If there is one thing that can be said about the Central League offseason it's that the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer.
One of the stories of the CL offseason has been that the three teams that qualified for the postseason, the Yomiuri Giants, Chunichi Dragons and Hanshin Tigers have all made upgrades to further widen the gap between themselves and last season's B-class, the Yokohama BayStars, Hiroshima Carp and Yakult Swallows.
A brief look at some of the moves include Hanshin scoring an early coup when Takahiro Arai (.290, 28 home runs and 102 RBIs in 2007) followed in new teammate Tomoaki Kanemoto's footsteps by making the move from the Carp (who also lost Hiroki Kuroda to the major leagues) to the Tigers.