Category Archives: Hall of Fame

Japan’s all-time greats

As the deadline for Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame ballots approaches, and people talk about who should be in the Hall of Fame — as opposed to who shouldn’t, it might be constructive to look at who are the all-time greats.

The biggest problem I find with compiling these lists is that the competition is generally better since 1990 than it was in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s. Thus, it is far more difficult to dominate play than it was 30, 40 or 50 years ago. For that reason, a straight-line numbers comparison between a recent superstar and one from 50 years ago will almost always be one-sided.

Let’s look at how many times a player has led his league in one of the following offensive categories:

  • batting average
  • on-base percentage
  • slugging average
  • doubles
  • triples
  • home runs
  • RBIs
  • stolen bases
  • walks

Sadaharu Oh led his league in one of these categories 102 times. Seven of the top-10 leaders played the bulk of their careers in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This requires an adjustment to adjust for both the era and the degree to which talent is compacted.

OK. Enough talk. Here are top 20 players in career value in NPB according to Bill James’ win shares formulas and using a competition adjustment (based on the year and the standard deviation of win shares by players with 100-plus games in a season. There may be no perfect solution to this problem but this was mine).

Top Career Totals

NameBest SeasonCareer HighCareer TotalAvg modifier
Sadaharu Oh196541.8672.91.07
Katsuya Nomura196537.5526.31.07
Isao Harimoto196434.1496.11.06
Hiromitsu Ochiai198235.5466.40.94
Masaichi Kaneda 195840459.31.08
Kazuhiro Yamauchi195640.24431.09
Shigeo Nagashima196141.4440.51.12
Hiromitsu Kadota197735.3434.71.00
Tomoaki Kanemoto200538.8434.10.94
Koji Yamamoto198038.3408.11.02

Peak value: Average of best 5 consecutive seasons

The following table represents my estimate of the players who put together the best five-season runs in NPB history.

NamePeriodAverage WSWS totalsModifier
Sadaharu Oh1964-196839.140, 42, 40, 37, 371.07
Kazuhisa Inao1957-196136.037, 40, 40, 20, 441.12
Yuki Yanagita2014-201835.231, 39, 32, 39, 360.93
Ichiro Suzuki1994-199835.038, 38, 38, 33, 280.92
Shigeo Nagashima1959-196334.836, 34, 41, 25, 381.10
Hideki Matsui1998-200234.036, 31, 36, 32, 351.00
Katsuya Nomura1964-196833.830, 38, 34, 33, 341.07
Hiromitsu Ochiai1982-198633.033, 30, 35, 34, 310.97
Masaichi Kaneda1954-195832.525, 35, 33, 30, 401.09
Shigeru Sugishita1951-195532.327, 33, 26, 43, 331.03

Hall of Fame candidates

Here are the 23 candidates on this year’s players division ballot for the Hall of Fame, with their career win shares and best-five consecutive season averages and how they rank all-time in both categories:

HOF candidates 2020

Nam eCareer WSCareer Rank + Peak 5Peak Rank
Atsunori Inaba302.24327.343
Kenji Jojima*227.26026.946
Norihiro Nakamura304.44126.062
Tuffy Rhodes319.93225.866
Hiroki Kokubo310.63725.570
Alex Ramirez247.68424.683
Takuro Ishii298.94824.191
Kenjiro Nomura243.68924.191
Akinori Iwamura168.113224.191
Norihiro Akahoshi146.228720.2175
Masumi Kuwata19116219.6199
Takeshi Yamasaki241.19418.9237
Tomonori Maeda262.37217.9274
Masahiro Kawai147.628415.7379
Makoto Kaneko179.818515.5389
So Taguchi121.923915.0412
Shinji Sasaoka171.720014.4447
Shinya Miyamoto200.614513.7504
Kazuhisa Ishii137.724313.6510
Shinjiro Hiyama137.832113.1552
Shingo Takatsu10043110.1804
2020 Hall of Fame candidates, career win share and peak win share ranks. Career win share rank includes MLB WS for Japanese players.

Another argument for Rhodes

Rhodes won one MVP award, hit 464 home runs, drove in 1,269, scored 1,000, stole 87 bases. He led his league in home runs four times, in runs twice and in RBIs three times. He won seven Best Nine Awards but no Gold Gloves.

In a recent post, I used career value to compare Rhodes to other candidates and players. This time I’m going to look at career accomplishments, his honors, career totals and individual titles.

How do his accomplishments match up against the all-time greats?

Pretty well.

Rhodes is 13th in NPB career home runs. How many of the 20 players with 400-plus home runs are in the Hall of Fame?

One is active, one is not yet eligible, four (Rhodes, Hiroki Kokubo, Takeshi Yamasaki and Norihiro Nakamura) are currently on the players ballot, one (Koichi Tabuchi) is on the experts ballot. One (Kazuhiro Kiyohara) is not on the ballot because of his drug conviction, while Masahiro Doi somehow slipped through the cracks. The other 11 are all in.

Rhodes is 21st all-time in RBIs. How many of the 24 with 1,200-plus are in the Hall?

Thirteen are currently in the Hall, while four others have gotten past the players division without being elected — one of whom is now on the experts ballot. Two are not yet eligible, while five are currently on the players ballot: Rhodes, Nakamura, Kokubo, Yamasaki and Alex Ramirez.

Rhodes is 24th in runs scored. Of the 23 players with more runs, how many are in the Hall?

One, Michihiro Ogasawara, is not yet eligible, while three have been passed over. Rhodes and Takuro Ishii are on the players ballot, while Isao Shibata is on the experts ballot. Sixteen of the 24 are in.

Rhodes is a four-time home run champ. How many three-time winners are in?

Five of the 11 three-time champs are in, while two of the remaining six are on the experts ballot. Koji Yamamoto is the other four-time champ and he is in. Ever eligible player with five or more home run titles is in the Hall.

Nine players who have been eligible for Hall of Fame induction have led their league in RBIs exactly three times like Rhodes.

In addition to Rhodes, two are on the experts ballot, while one has been passed over. Five are currently in the Hall of Fame.

Tuffy was the Pacific League’s 2001 MVP. How many on the players division ballot had more?

Three. In addition to Rhodes, Kenji Jojima won one, and Alex Ramirez won two. The only former two-time MVP who isn’t in the Hall of Fame is Yutaka Enatsu, who was busted for drugs. That’s a good sign for Ramirez as well as future candidates Yu Darvish, Nobuhiko Matsunaka and Michihiro Ogasawara. One MVP award is just another accomplishment.

Rhodes won seven Best Nine Awards.

Six of the 13 seven-time winners are in the Hall. Two are on the experts ballot. Four have been passed over.

Rhodes led his league in an offensive category 18 times. How many of the 19 players who have led in 16 or more categories are in the Hall?

So far, 19 players have done this. Two, Nobuhiko Matsunaka (17) and Ichiro Suzuki (1.5 gazillion), are not yet eligible. Rhodes is the only player who has ever been eligible for the Hall of Fame who has yet to be elected.

Adjusting for career length

Because Rhodes played only 14 seasons, it might be worth some time comparing him to what each of Japan’s best players produced in the 14-season span in which he had the most plate appearances. Rhodes had 7,340 career plate appearances. The most of any player in any 14-year stretch was Tomoaki Kanemoto’s 8,470 so we’re talking about a reasonably level playing field.

After Kazuyoshi Tatsunami was elected to the Hall a year ago, the next two position players ranked in order of the percentage of ballots they were on, were shortstops Masahiro Kawai and Shinya Miyamoto. During their best 14 seasons, the pair’s combined win shares for those 28 seasons: 290.8. Rhodes’ total for his Japan career was 298.

Both Kawai and Miyamoto were good players, and Miyamoto was a good player for a long, long time. But anyone who thinks they deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, while Tuffy Rhodes doesn’t, needs to account for his or her lack of judgement.

In that group, Rhodes ranks 18th in win shares, third in home runs with 406 behind Sadaharu Oh’s 653 and Katsuya Nomura’s 466, eighth in RBIs with 1,275, 10th in runs scored, ninth in walks.

Rhodes never won a Golden Glove, but he did play center field for most of his career in Japan and few of the players who rank ahead of him had a ton of defensive value with the exception of Nomura.