The are no fastball counts in Japan: urban legend or truth? We’re used to seeing Japanese pitchers throw breaking balls in any count, but is it really all that different from what MLB pitchers do?

From the first 218,342 pitches thrown in Nippon Professional Baseball in 2022 through Thursday, Sept. 8, pitchers fell behind 3-0 in the count 2,100 times and threw 1,906 fastball-type pitches (four-seamers, two-seamers, cutters, or running fastballs)– 91 percent of the time–and threw strikes with 1,280 of them.

That is the most likely fastball count in Japan, so it’s not like “there are no fastball counts,” but that there is a perception gap caused by how Japanese pitchers go after imported hitters.

There are counts where imports are just as likely to see fastball-type pitches as Japan-registered players, but in most counts there’s a small gap, and there’s also a gap in how carefully import hitters are pitched to.

Pitchers throw strikes to Japan-registered hitters 67 percent of the time with 3-0 fastballs. Mind you, without Japan’s proprietary tracking data, we don’t know how often these are chased out of the zone and counted as strikes.

When throwing other 3-0 pitches, Japan-registered hitters get strikes 68 percent of the time. With imports, the percentages are 61 percent for fastball-like pitches and 58 percent for other pitches.

Percent of fastball-type pitches thrown by count

The MLB data above of fastball-type pitches from 2021 from Baseball Savant, suggest that rather than “no fastball counts” in NPB, there are more counts where an import hitter can expect to see a hard pitch than in MLB. However, 3-0 is going to surprise a few guys who are expecting something fast 95 percent of the time and getting something else 16 times out of a hundred.

Straight stuff

But just grouping the fastball-type pitches together doesn’t quite tell the whole story. If we look at different counts again but focus only on four-seam fastballs, the gap between what domestic hitters and imports see grows a little bit.

Percent of 4-seam fastballs thrown by count

So, import hitters can really only expect to see a four-seam fastball more than 50 percent of the time on 3-0, while domestic hitters are likely to see one on 2-0, and with three balls.

Compared to MLB, however, the only count in which an import hitter in Japan is less likely to see a four-seam fastball is 3-1, and even then it’s close.

So the lesson is not “there are no fastball counts” but that hitters have to be more ready to see something else, and apparently less likely to see a pitch in their zone, although actual umpire strike zones may vary depending on make and model.