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articles about Japanese baseball history

Japan’s Hall of Fame middle infielders

This is the fourth part of a series about this year’s Hall of Fame candidates.

Shortstop Kenjiro Nomura finished seventh in the voting a year ago, and is now fourth among players still on this winter’s ballot.

Including Nomura, Kazuyoshi Tatsunami (2B) and Masahiro Kawai, this year’s players’ ballot has five middle infielders on it. The other two are shortstops Takuro Ishii and Shinya Miyamoto.

Let’s look at who the hall has inducted and passed over.

The best middle infielder by career total of Bill James’ Win Shares is shortstop Yasumitsu Toyoda (352) is in. Shortstop Taira Fujita (322), with longer productive career but slightly less peak value, is out.




Toyoda’s predecessor as Hanshin Tigers shortstop, Yoshio Yoshida (312), is third, and he’s in. He also managed the Tigers to their only Japan Series championship in 1985, and his nine Best Nine awards are the most among any NPB middle infielder.

Tatsunami (302) is a 1990s version of Fujita, although he was never a viable MVP candidate — Win Shares ranks his best season NPB’s 61st best by a second baseman. He is followed by shortstop Hiroyuki Yamazaki (287), who was a good match for Tatsunami, a reliable solid player whose career failed to last quite as long.

Shortstop Takuro Ishii (281) is also a very similar player to Tatsunami with nearly as many career hits, a little less power, more speed. In his ballot debut last year, Ishii was selected by 19.3 percent of the voters.

Second baseman Morimichi Takagi, seventh with 271 career win shares, is in the hall, and his career is very similar to Tatsunami, Yamazaki and Ishii a really good player who never had an MVP-caliber season.

By the time we get past Takagi, the only middle infielders in the hall are guys who were good players but were elected as managers who won multiple pennants: Tatsuro Hirooka, Akira Ogi and Takeshi Koba.

View data on Japan’s top middle infielders whose career ended after 1959 with at least 1,000 career hits, sorted by career win shares. The headings are mostly self explanatory, with “leading” indicating how many times the player led his league in an offensive category. Golden gloves have been awarded since 1972. The year under “HOF” is the year that player was inducted.



Nomura is a wonderful guy and helped build the Hiroshima Carp into pennant contenders as a manager, but it’s
This brings us to Nomura, who hit for average, had power, stole bases. His two MVP-caliber seasons shaped our image of him as a super star, but he was inconsistent.

Miyamoto played 19 seasons despite debuting at the age of 24. He won 10 Golden Gloves, the most of any middle infielder, but wasn’t a really good offensive player.
hard to see either him or Miyamoto as Hall of Famers regardless of whether or not you decide middle infielders have been unfairly represented. This goes for Masahiro Kawai, too.

The big injustice is obviously Fujita, who didn’t help his cause from his time as Hanshin manager. Then, he was most famous for getting into a feud with Tsuyoshi Shinjo’s mother.

I’m inclined to call Takagi the lower limit, find a way to get Fujita, Tatsunami and perhaps Yamazaki in, and draw the line there.

It’s no snub to be considered good enough to be on the ballot. So many players never get that far.




Ramirez, Miyamoto, Ishii added to Hall ballot

The ballot for next year’s Japan’s baseball Hall of Fame inductions were announced Wednesday. With pitcher Yoshinori Sato dropping off the players’ division ballot after his eligibility ran out, and six new players added, the voters, members of Japan’s baseball media for over 15 years, will have 18 players to select from.

The six new candidates are left-handed pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii, shortstop Shinya Miyamoto, and outfielders Tomonori Maeda, Shinjiro Hiyama, Takeshi Yamasaki and Alex Ramirez.

Ramirez joins Tuffy Rhodes, putting two foreigners on the players’ division ballot. He’s also one of four former Yakult Swallows on the ballot, along with Miyamoto, Ishii and reliever Shingo Takatsu, who was named on 45.9 percent of the ballots last year.

Infielder Kazuyoshi Tatsunami received the most votes a year ago (65.8 percent) among players who failed to reach the 75 percent needed for induction.

Three candidates were also added to the experts division ballot, longtime pitching coach Takao Obana, former Hanshin Tigers slugger Masayuki Kakefu and former Rakuten Eagles manager Masataka Nashida, who won Pacific League pennants with both the Kintetsu Buffaloes and Nippon Ham Fighters.



Former Sawamura Award winner Hiroshi Gondo, a longtime pitching coach who had a brief but very successful run as manager with the DeNA BayStars’ franchise, received 65.6 percent of last year’s vote, with former Hanshin Tigers slugger Randy Bass second behind him with 46.7 percent.

The only foreign-registered player currently in the Hall of Fame is outfielder and manager Wally Yonamine.

The new ballot looks like this with the percent of total votes they received in last year’s vote:

Players’ Division
Kazuyoshi Tatsunami 65.8
Shingo Takatsu 45.9
Yoshinori Sato 38.0
Masahiro Kawai 35.9
Kenjiro Nomura 28.5
Tuffy Rhodes 22.8
Hiroki Kokubo 21.7
Masumi Kuwata 21.2
Takuro Ishii 19.3
Kenji Jojima 14.1
Shinji Sasaoka 9.5
So Taguchi 7.9
Norihiro Akahoshi 5.4
Kazuhisa Ishii new
Tomonori Maeda new
Takeshi Yamasaki new
Shinjiro Hiyama new
Alex Ramirez new

Experts Division
Hiroshi Gondo 65.6
Randy Bass 46.7
Koichi Tabuchi 41.0
Isao Shibata 24.6
Keishi Osawa 23.8
Mitsuhiro Adachi 23.0
Hideji Kato 23.0
Masayuki Dobashi 22.1
Tokuji Nagaike 19.7
Hiromu Matsuoka 13.1
Akinobu Okada 9.8
Kiyoshi Nakahata 9.0
Hiromasa Arai 8.2
Takao Obana new
Masayuki Kakefu new
Masataka Nashida new