NPB Tracker

I’ve spent most of my writing time this week over at FanGraphs, profiling some of Japan’s better players. In researching that set of articles, I came across this post I wrote in early 2009, before Koji Uehara and Kenshin Kawakami had signed with MLB clubs. Looking back at this, I don’t think I’d change the set of conclusions that I originally drew, but I will add the observation that this trend has hurt the overall depth of the league. Another interesting thing to note is that 11 of the 26 players listed here have returned to NPB, several since this article was written: Johjima, Iguchi, Kobayashi, Yabuta, Taguchi, Yabu and Fukumori.

Time to close out this series with some conclusions. I fear that I may be oversimplifying this a bit, but I’m looking for macro trends with this. These are casual observations, I didn’t do any hard research.

Check the three previous installments here: 1, 2, 3.

1. Most of the teams that lost a star to MLB took some kind of a hit in the standings. With the exception of Hiroshima, the teams losing the top 10 players listed below took years to replace the production they lost, and some still haven’t. It’s also important to remember that none of these departures happened in a vacuum; there were other things that affected the performance of each team, but overall the lose of these players has hurt their former teams competitively.

2. The only team that really took a popularity hit after losing a star to MLB was the Giants after losing Matsui. I bought walk-up tickets to a Giants game in 2005, which would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. Of course, while the Giants were down, the Tigers and Dragons were both up and have enjoyed competitive success and popularity since the early part of the decade. SoftBank has been less competitive since losing Johjima, but has not suffered at the gate. The team is actually adding 6000 seats to the Yahoo Dome for next season to help meet demand.

3. Signing foreign talent to replace departed stars doesn’t seem to work. Teams will often sign foreign players to fill the holes left by departed stars, but when the do so, they’re losing the opportunity to add depth at other positions with those roster spots. I can’t think of an example where a foreign star was a long-term replacement for an MLB bound star. Colby Lewis was great as Hiroki Kuroda’s replacement in 2008, but so was Kevin Hodges a few years ago and he flamed out after a single season.

4. Losing talent to MLB has a trickle-down impact on the smaller market teams. As an example, Hanshin may have been content with their outfield had Shinjo stuck around, but two years after he left they signed Tomoaki Kanemoto away from the Carp to play left field. Kanemoto has gone on to become a legend for the Tigers while the Carp have only recently begun to show signs of life. Hanshin and Yomiuri can spend to fill their holes, while smaller market teams like Hiroshima cannot.

5. On the positive side, stars moving to MLB has opened up (or could potentially open) spots for younger players, in a league where there is no rule 5 draft and blocked prospects and depth guys are seldom traded. We haven’t seen too many cases of prospects jumping in and filling the shoes of the top 10 guys I’ve listed below, but others have stepped in for 11-26.

Overall, I don’t think this trend is killing NPB. Attendance is stable, and Japan Series television ratings were up this year (mostly because the Giants played in it). Many of the players who have made the leap to MLB have actually been pretty successful, which has greatly improved the credibility of NPB overseas. On the downside, the loss of star players has hurt the competitive depth of the affected teams, and led many to question the viability of the league. I seeing the loss of these star players as an “Oakland A’s-ing” of the league — the A’s have gotten by with smart management, an ability to exploit market inefficiencies and a willingness to continually reinvent the team on the field. The A’s style doesn’t translate to the Japanese game completely, but the underlying principles of thrift and creativity are important for a group of teams that generally is not going to compete with MLB financially.

Below is a list of all the players I looked at, ranked in order of how much I think their departure affected their previous team and the league. For me, there are really about three or four classes: Matsui and Johjima, Iwamura through Iguchi, and everyone else. You can possibly put Matsui, Kobayashi and Yabuta in their own class as well, as guys who were quickly replaced but did leave a gap in their absences.

* I forgot about both these guys when compiling the original lists. Mori was successfully posted and signed with Tampa Bay, but got hurt in his first spring training and was never heard from again. Iriki played in the Mets and Blue Jays organizations, but got busted for PED usage and never reached the Majors. He resurfaced with Yokohama in 2008, but retired after the season.

** I left out Yukinaga Maeda as well.

News and notes on the season so far

…In Japanese:

• Juan Morillo has been demoted to ni-gun. Unfortunately, his lack of command has translated to NPB. His velocity has been as advertised though.
• On the flipside, Matt Murton is off to a hot start in Japan, having reached base safely in all 13 games so far this season. His slash line is a robust .407/.484/.556.
• Takayuki Kishi took a no-hitter into the 7th against Orix on the 6th, and finished with a one-hit shutout. Bonus points to those of you who can recall Japan’s last no-hitter.
• Tsuyoshi Wada set a new career best with 15 strikeouts against Lotte on April 8.
• The Hanshin Tigers picked up lefty Yusuke Kawasaki for cash from the Chiba Lotte Marines. The last trade that Hanshin made with Lotte worked out pretty well for the Tigers, netting them Yasuyuki Kubo.
• The Japanese baseball media has an uncanny ability find and point out obscure streaks. Examples? Last week, Nippon Ham’s Kensuke Tanaka’s streak at-bats without hitting into a double play ended at 862. On the 11th, Hiroshima’s Tomonori Maeda went yard for the first time in 686 days.
• In a rather forward-thinking move, Nippon Ham is limiting Yu Darvish’s pitch counts to 120 per start. Darvish surpassed 140 pitches in two of his first three starts, and Ham is concerned about keeping him healthy for the whole season.
• Belated congratulations to Shingo Takatsu, who has now saved games in Japan, the US, Korea and Taiwan. I hope he plays Winter League ball somewhere this year.

…and in English:

• Congratulations to Colby Lewis on winning his first start in his return engagment in Texas.
• Baseball Happenings conducted an interview with Tuffy Rhodes, who reflected on his career in Japan. Is he an NPB Hall of Famer? For me he is.

Okay, time to come out of hiatus with my first NPB Tracker post of the year.

Player Personnel

• Nippon Ham signed Bob Keppel and Brian Wolfe
• Yomiuri picked up Edgar Gonzalez, the former Padres infielder (Adrian’s brother)
• Rakuten signed Andy Phillips, whose option was not excercised by the Carp
• Yakult signed Diamondbacks AAA arm Tony Barnette
• Seibu signed NPB veteran reliever Brian Sikorski and AAA veteran Dee Brown
• Oakland signed NPB Tracker favorite Lenny DiNardo. I’m glad he’s back in the Bay Area and hope to see him with the A’s this year
• Another personal favorite, Shingo Takatsu, signed with the Sinon Bulls in Taiwan. Takatsu wants to be the first pitcher to record a save in NPB, MLB, KBO, and Taiwan’s CBL
• Colby Lewis signed with the Rangers
• Dan Johnson returned to the Rays
• SoftBank and Hiroshima will continue to look for pitching through spring training

Did I miss anyone?

Other News

• MLB and NPB are discussing holding a global world series between the champions from the two leagues. It doesn’t seem as close as initially reported, but I would love to see this happen. More later…
• Having failed to get any NPB offers, former Orix Buffaloe Katsuaki Furuki is moving into the ring and becoming a figher
• Yusei Kikuchi has begun working out for his first pro spring training. And believer or not, he’s walking on air
• More jibba-jabba about Yu Darvish going to MLB
• Matt Murton will play center field for Hanshin

Any other big stories over the last few weeks that I didn’t include?

One year ago, I started this blog with a post about Shingo Takatsu signing with the Woori Heroes of Korea. Interestingly, year two of NPB Tracker starts (partially) with the news of Shingo’s minor league contract with the Giants.

According to reports published by Sponichi and Nikkan Sports, Shingo hung around in the Giants extended camp in Arizona after his May tryout with the team. After a physical and some other checks, the Giants signed him to a minor league contract. After the visa paperwork clears he’s expected to join AAA Fresno.

Nikkan Sports quotes Shingo as saying: “the number one thing is that I’m relieved. I don’t feel any differently, but at this age it’s difficult to challenge (a comeback) without the cooperation of those around me. I’ve caused a lot of bother so I want to do my very best for those who have supported me”.

The Giants also have Keiichi Yabu in their AAA bullpen.

Found this while Googling for more information on Shingo Takatsu’s tryout with the Giants (there is none) – my home state of Illinois officially offered their friendship to Shingo back in 2004 when he was with the White Sox. Unfortunately, I was not a resident of Illinois at time this was issued, so I wasn’t included in the 12.5 million Illinoisians Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn was representing. I hope Shingo considers me a friend anyway.

Here is the text of the declaration:

State of Illinois

Office of Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn

WHEREAS, Japan – which enjoys a rich, century-old baseball tradition – has contributed greatly to Major League Baseball in the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Chicago White Sox – who visited Japan in 1913 to play the New York Giants in a goodwill tour – recently signed their first Asian-born player – Shingo Takatsu – who is a worthy ambassador; and

WHEREAS, drafted by the Yakult Swallows in 1991, Shingo Takatsu has had an illustrious career, becoming Japan’s all-time saves leader with 260 saves and not allowing a single run in post-season play, earning him the nickname “Mr. Zero”; and

WHEREAS, Shingo Takatsu has already distinguished himself in the White Sox uniform by breaking a 17-year old record for pitching scoreless innings; and

WHEREAS, Major League Baseball has truly become global, with more than 3,100 players from 16 different nations playing professional baseball in the United States, including players from Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, China and Taiwan; and

WHEREAS, in these times of conflict, baseball’s international accent has enriched our culture, and fostered understanding and tolerance among diverse groups; and

WHEREAS, at least 28,000 persons of Japanese descent reside in Illinois and a Japanese-American community has existed continuously in Chicago for more than a century; and

WHEREAS, we are humbled to join the Consul General of Japan – the Honorable Yutaka Yoshizawa – in welcoming Shingo Takatsu to Illinois,

THEREFORE, I, Pat Quinn, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Illinois, hereby extend a hand of friendship to Shingo Takatsu on behalf of Illinois’ 12½ million people, including our growing Asian American community and baseball fans everywhere.

Dated this 24^th day of June, 2004.

Pat Quinn

Illinois Lieutenant Governor

Note: corrected walks total.

Last winter, Yakult Swallows fireballer Ryota Igarashi declined to file for domestic free agency, instead re-signing for 2009 with the subsequent goal of moving to the majors. Igarashi is a righthanded reliever who has spent his entire career with the Yakult Swallows, and just turned 30 on May 28. If I had to pick the top free agent coming out of Japan after this season today, Igarashi would be my choice.

Stuff, Results & Mechanics
Igarashi is known one of the hardest throwers in Japan, and jointly holds the record for fastest pitch* by a Japanese pitcher in an NPB game with a 158 kmph (98.75mph) fastball. Igarashi hit 158 kmph in 2004, when the average speed of his pitches over the course of the season was 154.5 kmph (96.6mph), which is an NPB record he has to himself.

Although he doesn’t throw quite as hard as he used to, but still runs his heater into the upper 90’s, and augments it with a hard splitter that he throws at around 90mph. He’s also got a slider and a curve that he’ll mix in occasionally, but is primarily a fastball/splitter pitcher.

Igarashi’s weakness has been his control. Over the course of his career through 2008, he’s allowed 221 walks and thrown 42 wild pitches over 517.1 innings. I suspect the number of walks would be higher if hitters could lay off the high fastball a little more. On the plus side, he’s balanced things out strking out 586 guys. Igarashi showed a significant improvement in his walk rate after returning from injury (see below) last season, allowing just six walks in 42.1 innings.  This year he’s come back to earth and allowed seven walks in 19.1 innings so far, which is more in line with his career norms.

When pitching out of the windup, Igarashi has a hitch at the beginning of his delivery, a la Daisuke Matsuzaka, but otherwise has a pretty orthodox approach. This YouTube clip from late April 2009 gives a good look at his mechanics. Here’s another clip of him striking out a Yokohama BayStars side in 2008.

*trivia question: who is he tied with?

Injury History
Igarashi had the worst year of his career in 2006, and bounced between the top club and the farm team during the second half of the season. After the season, it was discovered that he had a ruptured UCL in his throwing arm, and he went in for Tommy John surgery. He spent all of 2007 rehabbing, and didn’t return to game action for good until around July 2008. He has regained his velocity post-injury and has had a normal work load since last summer.

Role
Igarashi has been mostly a middle reliever in his career thus far, setting up for Shingo Takatsu early in his career and more recently for Chang-Yong Lim. He did spend 2004 as Yakult’s closer after Takatsu left, and recorded 37 saves. He’s a set-up man again this year.

Future
Igarashi spoke last season of making a “Shinjyo-class” move to MLB, which I took to mean he’d be willing to take less money to try his hand at MLB. Recall that Tsuyoshi Shinjyo, as he spelled it back then, turned down about $12m from Hanshin to take a minimum-pay deal with the Mets. I don’t think Igarashi will have to take that kind of a cut, because he’s making about $840k this year and I think he’d be able to get at least that much from an MLB team. His best offers may still come from Japan though, as he could probably command an NPB closer’s salary.

Shingo Takatsu is in the news again, at least if you read Nikkan Sports. The 40-year old former closer took part in a work out for college-level MLB draft candidates, auditioning before scouts from the SF Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks. Giants Far East Scouting Director John Cox was gave him a good evaluation: “his breaking stuff and the movement of his pitches was good. He’s not a young guy, he’s a major leaguer. He was very impressive and passed the test”. Shingo’s fastest pitch was clocked at 86 mph, which isn’t that far off what he was throwing with the White Sox a few years ago.

Whether this leads to a contract for Shingo remains to be seen. For his part, Shingo wants to keep playing: “I’m probably being indecisive. But, it’s easy to quit and difficult to continue. As long as I can move my body, and as long there is the possibility, I want to play even at 45 or 46”.

Shingo spent last season with the (Woori) Heroes of the Korean Baseball Organization. He had an offer to return before the team pulled it due to foreign player restrictions. He was pretty good in Korea, posting an 0.86 era in 21 innings with an 18/6 k/bb ratio.

Time to close out this series with some conclusions. I fear that I may be oversimplifying this a bit, but I’m looking for macro trends with this. These are casual observations, I didn’t do any hard research. 

Check the three previous installments here: 1, 2, 3. 

1. Most of the teams that lost a star to MLB took some kind of a hit in the standings. With the exception of Hiroshima, the teams losing the top 10 players listed below took years to replace the production they lost. Some of the teams still haven’t replaced the production they lost. It’s also important to remember that none of these departures happened in a vacuum; there were other things that affected the performance of each team, but overall the lose of these players has hurt their former teams competitively.

2. The only team that really took a popularity hit after losing a star to MLB was the Giants after losing Matsui. I bought walk-up tickets to a Giants game in 2005, which would have been unthinkable a few years earlier. Of course, while the Giants were down, the Tigers and Dragons were both up and have enjoyed competitive success and popularity since the early part of the decade. SoftBank has been less competitive since losing Johjima, but has not suffered at the gate. The team is actually adding 6000 seats to the Yahoo Dome for next season to help meet demand. 

3. Signing foreign talent to replace departed stars doesn’t seem to work. Teams will often sign foreign players to fill the holes left by departed stars, but when the do so, they’re losing the opportunity to add depth at other positions with those roster spots. I can’t think of an example where a foreign star was a long-term replacement for an MLB bound star. Colby Lewis was great as Hiroki Kuroda’s replacement in 2008, but so was Kevin Hodges a few years ago and he flamed out after a single season.

4. Losing talent to MLB has a trickle-down impact on the smaller market teams. As an example, Hanshin may have been content with their outfield had Shinjo stuck around, but two years after he left they signed Tomoaki Kanemoto away from the Carp to play left field. Kanemoto has gone on to become a legend for the Tigers while the Carp have only recently begun to show signs of life. Hanshin and Yomiuri can spend to fill their holes, while smaller market teams like Hiroshima cannot.

5. On the positive side, stars moving to MLB has opened up (or could potentially open) spots for younger players, in a league where there is no rule 5 draft and blocked prospects and depth guys are seldom traded. We haven’t seen too many cases of prospects jumping in and filling the shoes of the top 10 guys I’ve listed below, but others have stepped in for 11-26.

Overall, I don’t think this trend is killing NPB. Attendance is stable, and Japan Series television ratings were up this year (mostly because the Giants played in it). Many of the players who have made the leap to MLB have actually been pretty successful, which has greatly improved the credibility of NPB overseas. On the downside, the loss of star players has hurt the competitive depth of the affected teams, and led many to question the viability of the league. I seeing the loss of these star players as an “Oakland A’s-ing” of the league — the A’s have gotten by with smart management, an ability to exploit market inefficiencies and a willingness to continually reinvent the team on the field. The A’s style doesn’t translate to the Japanese game completely, but the underlying principles of thrift and creativity are important for a group of teams that generally is not going to compete with MLB financially.

Below is a list of all the players I looked at, ranked in order of how much I think their departure affected their previous team and the league. For me, there are really about three or four classes: Matsui and Johjima, Iwamura through Iguchi, and everyone else. You can possibly put Matsui, Kobayashi and Yabuta in their own class as well, as guys who were quickly replaced but did leave a gap in their absences. 

* I forgot about both these guys when compiling the original lists. Mori was successfully posted and signed with Tampa Bay, but got hurt in his first spring training and was never heard from again. Iriki played in the Mets and Blue Jays organizations, but got busted for PED usage and never reached the Majors. He resurfaced with Yokohama in 2008, but retired after the season.

** I left out Yukinaga Maeda as well.

Four Japanese Articles to share today:

• Add the Softbank Hawks to the list of NPB teams interested in Nelson Cruz. It turns out that Softbank was trying to get Cruz last summer at the trading deadline, which I speculated about a few weeks ago. The Hawks are also interested in Padres reliever Brian Falkenborg.
• Indians GM Mark Shapiro expects the bidding for Junichi Tazawa to reach $7M. The Indians are not interested in Tazawa, nor are the Yankees or Diamondbacks.
• Shingo Takatsu is hoping to play another year in Korea. Shingo saved 8 games with an 0.86 era in 18 games for the Woori Heroes this season.
• The Hiroshima Carp’s new stadium will be known as Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium Hiroshima. Kind of a mouthful, I wonder if they could’ve just gone with one “zoom”.