Does NPB type caste?
Three different things resonated with me recently and led to me wonder if NPB or perhaps the Japanese baseball community as a whole is molding players into particular types based…
Hotaka Yamakawa and the art of 1st team survival
Nobody in Japan hits home runs as often as Hotaka Yamakawa, not Shohei Ohtani, not Yuki Yanagita, not anybody. So how come it took the Seibu Lions' big bopper so…
Genda and NPB’s best
It took a while for the Japanese language media to catch on to Sosuke Genda's shortstop fielding records in 2018 because fielding data in Japan is considered even more esoteric…
Saito-san, we missed you
Takashi Saito looking resplendent at the 2016 winter meetings in National Harbor, Maryland. One of the annual pleasures of the winter meetings has been a chat with former Takashi Saito.…
Toronto comes to Ohtani
David Pollard, executive director of Shohei Ohtani Fan Club Canada, represents his nation, the Nippon Ham Fighters, and Los Angeles Angels last spring in Phoenix, Arizona. Pollard presented Ohtani with…
Japan’s favorite game
Shogo Akiyama, center, appears set to follow teammate Kazuo Matsui (left) to the majors. Shogo Akiyama demonstrated Monday that he knows the game, not baseball, but Japan's tradition of avoiding…
Japan reacts to pitch limits
I scanned Japan's twitterverse for opinions on the pitch restrictions that Niigata Prefecture's high school baseball federation plans to implement for its spring tournament next year. There's a lot and…
Arms control comes to Japanese high school ball
Japanese high school baseball, where epic feats of pitching endurance are as much a part of the narrative as who wins or loses, will get a new look next spring,…
More about peak values
Having a lot of information at your finger tips doesn't necessarily mean you know what's going on. I was reminded of this again on Friday, when doing a story about…
Why not Boomer?
Former Nippon Ham Fighters outfielder Matt Winters, commenting on my Hall of Fame vote, said in a tweet: "You need Boomer in there somewhere." https://twitter.com/nhfighters10/status/1075414745518432256 The answer, of course, is…
