For decades, Nippon Professional Baseball has been urging players to pick up the pace in order to counteract the small-ball anal-retentive slow pace that its overlords have come to embrace. So when MLB adopted a pitch timer, Japan became interested.
Despite the promise of faster games, the idea of pitch timers in Japanese baseball would slash a gaping hole in the control-oriented micro-managed baseball Japan espouses. The more NPB looked at what MLB was up to, the stronger its allergic reaction to a pitch timer in Japan became.
But this week, the pitch timer is back in the news from a couple of different angles that tell us a lot about Japanese baseball.
Last year, Japan’s rules committee, which is largely influenced – but not controlled by — Nippon Professional Baseball, declined to adopt a pitch timer, the excuse given was that it was not necessary, because the only thing needed to make games snappily played was adherence to the 30-second rule giving the pitcher and batter that much time between plate appearances.
This year, of course, we have learned this year that another way to shorten game times is to drag offensive levels through the mud with a ball that comes apart at the seams when struck by a bat, but that is another story.
So Japan doesn’t have a pitch timer rule. Some of you rule nerds out there are also aware that MLB doesn’t have a pitch timer rule either, since it has not yet been made a part of the official rules. But I digress, again.
Minor miracle
And though there is no official pitch timer in Japan, NPB’s owners in November approved a minor league experiment without bringing in the whole package MLB uses to speed up games, even with normal balls in play.
“There is an idea that if pitchers on the farm can make a habit of this, then when they are promoted to the majors, they do it effortlessly,” said Yuichi Kohama, Orix’s head of baseball operations.
So, pitchers in the minors are now being timed to see if, when no runners are on base, they can deliver each pitch within 15 seconds of their previous one. That’s it. There is no penalty. There’s no timer when runners are on base, and there are no limits to the number of times a pitcher can step off with runners on base. In other words, Japan is only play-acting having a pitch timer.
On May 17, the necessary equipment was installed at Nagoya Stadium ahead of the Tigers’ and Dragons’ Western League game. Chunichi veteran Sho Iwasaki, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, said, “Since there’s no penalty, I just pitched without noticing it.”
The Dragons’ minor league manager, Kazuki Inoue, who became a successful hitter after turning pro as a pitcher, worried about those pitchers who are very deliberate with their first few pitches.
“Sometimes, they can be slow,” he said. “And I worry their rhythm will get out of whack.”
Inoue said that in order to make it a rule, special equipment allowing the pitcher to receive the catcher’s signals audibly would be needed, and that isn’t available.
“I don’t think it’s practical,” he said.
The idea behind the test is to collect data, but while those eager to see it play out would like to have it in Japan’s majors, opinions are fairly divided on that.
When practical goals and dogma collide
Leaving aside that there are no penalties for not throwing a pitch within the 15-second limit, the minor league test illustrates Japan’s ideologues main problem with the pitch timer: How MLB uses it is an infringement on what some consider the game’s sacred balance of power between offensive one-run tactics and defensive one-run countermeasures.
Japan’s one-run tactics, the sacrifice bunt and the stolen base, are countered on defense by bunt shifts, pitch outs, pickoff throws and pitchers employing shortened slide-step deliveries, while the bunt shift is occasionally countered by a slash bunt, swinging away after faking a bunt. Japan’s small-ball mentality is actually more of a defensive than an offensive one, with managers bringing the infield in with a runner on third and a potential tag play at the plate, or bringing the outfield in with two outs and a runner on second, or the intentional walk.
Not to say MLB is right and NPB is wrong, but bringing the outfield in with two outs is unheard of in MLB, where the outfield only comes in when any long fly will score the winning run from third with one or two outs. The shallow infield is rarely seen in MLB in the early innings, while the intentional walk frequency is about double here.
This is all sacred cow stuff in NPB, because no reporter will ever ask a manager why he chose to go with a poor percentage one-run ploy that ended up costing him the game.
Japan only really wants the 15 seconds between pitches with no runners on because the rest of the MLB program, a time limit with runners on base and a limit on pickoff throws would alter the current balance between pitcher and base runner. Virtually all Japanese baseball people want faster games, but many are not willing to push it if it means sacrificing any sacred element of the small-ball game they revere.
Unintended nostalgia
Japanese complaining about the pitch timer in another context brought with it a wave of nostalgia. No, not the “baseball is a game without clocks” nonsense, but a reminder of how Japan’s players union fought taking part in the first three World Baseball Classics.
Speaking after holding working group meetings with NPB, the union’s secretary general, Tadahito Mori, complained about the 2026 WBC’s use of MLB’s pitch timer. Pointing out that it’s not even being used in Japan’s majors yet, the union wants to join NPB in opposing its use (in the 2026 WBC).”
The comment was particularly well timed, coming on the heels of a chat I had with WBC Inc. President Jim Small last week, when we reminisced about Japan’s reluctance to take part in the tournament that has become a huge money-maker for NPB.
Japan originally signed on to compete in the 2005 World Baseball Classic, but the agreement was explained to owners by the man in charge—an individual notorious for his misleading, slanted and disingenuous explanations—as an agreement to consider taking part. Small, then the President of MLB Japan, didn’t learn until later that NPB – which had its hands full in 2004 with labor unrest and a fan revolt — was not ready to participate and had not consulted its union, pushing back the first tournament by a year.
When the union did find out, it balked at playing a spring tournament and demanded it be played in November. March, the players said, would interfere with the month of practice and preparation leading up to the regular season. And for a country of ballplayers groomed on the notion that one should spend 90 percent of one’s time in the game practicing for the 10 percent when games are meaningful, this was unconscionable.
After Japan’s players were dragged kicking and screaming into the first WBC, and won it, they complained bitterly about the timing again in 2009, and joined NPB in opposing how sponsorship money was shared, since the bulk of sponsorship dollars then were being spent by Japanese companies. This battle continued on until 2013, when Japan’s failure to win coupled with its need for cash led to a national team setup that was a huge part of Japan’s 2023 success.
“The Samurai Japan project was one of the many unexpected benefits of the WBC,” Small said.
