By Nathan Kanter

Albers signs with Japan’s Orix Buffaloes for 2018

Jan 4, 2018 | 4:00 PM

The professional baseball career of North Battleford’s Andrew Albers has taken him far from home, from his college days in Kentucky, to professional stops in Minnesota, Toronto, and Seattle, plus minor league gigs all over the United States.

Now, the 32-year-old is heading halfway around the world to continue his pro baseball career, after signing a one-year contract with the Orix Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the highest professional league in Japan.

“These kinds of opportunities don’t come up very often,” Albers said in a phone interview on Thursday. “You’ve almost got to take them when they come because you never know if they’ll come up again.”

The Buffaloes are based in Osaka, a city that is part of one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world with over 19 million people, and play most of their games at the Osaka Dome, which can fit over 36,000 fans for baseball games.

Beofre inking the new deal, Albers was still on the Seattle Mariners roster after starting eight games in 2017, but as a 32-year-old, he knew there was only an outside shot he would make the club in 2018.

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“I knew that it would be difficult to make that team out of camp, [which] played a big factor in the decision to leave,” Albers said. “I felt it would be a shame to be in a situation similar to what I was in last year, where I felt like I pitched really, really well and still had to have a lot of things fall right for me to get an opportunity.

“With Orix, I know I’m going to get an opportunity to perform and to perform at a high level and get to play in their major leagues over there.”

Talks with Orix began a couple weeks after the World Series ended. Before negotiations began, however, the Mariners had to be willing to release Albers, which they did.

After some back and forth, Albers and Orix agreed on a $900,000 USD salary.

“I’d love to say that it didn’t, but the financial side of it does play a part in your decision making,” Albers said. “You have a very small window in your career to try to set yourself up for the future and when an opportunity comes up that will help do that, it’s hard to pass up.

“That’s not the only thing that factors in to the decision but it certainly is a part of it.”

This actually isn’t the first time Albers has headed overseas to play baseball, as he pitched for the Hanwha Eagles in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) in 2014.

Albers said this time around it was a more difficult decision to leave North America, because of how well he pitched this past year.

He added there’s a chance he returns to North America in the near future, but everything is up in the air right now.

“We’ll see what happens,” Albers said of his future. “I might go over there and love it and not want to come back. I’m open to [returning]. I’m also open to staying there for multiple years. We’ll see how things go.”

The Japanese baseball schedule is similar to Major League Baseball (143 games versus 162), however training camp starts earlier, on Feb. 1.

Albers is currently in the process of booking his flight over, which is likely to be Jan. 24 or 25 so that he has a few days to get settled.

The team will set up an apartment for him and supply an interpretor during his time there as well.

“The teams overseas generally do a good job of setting you up and making sure that you have a chance to succeed,” Albers said. “You’re obviously there to perform and pitch well for them and that’s their primary concern…so they do a really good job of making everything else fairly easy and I would imagine Orix will be very similar to that.”

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11