On Thursday, Dec. 18, Chunichi Dragons center fielder Yohei Oshima caved in and agreed to a contract for ¥74 million for the 2015 season in the third meeting in which the team failed to budge from their original offer.
The 29-year-old is an excellent fielder, whose offensive numbers are diminished by playing at Nagoya Dome. A year ago, with Oshima coming off an injury-affected season that saw him bat just .248, Chunichi gave him the largest pay cut they could without giving him the option of turning it down in favor of becoming a free agent. His new salary is ¥1 million shy of his deal for the 2013 season.
He said he considered going to arbitration but his wife talked him out of it. Arbitration in Japan is not a one-way street. In the past, the arbitrators have done a fair job of trying to see when a player is underpaid compared to his peers.
So the question is who are his most comparable peers and what are they paid?
Based on what they did in 2014, the most similar players in offensive and defensive value (using Win Shares) were, with their salaries this past season:
| Year | League | Player | Age | Batting WS | Fielding WS | Raw WS Total | Salary |
| 2014 | CL | Takayuki Kajitani | 25 | 13.15 | 3.24 | 16.39 | ¥23,000,000 |
| 2014 | PL | Yuya Hasegawa | 29 | 12.59 | 3.11 | 15.70 | ¥200,000,000 |
| 2014 | CL | Ryosuke Hirata | 26 | 11.74 | 3.89 | 15.63 | ¥35,000,000 |
| 2014 | CL | Yohei Oshima | 28 | 11.33 | 3.98 | 15.32 | ¥56,250,000 |
| 2014 | PL | Shogo Akiyama | 26 | 12.03 | 3.25 | 15.28 | ¥65,000,000 |
| 2014 | PL | Nobuhiro Matsuda | 31 | 11.54 | 3.01 | 14.55 | ¥200,000,000 |
| 2014 | CL | Shingo Kawabata | 26 | 11.45 | 3.10 | 14.55 | ¥56,000,000 |
If you can’t see this table, it’s also here: http://jballallen.com/blueisreddata.pdf
Kajitani’s salary was doubled to ¥46 million for next year after leading the CL in stolen bases. Kawabata got a raise to ¥85 million. Hirata signed for a ¥12 million raise at ¥47 million, Akiyama took a ¥3 million pay cut, Matsuda remained at ¥200 million for the 2nd year of his 2-year-deal after being hurt for much of 2014, while Hasegawa has yet to sign.
All in all, Oshima is pretty much on a par with his peers — as long as you don’t include Softbank or Yomiuri, who are pretty liberal with the cash.
The Dragons are going to use whatever excuse they can to cut your salary, so you better hit for average. As for the title, I suppose some of you got it, since the red-cladHiroshima Carp are famous for their tight-fisted dealings with their players. The Dragons, whose parent company is a newspaper, the Chunichi Shinbun, have been cutting costs like crazy the past two seasons.
Hiroshima center fielder Yoshihiro Maru was the CL’s best outfielder last season and just saw his pay increase from ¥51 million to ¥90 million. If he played for Yomiuri, he’d be making at least as much as Giants center fielder Hisayoshi Chono (¥180 million), who’s not nearly as good.
Hard to see the figures w/that pic, but love the topic…
Didn’t Oshima play more games in center than some of the guys on the list???
I didn’t compare Oshima only with center fielders per se, but with players who had similar offensive and defensive value for the season as a whole, thus Hirata and Kawabata and Matsuda get in there, while Hasegawa is primarily a right fielder.
Very cool data. I’m just taking my first steps into the NPB realm of baseball. I’m just guessing that Win Shares are a sort of WAR calculation?
Win Shares are kind of like WAR, they were created by Bill James to assign each player his share of credit for his team’s actual wins. They don’t employ UZR, which is useful since UZR and WAR results in Japan are exclusively sold by subscription to teams. The public does not have access to them.