Veteran Hanshin Tigers outfielder Tomoaki Kanemoto will remain the highest-paid Japanese player for the second year in a row after re-signing Thursday for an estimated ¥550 million plus performance incentives. Kanemoto's annual salary remains unchanged from 2007 after he continued to play with a painful left knee that he hurt in late June and finished the season with a .265 batting average, the worst since he joined Hanshin in 2003, 31 homers and 95 RBIs in 144 games. Kanemoto, who extended his streak of playing every inning of every game to 1,186 games, had knee surgery in October and will hold an individual training camp in the United States from January before joining the rest of the team in Ginoza, Okinawa Prefecture, in mid-February.
