The NPB Farm League is the main minor league of Japanese professional baseball. The league was formed from a merger of the Eastern League and Western League in 2026, following a restructure of Japanese professional baseball, with six independent baseball leagues forming Japan Regional Professional Baseball being the other significant restructure in 2026.
The restructure was deemed necessary to improve financial stability amongst farm teams, by having reduced expenses for travel by having more games locally. The divisions are not permanent, with teams able to move between them as NPB farm teams start to relocate to their new facilities (e.g. Fighters farm team moving to Hokkaido by 2030).
Structure and season The league consists of 14 teams, 12 farm teams from the 12 NPB clubs, plus first teams from 2 unaffiliated clubs: Oisix Niigata Albirex and HAYATE Ventures Shizuoka. The 12 farm teams consist of the 42 players on the 70-man roster not on the first team, plus any registered development players. The other teams consist of players signed directly to the clubs: as these teams are not affiliated to clubs in the NPB, players cannot accrue NPB professional service days, and remain eligible for the NPB draft, the same way JRPB players are.
The league is currently based on a round robin system with teams playing a maximum of 146 games in a season. The number of scheduled games will vary from team to team, and games that are cancelled will not be replaced. The league championship is thus decided on winning percentage. In the two weeks preceding the season, 40 educational games are played in the Spring Educational League.
The league is divided into three regional divisions: East, Central, and West. The East and Central divisions each have five teams, while the West has four, with playing blocks of six intra-divisional series, followed by two series of inter-divisional games. This cycle repeats across the season.
An All-Star game is held between Central League and Pacific League Select teams, with players playing for the select team their parent club aligns with. The two non-affiliated clubs will be aligned with either Central or Pacific to allow their players to enter the All-Star game.
The champion of the league is determined by the Farm Japan Championship after the regular season. The three division winners qualify automatically with the second-place team with the highest winning percentage across the three divisions earning a wild-card berth, for a total of four teams. At the end of each season, individual awards are given to players in each division.
Current teams Team Location Stadiums Capacity Joined league Manager East Divison Chiba Lotte Marines (2nd team) Saitama, Saitama Lotte Urawa Baseball Stadium 300 2026 Kazuya Fukuura Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (2nd team) Kamagaya, Chiba Fighters Kamagaya Stadium 2,400 2026 Atsunori Inaba Oisix Niigata Albirex Niigata, Niigata HARD OFF ECO Stadium Niigata 30,000 2026 Masaru Takeda Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (2nd team) Sendai, Miyagi Rakuten Eagles Izumi Ground 200 2026 Naoto Watanabe Tokyo Yakult Swallows (2nd team) Toda, Saitama Yakult Toda Baseball Stadium 250 2026 Noriyuki Shiroishi Central Divison Chunichi Dragons (2nd team) Nagoya, Aichi Nagoya Stadium 4,495 2026 Yuji Iiyama HAYATE Ventures Shizuoka Shizuoka, Shizuoka Chu〜Ru Stadium Shimizu 10,000 2026 Motoyuki Akahori Saitama Seibu Lions (2nd team) Tokorozawa, Saitama Seibu Second Baseball Stadium 300 2026 Tatsuya Koseki Yokohama DeNA Baystars (2nd team) Yokosuka, Kanagawa Yokosuka Stadium 5,000 2026 Shuichi Murata Yomiuri Giants (2nd team) Inagi, Tokyo GIANTS TOWN STADIUM 2,900 2026 Takuro Ishii West Divison Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks (2nd team) Chikugo, Fukuoka HAWKS Baseball Park Chikugo 3,113 2026 Kazumi Saito Hanshin Tigers (2nd team) Amagasaki, Hyōgo SGL Stadium 3,600 2026 Katsuo Hirata Hiroshima Toyo Carp (2nd team) Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Hiroshima Toyo Carp Yu Training Ground 3,500 2026 Shinji Koh Orix Buffaloes (2nd team) Osaka, Osaka Maishima Baseball Stadium 8,000 2026 Naoyuki Kazaoka
References
External links