The list of NPB free agents was revealed Monday, and lo and behold, three of the five players I included in my winter free agents columns are nowhere to be found. As it turns out, only Kosuke Fukudome and Hitoki Iwase are included in the list of 68 players. Koji Uehara, Kenshin Kawakami and Tomohiro Nioka are absent.

I knew there was some controversy over whether Uehara would be there, but I thought the other two were givens. Kawakami has actually played 10 years, but apparently injuries have left him short of the nine full years of service time required. He's 32 and he's thrown 1,525 innings over the last decade, but he still doesn't control his own destiny. Imagine if MLB had similar rules regarding the DL and service time. Gil Meche wouldn't have only been a Mariner this year, but he'd still be under control for 2008. He pitched a mere 815 innings in the majors before he became a free agent.

Both Uehara and Nioka play for the Yomiuri Giants, essentially the Yankees of Japan, so there's really no chance of either being posted. I haven't heard anything on whether Kawakami might be. He has indicated in the past that he'd like to pitch in the U.S. The problem there is that Kawakami plays for the same team as Fukudome and Iwase, the Chunichi Dragons. If the Dragons lose two of their other best players, it's hard to see how they could part with Kawakami as well.

I'll be writing profiles on some of the available Japanese players over the next few days.