Pitch Counts at Koshien
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.
29/08/2009 at 5:49 pm Permalink
I wanted to comment on your 2010 Free Agent post, but I didn’t find a place to do so.
I’m wondering if Kazumi Saito will be a free-agent this winter, or has he been injured again this season? Also wondering if you think Norichika Aoki or Yu Darvish will be posted this fall/winter?
Thank you.
29/08/2009 at 10:11 pm Permalink
These are really questions for the offseason, but…
Saito -> hasn’t pitched in about two years due to injuries. Probably won’t ever reach free agency.
Darvish -> not posted this year.
Aoki -> don’t see it happening this year, Yakult would be selling low on him.
30/08/2009 at 12:51 am Permalink
I think the first thing that the JHBF should do is to repeal the 15 inning rule.
If I’m not mistaken, the rule was made to keep the players from being exhausted.
But if you’re having to replay at least 9 more innings the next day, isn’t that just as bad if not worse than playing 17, 18, 19 innings? Sure, it produced one of the most exciting finals (that I was able to witness personally) in 2006, but it also created the situation in the finals where Komadai decided to try and start their RP first instead of Ma-kun, which didn’t work.
As mentioned in the prior article, having pitch counts could quite possibly separate the haves and havenots even further. If there were pitch counts, Itou and Nihon Bunri would probably have never made the finals. If there are pitch counts, the big name schools would have an advantage (i.e. Teikyou) to collect pitchers.
Admittedly, it would be nice to see teams built with a SP/RP/CL type setup, but to get 2, 3, or 4 good pitchers developed is asking too much from each school.
As you can see, I’m only talking about the logistics of teams trying to comply with the pitch count rule and its effects. I don’t have the knowledge to be able to comment on long-term damage or side-effects of pitchers throwing up to 1000 pitches at Koshien.
Also, before someone mentions it, the only reason why LLWS pitch counts work is that they only play 6 innings. That and they combine teams together within a LL to make their roster so they can have several good pitchers. Isn’t quite comparable here.