In this past week’s newsletter, which you’ll get if you sign up for a free or paid subscription, I alluded to a disagreement John E. Gibson and I had on the Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast. As with our biggest clashes over the years, it had to do with player valuation.
I was happy to leave it at that until one of our collaborators raised the issue on Twitter, causing us to explain our side of the argument.
Jeez, that got chippy in the finish over offense vs overall player assessment. Curious to see where the JBW fans land on that spectrum. (also, I keep wanting Ryan to get the nickname Boom-Boom McBroom. That's the hockey fan in me)
Japan now has had four no-hitters, including one perfect game, and two near misses (Roki Sasaki’s perfect eight-inning game and Yudai Ono’s nine perfect innings when he allowed a hit in the 10th) by the middle of June.
So what’s going on? Hotaka Yamakawa believes he knows, while the data suggests a combination of three things:
A subtle change to the balls’ packaging this year.
A gradual shift toward more bigger swings and uppercuts.
A gradual shift toward faster and better fastballs,
