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Sunday musings 3-28-21

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The return of “Super Miya”

I kind of scoffed when Jason Coskrey of the Japan Times began calling him that about five years ago, but the SoftBank Hawks Kenta Imamiya is truly super or he would be if he were the man of steel and impervious from nagging injuries.

In a recent Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast, our PL prediction show, I wondered what was to become of Kenta Imamiya, the PL’s premier shortstop before Sosuke Genda’s ascendence and a number of injuries, now that the SoftBank Hawks have flooded the middle of their infield with a track team, notably stolen base kind Ukyo Shuto.

The Hawks used to do everything better than everyone except steal bases. They had the best starting pitching, best defense, best on-base offense, best power offense, but it ain’t like that anymore. The OBP side of the equation is way down and the steals are way up. The Hawks have finished fifth or sixth in walks the past three seasons.

But Imamiya returned to the lineup after missing most of last season and cracked a two-run homer in his first game back, which reminded me why one would want him playing whenever he’s healthy: He really drives the ball. When healthy, Imamiya’s going to hit 12-15 home runs a year. Last year Imamiya hit 6 HRs in 177. The seven other guys who played at least one game at either second or short for SoftBank last year combined for seven HRs in 1,081 PAs.

On Saturday, Imamiya did it all with his offense and defense, making a huge difference in the Hawks’ Game 2 victory.

Fair compensation

One thing I’ve wanted to do for years but never got around to until this weekend was actually compare the value created by free agents after they moved to their new teams compared to the value of players taken in compensation by the team losing the free agent.

Long train running

I first got interested in this subject back when I was at Yomiuri and became friendly with Yakult outfielder Kazuki Fukuchi. He was a great story. Like a lot of speedy Japanese outfielders, he switched back and forth between the outfield and infield as a young player.

A junior high hurdles champion, Fukuchi turned pro with the Hiroshima Carp, who had no idea what they had when they needed someone to trade for marginal reliever Hayato Aoki.

To the Carp, Aoki was just another defensive replacement reserve outfielder and pinch runner. But in his first regular playing time with the Seibu Lions, Fukuchi proved he could hit for average, and draw enough walks to be a danger on the bases with his speed.

Then the plot thickened, the Lions decided they would be better off with Hiram Bocachica in the outfield. Bocachica is a kind, fascinating guy and a heck of a player, the only one who has ever told me his ambition was to write a children’s book, but the Lions decided Fukuchi was expendable and didn’t put him on the protected list when they signed free agent pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii.

In exchange for a good pitcher on his final legs, the Swallows got an everyday outfielder who could fly and lead the CL in stolen bases for two straight seasons. Fukuchi told me he bought Ishii dinner after that for reviving his career.

So about 12 years ago, I thought, I wonder how often a player received in free agent compensation turns out to be better than the free agent, as Fukuchi easily was – although the Lions won their last pennant the year they signed Ishii, so they can’t be too unhappy how that turned out.

Where’s my second baseman?

On Friday, however, second baseman Shunta Tanaka drove in six runs in his debut for the DeNA BayStars against the team that gave him away as free agent compensation, the Yomiuri Giants.

I like to dump on manager Tatsunori Hara for his inability to settle on a second baseman and joke that he has a smart phone app called “Who’s my second baseman,” so it seemed poetic justice that he let one get away. But to be fair, he’s only averaged using 7.5 different players at the position, his successor for three seasons, Yoshinobu Takahashi takes the cake among modern managers with over 400 games managed with 8-2/3 different second basemen per season.

You’re probably not curious, but in case you are, the champion of second baseman switchers was Yasuji Hondo, who from 1963 to 1965 as manager of the Orions, used 11-2/3 different guys per season as he finished fifth twice and fourth once.

On Saturday, Takayuki Kajitani, the player whose signing sent Tanaka to the BayStars, hit a grand slam, while on Sunday, the player the ‘Stars got in compensation for the Giants signing Shun Yamaguchi – currently with the SF Giants – threw six scoreless innings against his old club.

So after that weekend, I had to finally break down and do the study, using win shares to measure value. The study starts with pitcher Hirofumi Kono going to the Giants from the Nippon Ham Fighters after the 1995 season and Tadayoshi Kawabe going to the Fighters, the first player taken in compensation after two years without a single player being taken and ending with the first transaction with players still active, Kan Otake and Ryuji Ichioka.

The list

Free agents are listed on the top above the compensation player. Values are given using Bill James’ Win Shares total for all the season each player played for their teams after the transaction.

Of the 14 pairs where at least one player produced a minimum of 10 WS after the move, the free agent produced more value 10 times, which is about what I suspected. The Fukuchi-Ishii pair is the most lop-sided pair.

Teams don’t take players as compensation that often because it’s hard to get real value and taking no player means a larger cash package.

  • Hirofumi Kono, Giants: 8
  • Tadayoshi Kawabe, Fighters: 1
  • Yukinaga Maeda, Giants: 15
  • Kazuhiro Hiramatsu, Dragons: 0
  • Shinichi Kato, K. Buffaloes: 5
  • Yuki Tanaka, Orix BW 17
  • Shigeki Noguchi, Giants: 1
  • Kohei Oda, Dragons: 11
  • Kiyoshi Toyoda, Giants: 20
  • Akira Eto, Lions: 7
  • Hiroki Kokubo, Hawks: 73
  • Shintaro Yoshitake, Giants: 2
  • Ken Kadokura, Giants: 1
  • Kimiyasu Kudo, BayStars: 7
  • Takahiro Arai, Tigers: 97
  • Masato Akamatsu, Carp: 38
  • Kazuhiro Wada, Dragons: 159
  • Shinya Okamoto, Lions: 3
  • Kazuhisa Ishii, Lions: 23
  • Kazuki Fukuchi, Swallows: 39
  • Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Tigers: 1
  • Takuya Takahama, Marines: 5
  • Shuichi Murata, Giants: 83
  • Shugo Fujii, BayStars: 9
  • Saburo Omura, Marines: 20
  • Takayuki Taguchi, Giants: 0
  • Hayato Terahara, Hawks: 11
  • Takahiro Mahara, O.Buffaloes: 4
  • Keiichi Hirano, O.Buffaloes: 19
  • Kazuya Takahama, Tigers: 0
  • Yasutomo Kubo, BayStars: 22
  • Kazunari Tsuruoka, Tigers: 6
  • Kan Otake, Giants: 20
  • Ryuji Ichioka, Carp: 24
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Don Nomura chat

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On Monday, March 15, player agent Don Nomura joined jballallen.com subscribers for a live chat on the freeing of Hideo Nomo, the business of Japanese baseball, his stepfather, baseball legend Katsuya Nomura and the differences between the way baseball is seen in Japan and in the States.

The freeing of Hideo Nomo

In 1994, Japanese baseball had just instituted free agency under pressure from the most powerful of its 12 teams, the Yomiuri Giants, who like most baseball people in Japan and the majors inferred a kind of social Darwinist vision of baseball: that because MLB was a tougher league, Japanese players were inferior.

Hideo Nomo disproved that belief big time, and Don Nomura was instrumental in giving him the opportunity to play in the States against the wishes of his team, the Pacific League’s Kintetsu Buffaloes. It did, however, come at a cost Nomura said he was unprepared for.

Nomura tells of how he became connected with Hideo Nomo, Jean Afterman, and the rest of the saga.

One of the side issues was that Katsuya Nomura, Don’s stepfather was then managing the Central League’s Yakult Swallows, and Don’s effort to free Nomo meant that amid the firestorm from the media, the elder Nomura was forced to take a public stand, which Don said was particularly ironic given Katsuya’s love of American baseball.

The realities of Japanese pro baseball

Although there is tremendous quality in Japan’s game thanks to the efforts of players and coaches, domestic and imported, it has some rules that Nomura is not a fan of. The biggest are: a) Japan’s limit on four imported players in a game, and b) it’s reserve system that allows a team to keep a player contract for however many years it takes him to achieve seven-plus years of first-team service time.

When asked about whether it might be a tough sell to have a team of imports in Japan, Nomura said, “What are we looking at? A baseball game or the color of the skin?”

Here’s Nomura on what he would do if he were put in charge of Nippon Professional Baseball.

Japanese baseball is full of potential

One of the ironies of Nippon Professional Baseball is that it is a magnificent structure, but one whose rules have more holes in them than Albert Hall. Hideo Nomo was able to make his getaway because nobody assumed a player would.

Japan’s contract structure allows any player, amateur or professional, who knows the rules to negotiate the most remarkable deals with the team that wants to sign him. This is a massive difference from how it is in MLB. There — even international professionals — who are defined as amateurs by MLB and its players union — can only be guaranteed a minimum minor league contract and a signing bonus that is part of a team’s capped maximum.

What Japanese amateurs need to know

Asked what he thought Japan’s players union could do for the game, Nomura said, “Educate the players.”

What about international amateurs

Although MLB scouts keep tabs on Japanese amateurs they might want to recruit, NPB teams spend virtually no energy on scouring the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean for amateur players who might turn pro in Japan.

However, a number of people have suggested that Japan may be the best place in the world for an amateur ballplayer to turn pro, not only from the living conditions, the quality of play and coaching but also from the contractual possibilities Japan offers that MLB teams cannot match.

Nomura said it was a huge opportunity, and that Japan was failing badly to take advantage of it.

The most important lesson

When Katsuya Nomura died a year ago, Nomura wrote that his stepfather taught him more lessons than he could count, the biggest of which, Don said, was not about baseball.