NPB Tracker

The response we received to my recent article about pitch counts reaffirmed to me that the subject is of interest to baseball fans. To continue on the topic, I will take a look at the Koshien High School Tournament, which is known to be grueling for pitchers.

49 teams representing each prefecture (Tokyo and Hokkaido with two each) qualify for the single-elimination tournament. There was a total of 48 games in the tournament. In those 48 games, 48 complete games were thrown. Naoki Itoh from runner-up Nippon Bunri was the hardest-working pitcher this year, throwing five total complete games including the final and averaged for 131 pitches per game. In the 48 complete games thrown, pitchers averaged a total of 127.88 pitches per game.

The most grueling game of the tournament was thrown by Hayato Shoji (Tokoha Gakuen Tachibana), who already had two complete games in the books when he threw 211 pitches in a twelve inning game. Ironically, Shoji had the most efficient complete game as well, with a 98-pitch effort. The face of this year’s tournament, Yusei Kikuchi of Hanamaki Higashi, threw three complete games (124, 118, 125 pitches) and was looking for more until he started suffering from back pain.

The Koshien Tournament is always an emotional dramatic event, but is it safe for pitchers such as Shoji to be throwing that much? There are handful of promising pitchers in the Koshien Tournament who will make it to the professional stage and may develop into key players in NPB or even the majors. Even though the injury suffered by Kikuchi does not look serious, evaluating a limit on  pitch counts at a high school tournament where the top teams will play up to six games in the fifteen days should be something we should consider about thinking about the future that lies for the face of Japanese baseball.

There are a couple of editions of Shukan Baseball that I look forward to each year: the issue on breaking pitches, the series of issues leading up to the draft, and the mid-season issue on foreign players in Japan. I picked up foreign players issue on my last trip to Kinokuniya, and this year’s edition has a photobook of all 908 foreign players who have been on the payroll of an NPB team. Every time I get a magazine like this I learn something new, so here’s a few things from this year’s edition, plus a few of my own.

Jose’s twin Ozzie Canseco spent part of 1991 playing for Kintetsu, but never escaped the ni-gun team, where he hit .271 with eight homers.

Frank Ortenzio’s name was officially registered on Nankai’s roster in Kanji as 王天上 rather than the usual Katakana, which would have been オーテンジョウ or something similar.

Don Newcombe was a star pitcher for the Dodgers in the 1950’s, but played the outfield for Chunichi in 1962. He hit .262 with 12 home runs in 81 games. One of Newcombe’s Chunichi teammates was color-line pioneer Larry Doby.

Matt Stairs played for Chunichi way back in 1993, prior to having any MLB success.

Korean pitcher Cho Son-Min had the longest contract in NPB history, a eight-year deal with the Giants signed prior to 1996. Over the life of the contract he only appeared in 53 games, posting a 2.84 era.

Dave Nilsson played for Chunichi in 2000, so he could represent Australia in that year’s Summer Olympics. He went by “Dingo” during his brief stay in Japan.

Marty Keough played for Nankai in the 60’s; his son Matt Keough played for Hanshin in the 80’s. Now Matt’s son Shane Keough is a minor leaguer in the A’s system — possible third generation suketto?

This isn’t really notworthy, but a guy I really liked when I was living in Japan was Chang Chih-Chia from Taiwan. I thought he’d be a good pitcher for a long time, but weight and injury problems derailed his career. He was back in Taiwan last season, and even though he’s still just 29 years old it seems as though his best days as a pitcher are behind him. BR Bullpen has a chronicle of his rise and fall.

Some pretty good MLB players signed to play in Japan while the players were still striking in 1995: Shane Mack, Kevin Mitchell, Julio Franco, Darrin Jackson. Of course, Mitchell didn’t pan out, but the other guys did okay.

Alex Ramirez’s step-son, Alex jr, had been in Yakult’s farm system while sr was with the ichi-gun team. I didn’t realize that until about a week ago, jr had been with Kochi of the independent Island League.