The road to 16 teams: the talent pool

This is the second part of a series on the possibility of NPB expanding from 12 to 16 teams. Part 1 is HERE.

Expanding Japanese pro baseball from 12 to 16 or more teams is a tricky operation for a number of reasons but let’s address one here: the talent pool.

Because expansion will dilute the existing talent pool, some will argue it would make Nippon Professional Baseball’s product unmarketable. There is some truth to that. Suddenly adding 280 players to the existing 840 would force many players into starting jobs who could not make that jump without expansion or a rash of injuries.

That would make the games more interesting and lower the quality of execution in each game.

But the other side of the equation is that new jobs will open the door to groups of players: Those teams know can play but can’t commit to, and those that teams don’t know can play but who can.

Take Ichiro Suzuki. He fell somewhere in between those two categories. For two years, manager Shozo Doi wanted him to be a pinch-running, bunting and infield-single hitting defensive replacement. The team knew he could play a little but his refusal to adopt an orthodox batting stance limited his value in the eyes of the organization’s eyes — despite his amazing minor league results.

Even managers who are really good at spotting talent miss guys. Former Chunichi Dragons skipper Hiromitsu Ochiai was one of the best in the business at spotting what players were capable of, but he missed the boat entirely with outfielder Teppei Tsuchiya, who became a Best Nine-winning regular with the Rakuten Eagles.

The point is that teams make decisions about players, and often those decisions are wrong. An increase in jobs means more opportunities for players whose only failing is working for a team that doesn’t believe in him.

A side benefit of adding four teams would be bringing an end to NPB’s ridiculous limitation on imported talent. The purpose of that limit is ostensibly to give job opportunities to Japanese players, but it also means intentionally marketing an inferior product to the paying customers. The fans aren’t paying to see players who are Japanese, they’re paying to see baseball, and NPB needs to remember that.

Next, a look at how to identify new teams and cities.

What Japan needs to grow its game

The talk of expanding Nippon Professional Baseball by one third and increasing from 12 to 16 teams raises many questions, especially if one only sees it as grafting four additional teams to the current system, where only four or five of the existing clubs have made serious efforts at player development beyond the bare minimum.

What’s needed is a new set of rules and a new vision that sees Japan’s game as the visionary founder of the current establishment, Matsutaro Shoriki, ostensibly did, not just as a rival to Major League Baseball, but a superior product.

There are several obstacles preventing Japan from achieving these goals.

  1. The small number of professional players 70 players per team with an additional 60 or so on developmental contracts.
  2. This issue is exacerbated by the lack of playing time for those not on the active roster.
  3. A youth baseball culture that culls many of the best athletes from the talent pool through elbow and shoulder injuries caused by overuse before they even reach high school.
  4. This issue runs parallel to a declining birth rate and an even sharper decline in youth baseball participation as parents and kids opt for less dangerous sports with a less burdensome practice culture — as NBA player Rui Hachimura did.
  5. Limiting imported players to four on the active roster, making it difficult to invest in overseas amateurs.

No. 1 cannot be solved by keeping the current system as it is. Teams are tackling No. 2 piecemeal: Some have been aggressively investing, while others have done precious little. No. 3 is one area where progress is being made, with youth organizing bodies beginning to implement limits to curb coaches’ excesses, while No. 5 offers a solution to No. 4.

Considering Japan’s population — even with its declining birthrate, the idea that 12 pro baseball teams in a country with minimal competition from other pro sports is in itself a stretch. What is lacking is not money or population but sports business know-how and desire to be bigger. It doesn’t help that the Yomiuri Giants hate when teams gobble up their share of Japan’s unclaimed markets — as happened when Nippon Ham moved to Hokkaido.

The importance of being No. 1

Although top major league stars earn more than any players in NPB, many Japanese players will go to the States knowing it will mean a pay cut. Yet they go because it is a chance to compete against the best and because it is something different. It’s not always about money after a point.

If Japanese pro baseball were able to absorb a greater share of international amateur talent and develop it, and that is entirely possible, then that would put this country on a road that could lead to it having the best baseball in the world.

Of course, one of the benefits of having leagues on par with those in MLB is overseas revenue, something NPB has been blissfully ignorant of all these years. What’s the market in America when some of the best American players are in Japan? In Canada? In Mexico? You’ve got it.

Instead, the message has been: “Let’s keep it small. Let’s keep it Japanese. That’s enough.”

Starting small

My Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast partner, John E. Gibson, suggested that a development network be put in place first before expansion, and that’s a valid point. It’s also problematic.

Japan has pro teams in seven metropolitan areas, or eight if one wants to separate Yokohama and Kanagawa from the Tokyo megalopolis. The point is that until recently, pro baseball was about 12 first teams and farm teams. Independent minor leagues have been operating now for more than a decade but they are a new thing and are not really considered professional but exist in a kind of limbo world between the amateur and pro ranks.

The point is that unlike the United States, where every reasonably large city has a pro baseball team, either major or minor, Japan is either major or nothing. There is no tradition of local pro teams because pro baseball began in essence as a fully-formed league. Before then, there had been company teams and club teams and one independent pro team — the Shibaura Club.

Although the Yomiuri Giants tout themselves as Japan’s first pro team, they were, in fact, the second. If anything, the Hanshin Tigers have a better historical pedigree, as they were organized by former members of the original Shibaura Club.

The point is that the idea of most Japanese cities having their own pro ballclub may be kind of an alien idea. But having said that, when I lived in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, the people there talked about having an NPB franchise — instead of being a Chunichi Dragons satellite town.

The question is how does one get the locals to give their hearts to a hometown team that is professional but not NPB?

writing & research on Japanese baseball

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