran appears ready to take over as the first-string catcher on a team poised to challenge for the Central League pennant under new manager Koichi Ogata.

Catchers not providing even halfway-decent offensive statistics has been one of the weak points in an otherwise mostly strong overall performance for a club that finished third in the CL standings the last two years.

Over the past eight seasons during the managerial days of Marty Brown and Kenjiro Nomura, the backstop duties have been shared mostly by Yoshiyuki Ishihara and Yoshikazu Kura. Ishihara will be 36 this year, and Kura 40, so that era appears to be over. Both are still active but, besides their ages, their lack of batting skills is a big factor that should relegate them to the bench in 2015.