NPB Tracker

It’s much harder to predict the standings for the Pacific League as the teams are so evenly matched. But I’ll give it a shot.

1. Seibu Lions: I think we’ll see a little regression from Okawari Nakamura and Kazuyuki Hoashi, but a better performance from Hideaki Wakui. Overall it looks like the Lions have enough to repeat.
Key Players: Wakui, Hoashi, whoever gets the most at-bats at 1st base

2. Nippon Ham Fighters: Nippon Ham was actually outscored by their opponents last year. I’m putting them here because I believe that they have the pitching and defense to win close games, and that Sho Nakata will turn up at some point during the season and provide a little offense.The new additions to the bullpen have the task of replacing Michael Nakamura as well.
Key Players: Nakata, Ryan Wing, Masanori Hayashi

3. Chiba Lotte Marines: I didn’t think I’d have the Marines making the playoffs, but I’m putting them in third because they have a solid front four in their rotation, and no real holes in their lineup. Hopefully Bobby V can find a way to keep Tadahito Iguchi and Shunichi Nemoto both in the lineup, as Nemoto broke out last year with a .296/.369/.430 line.
Key Players: Bobby V, Yoshihisa Naruse, Yuuki Karakawa

4. Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles: The Eagles have two WBC heroes at the top of their rotation (Hisashi Iwakuma, Masahiro Tanaka), a couple of solid mid-rotation guys (Darrell Rasner, Hideaki Asai), and some power in the middle of their lineup (Norihiro Nakamura, Fernando Seguignol, Takeshi Yamasaki). But on the other hand they have some holes in their lineup and bullpen.
Key Players: the bullpen

5. Orix Buffaloes: Manager Daijiro Ohishi took over in May of last year and lead the Buffaloes to a seemingly improbable playoff run. Looking back, the Buffaloes pitched better than I realized, with a 3.93 team era and four starters with sub-4:00 eras and at least 10 wins. If the pitching staff can repeat that performance, and the aging lineup of foreign sluggers holds up, they’ll be competitive. If not, look for a B-class finish.
Key Players: Tuffy Rhodes, Alex Cabrera, Jose Fernandez, Greg LaRocca

6. Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks: It’s hard to pick the Hawks to finish this low with the amazing rotation depth they have — Tsuyoshi Wada, Toshiya Sugiuchi, Nagisa Arakaki, Shota Ohba, Kenji Ohtonari, Kameron Loe, Kazumi Saito (if he can come back from his injuries) and rookie Shingo Tatsumi. But on the flipside, their lineup just isn’t what it used to be. The Hawks hit just 99 home runs last year and haven’t added any significant bats. They’re hoping for a return to form from aging sluggers Hiroki Kokubo and Hitoshi Tamura, who have been shells of their former selves in recent years.
Key Players: Kokubo, Tamura

It was tough to pick any of these teams to finish last, because the league is so balanced and all the teams have strengths. It seems likely that Seibu will finish in the top 3 and SoftBank will finish in the bottom 3, but everything else is up for grabs. What are your thoughts?

More than anyone else on the Japan team, it was Hisashi Iwakuma that made a name for himself in this year’s WBC. Iwakuma put in an outstanding performance in the round two elimination game against Cuba, and again in the final when he left the game with a lead over Korea. He isn’t a new face to NPB fans, but he’s not a phenom like Yu Darvish and hasn’t gotten much exposure abroad. 

It’s been somewhat of a winding road to this point for Iwakuma. Let’s take a look at how he got here.

2002
I was living near Osaka in 2002, when Iwakuma arrived on the scene for the local Kintetsu Buffaloes. The Buffaloes were coming off a Japan Series appearance, but had a pretty weak rotation, and he put up respectable numbers in his first full year. More than anything, I recall his funky two-stage delivery, and that people were talking about his as someone to watch in coming years.

2003
Iwakuma broke out with a 15-10 record and 3.45 ERA in 195 2/3 innings, and along with Jeremy Powell gave the Buffaloes a solid front-end rotation.  Kintetsu’s power lineup was aging at that point though, and they weren’t able to compete with the strong Fukuoka Daiei Hawks for the Pacific League title.

2004
Iwakuma started the season with a 12-game winning streak and was the top vote-getting pitcher in the Pacific League for the All-Star game.  Iwakuma plays in the Olympics later in the summer and finished with a 15-2 record.

More signficantly, the Kintetsu Buffaloes and Orix Blue Wave agreed to merge their baseball operations in the summer of ’04, leading to the establishment of team currently known as the Orix Buffaloes. The merger spurred talks of contraction, which eventually led to a fan-supported players’ strike and the creation of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles franchise. The merge was a sad event for me, as it meant the end of the Blue Wave name, which I really liked.

2004-5 Offseason
Iwakuma refused to play for the merged Buffaloes team, and was traded to the Rakuten expansion team. Rakuten seemed to have a decent foundation to its rotation with Iwakuma and college ace Yasuhiro Ichiba. Ichiba never panned out, and was just recently traded.

2005-7
Wilderness years. Two-stage delivery’s were banned in NPB, forcing Iwakuma to re-work his mechanics. This video gives you a sense of the changes he had to make; you can see his Kintetsu-era windup from about 1:00-1:20*. He also struggled through injuries and had a doormat of an expansion team behind him until 2007.

 *note about the video: click the large button that says 再生 to play the video. There is also an annoying comment feature that can be disabled if you click the button in the lower right of the video player, the one that kind of looks like a chick with a cartoon talk-bubble. 

2008
A big return to form. Iwakuma stayed healthy and apparently mastered his mechanics. The video I linked to above shows a change he made to his arm slot, which resulted in him getting more groundball outs, and dramatically reduced his home run rate. Despite his excellent season, Iwakuma was snubbed from the Olympic team, which in part allowed him to win a league-leading 21 games. He was the first 20-game winner in NPB since Kei Igawa and Kazumi Saito both won 20 in 2003, and the first 21-game winner since Yoshinori Sato in 1985. 

For his efforts, he was awarded the Sawamura Award as NPB’s best pitcher, and the Pacific League MVP despite playing for a 5th-place team.

The Future
Iwakuma signed a 3-year, 1.1bn yen ($11m) deal with Rakuten after the 2008 season. It’s uncommon for NPB players to sign multi-year deals prior to reaching free agency, so his contract is evidence that Rakuten really thinks highly of him.  Since I was getting asked this during the NPB chats, as far as I can tell he has about five years of NPB service time, which means he has another four to go before reaching international free agency. Rakuten seems to be commited to building a competitive team around him.

Last night’s Japan-Korea final was certainly the best WBC game I’ve ever seen, and probably the best one in the WBC’s short history. The live chat I hosted during the game was missing a few of the usual suspects but was a great one — thanks everyone who participated.

Here are my bullet points on the good…

• Both Japan and Korea should be proud of the game they played. Both teams had a chance to win and I think they both earned a lot of respect internationally. I’ve always been interested in Korean baseball, but I’ll certainly follow the KBO a little more closely this year. Rather than winning bragging rights over each other, I think they’ve both earned bragging rights in the international baseball world.
• For my money, Hisashi Iwakuma was the tournament MVP.
• Japan executed small ball tactics pretty well over the last three games. I saw at least three successful hit and run plays, and a number of good bunts and lots of good defense. 
• The Japan-Korea rivalry created an electric atmosphere. I’d love to see the two countries get together for something like The Ashes.
• Everyone is second-guessing Korea manager In-Sik Kim’s decision to pitch to Ichiro in the 10th, but to me the decision wasn’t totally cut and dry. Ichiro hadn’t performed in the WBC until the final game, and Hiroyuki Nakajima had had a pretty good tournament. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with his call, but had he walked Ichiro we might be wondering why he loaded the bases for Nakajima.
• I actually think Hara made pretty good moves over the last few games. 
• Unheralded players of the tournament for me are Toshiya Sugiuchi and Satoshi Komatsu.

And the less good…

• Yu Darvish really struggled with his command in the 9th inning last night. Ultimately it made the game more exciting, but he could have challenged hitters with his excellent fastball a little more, particularly with no one on base.
• Daisuke Matsuzaka, like Darvish had a bad habit of nibbling until he got into trouble, and then challenging hitters. Guys, you have good stuff! Go after hitters.
• Japan played five games against Korea, two against Cuba, and one each against China and the USA. It didn’t detract from the final, but the seeding game was pretty mellow compared to the others. 
• Japan won despite having Yoshiyuki Kamei on the roster.

Thoughts?

This is it — the seemingly pre-destined Japan vs Korea WBC championship game. Hisashi Iwakuma takes the mound for Japan, while Jung Bong gets the call for Korea. Yu Darvish will be available for relief work for Japan. This game may be for bragging rights, but I think that both teams can brag that they’ve defeated several strong competitors to make it this far. It should be a great game.

Japan manager Tatsunori Hara has settled on a WBC roster. Here it is:

Pitchers
Yu Darvish
Takahiro Mahara
Masahiro Tanaka
Hideaki Wakui
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Minoru Iwata
Hisashi Iwakuma
Kyuji Fujikawa
Tetsuya Utsumi
Satoshi Komatsu
Shunsuke Watanabe
Tetsuya Yamaguchi
Toshiya Sugiuchi

Catchers
Kenji Johjima
Shinnosuke Abe
Yoshiyuki Ishihara

Infielders
Hiroyuki Nakajima
Yasuyuki Kataoka
Akinori Iwamura
Michiro Ogasawara
Shuichi Murata
Munenori Kawasaki

Outfielders
Kosuke Fukudome
Norichika Aoki
Seiichi Uchikawa
Yoshiyuki Kamei
Atsunori Inaba
Ichiro

(SI has the AP article as well)

Notable departures are Nobuhiko Matsunaka (achilles problem), Kenta Kurihara (affected by elbow surgery last year), Toru Hosokawa (right shoulder pain), Tsuyoshi Wada, and Takayuki Kishi. Health reasons were not cited for Wada and Kishi.

Overall, the roster looks pretty good to me, though it’s somewhat short on power.The inclusion of Yoshiyuki Kamei makes no obvious sense to me, but I could see him as a defensive replacement/pinch runner. The only other questionable pick I see is Shunsuke Watanabe. He’s been hit or miss in NPB, and as I recall he wasn’t that great in the 2006 WBC.

In an effort to get the average time of games down under three hours, NPB has decided to introduce a new rule requiring pitchers to deliver each pitch within 15 seconds. This is part of NPB’s Green Baseball Project, in which the league is trying to do it’s part for the environment by cutting down on energy expenditures associated with playing games. A noble goal with a laughable logo.

This rule change hasn’t gone over well with the players:

Nippon Ham ace Yu Darvish: “That’s not baseball”.

2008 Sawamura Award winner Hisashi Iwakuma: “Darvish is correct. Even now our time is pressed. If the time is going to be compressed, they should be thorough and widen the strike zone. This is how we make our living”.

Rakuten manager Katsuya Nomura: “to have a rule for that is nonsense. Baseball has always been a sport without a time limit. The fans pay a lot of money to come to the ballpark, so we should be in the park as much as possible”.

Darvish again: “I’m not going to take any kind of action. I’ll ignore it.”

Commissioner Ryozo Kato: “you’re pros so get used to it”.

Kyuji Fujikawa was the first take a hit from the new rule, taking three balls in his first spring training practice game appearance. Gotta take the players’ side on this one. I hope this rule doesn’t make it out of spring training.

First bullet points of the new year… let’s get started.

Japanese Articles

• The Tadahito Iguchi rumor mill is heating up a little. According to Nikkan Sports by way of Sports Nifty, the Chiba Lotte Marines are prepared to start the negotiations at 2 years, 400m yen ($4.4m at the current exchange rate).  The article speculates that they could go a little higher as they have the diasppointing Julio Zuleta’s 260m yen ($2.86m) annual salary coming off the books.
• Nikkan Sports reports that Daisuke Matsuzaka will be training with his former team, the Seibu Lions in preparation for the World Baseball Classic. Matsuzaka will train with Seibut at his own request.
• Nippon Ham manager Masataka Nashida has announced that Yu Darvish will be his opening day starter. Not really news, but it’ll be a tight schedule with the WBC wrapping up shortly beforehand. In the same breathe, Nashida said that he wants to face Hanshin in the Japan Series this year.
• Yomiuri Giants reliever and 2008 R0Y Tetsuya Yamaguchi will be doing his pre-camp training in Arizona at the Fischer Sports Gym, where Randy Johnson works out in the offseason. In other training news, Yakult reliever Ryota Igarashi is also heading to Arizona to train at the same gym Nomar Garciaparra uses.
• The Hiroshima Carp have been flooded with a deluge of orders for their new uniform.

English Articles

• The Saitama Seibu Lions are changing their look that’s suited them pretty well over the years. Simon isn’t a fan, and I have to say neither am I.
• Deanna racked up quite an impressive pile of ticket stubs in 2008.
• 2008 Sawamura Award winner Hisashi Iwakuma signed a 3-year, 1.1bn yen ($12.1m) deal with the Rakuten Eagles. This is a rare case of a top player getting a multi-year deal prior to reaching free agency in Japan.
• Jim Allen has a couple of players to watch in 2009.

Every new year begins with a list about the old one. Here’s my 2008 list of notable events in Japanese baseball.

10. Ichiro Reaches 3000 total NPB/MLB hits; has 8th consecutive 200-hit season
Ichiro has started his MLB career with eight straight 200-hit seasons, tieing Willie Keeler’s century-old mark for most consecutive 200 hit seasons. Ichiro has also surpassed 3000 hits in his NPB/MLB career and needs three more to surpass Isao Harimoto’s record for Japanese players (3085).

9. Daijiro Ohishi keys surprising Orix turnaround
Orix was 21-28 when manager Terry Collins quit on May 21. Ohishi took over and led the team to a 2nd place finish with a 75-68-1, including a 55-40-1 mark while he was at the helm.

8. Kazuhiro Kiyohara Retires
Kiyohara finally succombed to injuries after being in the national baseball spotlight since the early 80’s, first as a high school star, then as a 22-year NPB veteran.

7. Hideo Nomo Retires
MLB pioneer retired in June after being released from the KC Royals and failing to hook on with another team. He was last seen coaching for the Orix Buffaloes in the team’s fall camp. 

6. Junichi Tazawa signs with Boston
Tazawa became the first consensus first-round draft pick to forgo professional baseball in Japan for a career in America.

5. Bobby Valentine and Chiba Lotte agree to part ways after the 2009 season
After a series of disagreements, Bobby V and Chiba Lotte agreed not to renew the manager’s contract beyond 2009.  Bobby took the Marines from being a perennial doormat to being a perennial contender, while also serving as one of the top advocates for Japanese baseball.

4. Hisashi Iwakuma edges Yu Darvish for the Sawamura
Iwakuma won 21 games  for the also-ran Rakuten Eagles to take his first Sawamura Award & Pacific League MVP. Darvish was more dominant by some measures but had to settle for second best in ’08.

3. Seibu beats Yomiuri for Japan Series Title
 In a return to form for both teams, the Lions beat out the Giants in a closely fought, 7-game Japan Series. Seibu remarkably won the Series just two years after losing ace Daisuke Matsuzaka to the Red Sox.

2. Team Japan Disappoints in the Olympics
Japan’s NPB star-studded team couldn’t beat Korea, Cuba, or the USA and finished out of the medals for the first time since the 2000 games in Sydney. The performance led to Senichi Hoshino’s departure as the Japan National Team manager. 

1. Sadaharu Oh Retires from Field Duties
 Oh retired as field manager of the Fukuoka Daiei/SoftBank Hawks after 14 years on the job. Oh led the Hawks to Japan Series titles in 1999 and 2003, and a Japan Series appearance in 2000. Oh will remain with the Hawks in a front office capacity.

Honorable mentions: So Taguchi becomes the latest NPB vet to win a World Series Ring; 2008 crop of Japanese MLB imports mostly disappoint; Hiroki Kuroda thows a gem against the Braves; Hisayoshi Chono refuses to sign with the Chiba Lotte Marines in the hopes of being drafted by the Giants

This year’s Sawamura Award selection committee agreed with me and choose Rakuten ace Hisashi Iwakuma as the recipient of this year’s award. Here’s a YouTube clip of the game that really put Iwakuma over the top.

Runner-up Yu Darvish had an outstanding year, meeting all seven guidelines for selection, but in the end Iwakuma’s win total and slightly better era won out. Said selection committee member Choji Murata: “Darvish is a pitcher who can take the award again from next year”.

Work and my upcoming home move have settled down a little bit, so it’s time to catch up on a little NPB bloggin’. There’s no immediate end in sight to my hectic schedule, but I’m hoping to be able to get back to posting 2-3 times a week. 

Let’s start the comeback with a look a this year’s race for the Sawamura Award. With apologies to Satoshi Komatsu and Colby Lewis, two pitchers have clearly separated themselves from the pack: Nippon Ham’s Yu Darvish and Rakuten’s Hisashi Iwakuma. Darvish’s regular season is over, while Iwakuma still has another start left, but we have enough numbers to compare. Here’s my fairly simplistic look at them head-to-head.

Selected Rate Stats

Darvish has an edge here, but it’s minimal. Both pitchers have sub-2.00 ERAs, sub-1.00 WHIPs, and 4+ K/BB ratios. Darvish has struck more guys out, but Iwakuma has better controlled the home run ball. Both guys have been outstanding by these metrics.

Selected Accumulated Stats

Iwakuma has a big edge here in hitting the 20 win mark, becoming the first NPB 20-game winner since Kazumi Saito and Kei Igawa both did it in 2003. This is a particularly phenomenal achievement for a guy pitching for a last place team.

Darvish has been a workhorse, throwing 200 innings in just 24 starts. It should be noted, however,  that he threw two meaningless innings in Nippon Ham’s 17-0 drubbing of Rakuten in the Fighters’ last regular season game to reach 200.

The WHIP numbers shown above give an indication of how unhittable these guys have been this year, and these totals underscore that further. Despite Iwakuma’s remarkable HR allowed total, overall Darvish has been even less hittable.

The Sawamura Award

The recipient of the Sawamura Award is decided by a panel of great NPB pitchers, who in part base their decision on the following criteria (courtesy of Wikipedia):

• Games started: 25
• Wins: 15
• Complete games: 10
• W/L Percentage: .600
• Innings Pitched: 200
• ERA: 2.50
• Strikeouts: 150