Ichiro Suzuki, whose 4,367 career hits are the most in major league baseball (lower case, was among the four new candidates named Tuesday to the players division ballot for the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame’s class of 2025.
Unlike America’s National Hall of Fame, Japan’s vote is open to all journalists who have covered NPB for accredited media for 15 years or more, and because of that large number, it seems unlikely that even Suzuki will be a unanimous selection.
Japan’s voters favor players with exceptional careers, of course, but they have also shown a soft spot for the less than stellar provided they are extremely popular with the press, while denying worthy candidates if they ever had issues with the media.
That, and a shortage of outstanding fielders at demanding defensive positions, explains the popularity of former Giants shortstop Masahiro Kawai, who 221 of last year’s 354 voters believe is a hall of famer.
Despite playing on four pennant-winning teams and winning six Golden Gloves for Japan’s most popular team, the media only considered him the Central League’s best shortstop in any of his 10 seasons as a regular.
No position player has ever been voted in with fewer than two Best Nine Awards who was not also a successful manager–other than the great Wu Chang-zheng (Shosei Go), who was past his prime when the award became an annual thing in 1947.
In addition to Ichiro, Japan’s career saves leader, Hitoki Iwase, and is the best bet to be among those announced as new inductees on Jan. 16, five days before the U.S. hall announces its new members among recently retired players. Kawai, Shinya Miyamoto and former Giants pitcher Masumi Kuwata continue to siphon away votes from more deserving candidates like Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Tuffy Rhodes and Atsunori Inaba, Abe also
The three other new candidates for Japan’s hall, located at Tokyo Dome, are catcher Shinnosuke Abe, pitcher Koji Uehara and first baseman Kazuya Fukuura.
Abe, currently the Yomiuri Giants manager, had 2,132 hits and 406 home runs in his career with that club. In a career split between Japan and MLB, Uehara, a former Giants ace, won 134 games and saved 128.
Fukuura finished his career with the Lotte Marines with exactly 2,000 hits. Because Japanese baseball has long had a defense-first mindset, few catchers and shortstops have been enshrined primarily on the merit of their playing careers.
However, we’ve had a quartet of catchers in recent years, Atsuya Furuta, Tsutomu Ito, who was great for a brief period and had a long career, Koichi Tabuchi – from the expert’s division, and Motonobu Tanishige, who was good for an extraordinarily long time. Abe will slot in there with Furuta, as an outstanding hitter for many years, although Abe was a better hitter and Furuta a much better fielder. Combined with his visible role as Giants manager, Abe should move toward the top of the list this year.
Including Masahiko Mori, an excellent defensive catcher for the V9 Giants and an even more successful manager for the Seibu Lions, Abe’s eventual induction will bring the number of Hall of Fame catchers to six. Ten years ago, it was just Mori and Nomura.
Recently re-retired Hanshin Tigers manager, one of the team’s pillars as a slugging second baseman in their 1985 Japan Series championship-winning season, was added to the experts’ division ballot. The experts consist of baseball
