Miura’s Best Pitch?
A question for those of you who regularly watched the Yokohama BayStars in 2009: what is Daisuke Miura’s best pitch?
Baseball in Japan & Around the World
A question for those of you who regularly watched the Yokohama BayStars in 2009: what is Daisuke Miura’s best pitch?
22/12/2009 at 7:49 pm Permalink
I did not watch the BayStars much in 2009 and I cannot tell you much about Miura’s best pitch. I used to watch Yokohama quite a lot in the past, though, so I can tell you a bit about Miura’s worst pitch. It’s either his last pitch before the manager takes him out of the game in the 3rd inning or, on better days, it’s the pitch that gives up the opponent’s lone run on the way to another classic 1-0 Miura loss.
If Miura played for a decent team, he’d be a solid 3rd or 4th starter. Since he plays for Yokohama, he is an “ace”.
22/12/2009 at 11:17 pm Permalink
Funny, I thought I hear from you when I posted my last BayStars piece, the one about all the new players they signed.
23/12/2009 at 2:44 am Permalink
Actually, I am glad to see Yokohama showing a pulse for a change this offseason. As pessimistic as I am about this team, I do think they will be better. I will go out on a limb here and predict that there is a slight chance the BayStars might finish 2010 in fifth place. I have friends that still care about Yokohama for some reason, so I hope, for their sake, the team improves a little. As for myself, I cannot tell you how happy I am to be living in a region without a Central League team. It makes it much more fun to be a baseball fan (although the Japan Series nearly made me throw up).
26/12/2009 at 8:34 pm Permalink
Dude, what about those of us who have seen Miura pitch a ton over the last few years, and still have no idea what his best or worst pitch is? I loooooooooove Bancho but most of the time when I see him, it’s from the outfield stands.
I can teach you his cheer song if you want…
26/12/2009 at 10:36 pm Permalink
I guess I should explain what this is for. I’m kicking around a way to do qualitative analysis on pitchers, and I wanted to see if perception matches up with what my results find, should I manage to come up with something that works.
I’m surprised Matt or Westbay-san haven’t commented. Maybe I should cross-post to JapaneseBaseball.com.
28/12/2009 at 7:52 am Permalink
Hmmm. I don’t like to comment about such things without the data to back me up. That’s why I’ve been so silent.
But if you’re going to force me to make a claim, I’d go with “he doesn’t have a single out pitch.” Miura mixes his pitches up, and with his great control, feels equally comfortable with a fork, slider, or straight as his final punch. It seems to me that he only thew a curve ball a couple of times last year, and even it was used in such a situation (totally baffling the batter who didn’t expect it).
Of course, I’ve also seen too many hanging straights to batters who planted the ball on the other side of the fence, but I don’t recall the count on them. I’d certainly like to see your analysis in that regard – i.e. what count he gives up the long ball on most often.