NPB Tracker

Just before the start of the 2003 season, I remember seeing a news piece on Kazumi Saito. Saito was going into his seventh professional season, and despite having a career mark of just 9-4, he had been selected as the then Fukuoka Daiei Hawks’ opening day starter. The piece was about how it was time for him to step up and live to his potential, but  I was skeptical. I liked Hayato Terahara better and thought that starting Saito on opening day was a bad sign for the Hawks. I was way off on that one; Saito went 20-3 on the season and shared the Sawamura Award with Kei Igawa, as the Hawks cruised to their first Pacific League title since 2000.

Since his breakout season in ’03, Saito has been dominant when healthy but otherwise a non-factor. In his three healthiest years (’03, ’05, ’06), his cumulative record is 54-9(!); the rest of the time it’s a more pedestrian 25-14. The difference in his other stats is apparent on his page at JapaneseBaseball.com.

Injury History
Before we go any further, we need to take a look at Saito’s Priorian injury history, courtesy of Wikipedia. 

1997: “Loose shoulder”. Briefly converted to a hitter, appearing in a few games as an outfielder.
1998: Shoulder surgery.
2001: Unspecified shoulder issue.
2004:  Missed time due to “not being able to get into shape”, hit hard when he was in.
2005: Missed his opening day start due to shoulder pain, rebounded to have a great season.
2006: Sat out of the US-Japan All-Star Series with shoulder inflammation.
2007: Missed time with muscle fatigue in his shoulder. 
2008: Surgery in January to repair his rotator cuff from years of hard work. Spent much of the season rehabbing in Arizona.

Like Mark Prior, Saito has a messed-up shoulder. Unlike Prior, who was healthy in college and for his first few pro seasons, Saito been bothered by injuries from a younger age. Saito has been more present in the media over the last year or so, giving me the impression that he has at least a shot at coming back at some point, whereas Prior seems to be a bigger question mark at this point.

I don’t have special insight into whether overuse or mechanics are the root cause of Saito’s injury trouble, but I will say we’ve seen a number of NPB pitchers enjoy relatively short peaks due to overuse. Unfortunately, NPB pitch count statistics are not easy to find.

Stuff & Mechanics
Saito’s stuff begins with a fastball that, if you believe the TV gun, reaches about 94mph. His best breaking pitch is a fork/splitter that breaks straight downward, and he also mixes in a curveball and a slider.  (cue the YouTube footage) One of the better clips I found was this one of a young Saito pitching mop up in the 2000 Japan Series, striking out Hideki Matsui and Domingo Martinez. This longer video shows Saito getting swinging strikeouts with his fastball, splitter and curve.

I’m no expert on pitching mechanics, so I’ll share these two videos and see what the audience thinks. This first one is live game footage taken by a fan at a game at Chiba Marine Stadium. The second is slow motion footage of a number of pitchers, and Saito appears from 0:18-0:40. To me it looks like he doesn’t extend his throwing arm much and kind of snaps it through his motion. Of course, we don’t know what kind of changes he’ll come back with following last year’s surgery.

In Conclusion
Even 100 decent innings from Saito in 2009 would go a long way towards restoring the Hawks’ competitiveness. But whether or not he’ll be able to compete for a full season or perform at his previous level remains to be seen. Saito just turned 31, so he has some good years left, but there is a lot of wear and tear on that right shoulder.

I occasionally get asked if we’ll ever see Saito in the majors. My answer is that I kind of doubt it. Saito is 3-4 healthy years away from free agency, and the Hawks will never post him. I never say never, and he did enjoy his time in Arizona, so if he can stay healthy and has the will… maybe. But it seems like a longshot, and given that Saito’s injury history means we won’t see him in extracurriculars like WBC and US-Japan Series’, this is a guy that Stateside fans will have to enjoy via justin.tv.

The next profiles on this site will be for WBC players, so don’t touch that dial…

Back on to current events… here’s today’s collection from around the ‘net.

Japanese Articles

• Yu Darvish made his first start since returning from the Olympics, throwing 96 pitches over eight innings of one-hit ball.
• Kazumi Saito has completed the US stint of his rehab and has returned to Japan to finish up. I wonder if we’ll see him in a game this season…
• Updates on Hanshin’s three foreign-born relief pitchers: Jeff Williams was dropped to the farm team for rest after two bad outings; Chris Resop is also on the farm team getting a look as a starter, but meanwhile Scott Atchison has been holding down the fort with 10 consecutive scoreless outings.
• Chunichi Dragons owner Junnosuke Shirai has suggested that rather than rely on Senichi Hoshino for next year’s WBC team, Japan goes with the manager of this year’s NPB champion.

English Articles

• Deanna posted a great interivew with Rakuten slugger Fernando Seguignol. For anyone who hasn’t seen Deanna’s site, I highly recommend it — she gets some excellent interviews.
• Koji Uehara returned to Yomiuri’s starting rotation last week and picked up a win.
• The Softbank Source reports on last weekend’s Hawks-Marines series, where all three games ended in ties. This the first time in NPB history that’s happened.

Blogging is immensely popular in Japan — as of April 2007 Japanese was the #1 most “blogged in” language according to Technorati. I haven’t found any newer data, but then again I haven’t looked too hard either. Moving along to the point, several NPB players maintain blogs and I would like to make a selected few a little more accessible to English-speaking fans.

• Yu Darvish celebrated a birthday, and received 3000 well-wishing comments on his blog.
• Chiba Lotte submariner Shunsuke Watanabe last updated his blog on August 13, noting that it felt good to work up a sweat in the outdoor Chiba Marine Stadium as opposed to Osaka Dome, while lamenting the struggles of Japan’s Olympic team and his Marines.
• Speedy Hiroshima Carp centerfielder Masato Akamatsu hit his first home run in a while and was nervous in the Hero Interview that followed, the first of his career. He also included a picture of him with a weird looking stuffed animal in this post.
• “Hama no Bancho” Daisuke Miura poses for a picture with Osaka Castle and admits to being a “castle maniac”.
• Kazumi Saito is rehabbing a shoulder injury in Arizona, and fortunately for us has plenty of time to write in his blog. Saito’s blog definitely offers the best insight into what his life is like. A recent post describes his rehab schedule, which is pretty interesting — he has an alternating workout schedule, which requires him to get up no later than 6:15 AM. He has a methodical attitude about it: “For every result, there is a process. I think results without a process cannot be maintained.” Saito seems to be enjoying his time in Arizona. I’ll have to write an entry on his blog alone sometime.

Some of the foreign NPB players maintain blogs as well. I think that topic is worthy of it’s own post so look out for it soon.

Today’s news & links:

• Yu Darvish dominated Rakuten for his 11th win of the season: 9 IP, 10 K, 0 BB, 4 H, 1 ER on 89 pitches. Darvish’s league-leading ERA is now 1.88.
• Hanshin lost yesterday, cutting their lead to 11.5 in the Central League.
• Kazumi Saito has been rehabbing in Arizona, but he’s found time to attend a WNBA game and hang out with Jeremy Giambi.
• Victor Starfin’s daughter did indeed throw out the first pitch at the Giants’ July 15 game.
• NPB teams sending three or more players to the Olympics will be allowed to carry an additional foreign player while they’re Olympians are away. This means some teams will have up to five foreign players on their active rosters.