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Not all of Japan was focused on a different sport as the Rugby World Cup kicked off in Tokyo on Friday, when NPB played four games and both pennant-race leaders took a step toward clinching a championship.

Yamaguchi returns as winner

Pitching in just his second game at his old home park since he left as a free agent for the Central League rival Yomiuri Giants after the 2016 season, Shun Yamaguchi pitched into the seventh inning in a 9-4 win over the DeNA BayStars on Friday.

Squaring off against Kentaro Taira, whom the BayStars received in compensation for him, Yamaguchi left the game with a five-run lead after six innings. Taira (5-6) allowed four runs over 3-2/3 innings in the NPB’s first match-up between a pitcher who left as a free agent and the pitcher his former team took as compensation.

Yamaguchi (15-4), allowed two runs through the first six innings, but left two on with two outs, and Kan Otake surrendered a two-run double to Yamato Maeda before the third reliever of the inning, Hirokazu Sawamura struck out home run king Neftali Soto with the bases loaded.

Hayato Sakamoto hit two home runs to move to 39, four back of Soto in the home run race, while Kazuma Okamoto drove in two runs for the Giants with a double and a home run.

Game highlights are HERE.

Pacific League

Lions 5, Eagles 3

At MetLife Dome, Seibu cut its magic number to repeat as PL champs to four when Ernesto Mejia hit a pinch-hit sayonara home run in the ninth inning to down Rakuten.

Here’s the Lions’ hero interview featuring Katsunori Maeda, who set a franchise record by pitching in his 79th game of the season, and Mejia.

Game highlights are HERE.

Hawks 1, Fighters 0

At Yafuoku Dome, Rick van den Hurk returned to SoftBank’s first team for the first time since his June season debut and allowed three hits and a walk while striking out eight over six innings to beat Nippon Ham.

Here’s Rick van den Hurk’s hero interview.

Game highlights are HERE.

Buffaloes 11, Marines 8

At Kyocera Dome, Stefen Romero homered and drove in four runs while Brandon Dickson recorded his 17th save as Orix kept Lotte from moving back into third place.

Romero took part in the Buffaloes’ hero interview HERE.

Game highlights are HERE.

Having examined what happens when individual batters come off the bench to hit in NPB, and knowing that pinch-hitters, as a whole, are less productive in that role than they are when taking their regular turn in the batting order.

While the pinch-hitting penalty described by Tom Tango, Mitchel G. Lichtman and Andrew E. Dolphin in “The Book” does not appear to be nearly as extreme in NPB, their advice holds. Because they calculated that pinch-hitters wOBA is .034 less than when they bat in other contexts, they recommend managers only hit for position players using guys off the bench who are significantly better hitters.

Even if the pinch-hitting penalty is only .006 points of OPS2, it would behoove managers to at least use pinch-hitters who are somewhat better, because some managers don’t even do that.

In terms of the OPS2 managers have sacrificed and production gained during the period studied, here are the NPB managers who gotten the most mileage out of pinch-hitting for position players:

Manager	Franchise	PH for pos player	PH season OPS2	PH OPS2	replaced OPS2	PH Gain	PH expected gain
Tanishige	D	208	0.324	0.408	0.271	0.137	0.053
Ogi	Bu	225	0.333	0.379	0.309	0.070	0.024
Ochiai	D	614	0.32	0.354	0.299	0.055	0.021
Nashida	E	409	0.309	0.311	0.271	0.040	0.038
Hara	G	1291	0.326	0.342	0.304	0.038	0.022
Takagi	D	261	0.325	0.301	0.264	0.037	0.061
Nomura	C	546	0.308	0.302	0.266	0.036	0.042
Takahashi	G	293	0.319	0.326	0.291	0.035	0.028
Tao	E	241	0.314	0.322	0.287	0.035	0.027
Ishige	Bu	238	0.299	0.319	0.285	0.034	0.014
Ramirez	BS	289	0.301	0.299	0.269	0.030	0.032
Mayumi	T	365	0.313	0.339	0.310	0.029	0.003
Oh	H	1075	0.301	0.323	0.295	0.028	0.006
Yamamoto	C	301	0.317	0.329	0.301	0.028	0.016
Fukura	Bu	519	0.299	0.300	0.272	0.028	0.027
Akiyama	H	741	0.306	0.300	0.274	0.026	0.032
Kudo	H	616	0.328	0.319	0.294	0.025	0.034
Ito	L	771	0.338	0.339	0.315	0.024	0.023
Okada	Bu	469	0.286	0.293	0.270	0.023	0.016
Mori	D	251	0.310	0.309	0.288	0.021	0.022

NPB managers with largest average gain in OPS2 when pinch-hitting for positon players from 2002-2018, minimum 200 PH appearances.

The next table gives the 20 managers who’ve replaced one position player with another at least 200 times between 2002 and 2018 and who got the least mileage for their changes.

In these lists, a few managers are given twice — for results with individual teams and for all the teams they managed during this period combined.

Least productive managers when pinch-hitting for position players

Manager	Franchise	PH for pos player	PH season OPS2	PH OPS2	replaced OPS2	PH Gain	PH expected gain
Yamamoto	M	539	0.325	0.272	0.315	-0.043	0.01
Hoshino	E	335	0.292	0.251	0.293	-0.042	-0.001
Hoshino	T & E total	505	0.311	0.257	0.295	-0.038	0.016
Okubo	E	274	0.302	0.248	0.272	-0.024	0.03
Moriwaki	Bu	445	0.3	0.277	0.301	-0.024	-0.001
Nishimura	M	468	0.27	0.249	0.272	-0.023	-0.002
Ogata	C	341	0.354	0.299	0.321	-0.022	0.033
Yamada	D	207	0.327	0.308	0.326	-0.018	0.001
Nashida	F	606	0.301	0.283	0.297	-0.014	0.004
Nashida	KB	663	0.343	0.307	0.318	-0.011	0.025
Ihara	Bu	200	0.324	0.337	0.345	-0.008	-0.021
Nomura	E	747	0.323	0.291	0.297	-0.006	0.026
Nashida total	KB & F & E	1678	0.320	0.299	0.299	0.000	0.021
Kuriyama	F	1117	0.303	0.292	0.29	0.002	0.013
Hillman	F	897	0.315	0.312	0.31	0.002	0.005
Lee	Bu	212	0.341	0.34	0.338	0.002	0.003
Oishi	Bu	279	0.323	0.312	0.309	0.003	0.014
Watanabe	L	1184	0.295	0.292	0.288	0.004	0.007
Okada	T	487	0.334	0.323	0.317	0.006	0.017
Valentine	M	1034	0.328	0.334	0.326	0.008	0.002

NPB's least productive managers from 2002-2018 when pulling a position player for a pinch-hitter, minimum 200 pinch-hit appearances.

So the most successful employer of pinch-hitters in recent years was a playing-manager, Motonobu Tanishige, who often delegated bench decisions to his head coach, Shigekazu Mori, while No. 2 was Hall of Fame manager Akira Ogi, who was manager for only one year during the study, 2005, before his untimely death.

At the bottom of the table is the late Koji Yamamoto, who managed the Lotte Marines before Bobby Valentine took over the reins in 2004. Another Hall of Fame manager, Senichi Hoshino, finishes second worst with the Rakuten Eagles, and third worst for his time with both the Hanshin Tigers and Eagles combined.

And then there are the managers who’ve chosen, on average to replace position players with pinch-hitters of lesser value. The good news for Marines fans is that while Iguchi made some ostensibly dreadful choices last season, they did not hurt his club, since the pinch-hitters exceeded anyone’s expectations — except perhaps the skippers’.

Silly pinch-hitting choices

Manager	Franchise	PH for pos player	PH season OPS2	PH OPS2	replaced OPS2	PH Gain	PH expected gain
Iguchi	M	133	0.271	0.313	0.295	0.018	-0.024
Ihara	Bu	200	0.324	0.337	0.345	-0.008	-0.021
Brown	E	98	0.29	0.274	0.302	-0.028	-0.012
Nakamura	Bu	179	0.313	0.311	0.316	-0.005	-0.003
Nishimura	M	468	0.27	0.249	0.272	-0.023	-0.002
Hoshino	E	335	0.292	0.251	0.293	-0.042	-0.001
Moriwaki	Bu	445	0.3	0.277	0.301	-0.024	-0.001

Recent NPB managers who've used pinch-hitters of lower quality than the players they've batted for.

jballallen.com

Category Archives: Baseball

NPB games, news of Sept. 20, 2019

Yamaguchi returns as winner

Pacific League

Lions 5, Eagles 3

Hawks 1, Fighters 0

Buffaloes 11, Marines 8

NPB managers and pinch-hitters

Least productive managers when pinch-hitting for position players

Silly pinch-hitting choices

writing & research on Japanese baseball