Getting Japan to do the two-seam: It’s not just the ball
By Jim Allen Ever since talking with Tsuyoshi Wada last summer, I've had this curiosity about two-seam fastballs in Japan. The former Chicago Cub said he's kind of on a…
Senichi Hoshino walks off into the sunset and a bit about another favorite manager
By Jim Allen A week ago, Senichi Hoshino became Japan's second Hall of Fame manager to die in the past six months, following the death of Toshiharu Ueda last July. Both…
NPB sells itself short Chapter 11: The new posting system and the future
By Jim Allen What just happened? By using Shohei Otani's posting as leverage, the Major League Baseball Players Association has gotten Nippon Professional Baseball–to paraphrase one NPB team executive–to bend over and…
What’s up with the posting system?
By Jim Allen There is a lot of misunderstanding about the current state of the posting system negotiations and the system in general, and I'll try to clarify those things…
Golden Glove voting
Here's how I voted for this year's Golden Glove Awards Central League Pitcher: Takumi Akiyama, Tigers I would have prefered Nomi, but he’s not on the ballot. Shoichi Ino and…
Why Sarfate and not Kikuchi?
So why does Yusei Kikuchi play second fiddle to Dennis Sarfate in win shares? The essential answer is context. First of all, it is very hard for relievers to rank…
My 2017 NPB Awards Ballot
Here is my postseason award voting for 2017: I have four rules: 1) Everything is about THIS season. It doesn't matter what a guy did last year, that's a different…
An indecent proposal
Yomiuri Giants "owner" Shoichi Oikawa revealed to various media sources Wednesday that Nippon Professional Baseball's owners are negotiating two options for a revised posting system with Major League Baseball. Both…
Mommas don’t let your babys grow up to play defense
...that is, if you want them to win a monthly MVP award in Nippon Professional Baseball. I totalled up NPB's monthly MVP awards for position players today and found some…
Monthly MVPs
NPB's pitchers and hitters of the month will be announced shortly, actually the awards are "Player of the Month" and "Pitcher of the Month" but they could be just as…
