Dayan Viciedo and the zone

My buddy John Gibson interviewed Dayan Viciedo of the Chunichi Dragons last week, which you can hear on the Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast.

In the interview, Viciedo, last year’s CL batting champion, said the difference between this season and last has been more balls out of the zone, demanding better plate discipline from him.

According to Delta Graphs, Viciedo has, so far this season, seen a slightly higher percentage of pitches in the zone than he did last season. He’s swinging at fewer of them, and swinging at a few more outside the zone.

His percentage of pitches in the zone this season so far is 41.9 percent, up from 40.6 last year, which was then a career high for him in Japan. This year, he’s swung at 32.6 percent of the pitches out of the zone, and 68.1% in the zone. Last year, those figures were 30.2% and 73.5%, respectively.

The real difference has been what happens when he puts the ball in play. We don’t have exit velocities and Delta Graphs categories the speed of balls of the bat as soft, medium and hard. But those percentages have barely moved this season for Viciedo.

The difference seems to simply that he’s being hurt by more balls in play being turned into outs than he did last season. Last season, his BABIP was .354, this year it’s .335.

I’m guessing that that is partly luck and — because his percent of home runs per fly ball is way down so far this year (to 13 percent after being over 16.8 percent in each of his first three seasons. This could easily be a function of the colder early season weather.

There’s no reason to think that those things he does in the batters box to hit pitches are any less effective than they were a year ago.

2019 All Star Teams

Fan ballot

Here are the fan ballots for the upcoming NPB all-star games (published on June 24)

Central League

★Selected in this ballot / selections by fans (total selections)

  Rank Player Team Votes
Starting pitchers
1 Daichi Osera 1(2) C 257,168
  2 Yuki Nishi T 249,040
  3 Tomoyuki Sugano G 157,176
  4 Shota Imanaga DB 146,931
  5 Juri Hara S 103,046
  6 Koyo Aoyagi T 61,561
  7 Yudai Ono D 57,043
  8 Kazuki Yoshimi D 29,851
  9 Yuya Yanagi D 29,157
  10 Masanori Ishikawa S 22,122
Middle Relievers
1 Pierce Johnson 1(1) T 364,233
  2 Ryuji Ichioka C 209,174
  3 Kota Nakagawa G 181,595
  4 Kazuki Kondo S 166,172
  5 Joely Rodriguez D 98,535
Closers
1 Yasuaki Yamasaki 5(5) DB 394,734
  2 Rafael Dolis T 287,895
  3 Taichi Ishiyama S 137,405
  4 Shota Nakazaki C 122,631
  5 Hiroshi Suzuki D 97,990
Catchers
1 Ryutaro Umeno 2(2) T 420,640
  2 Tsubasa Aizawa C 215,631
  3 Seiji Kobayashi G 212,444
  4 Hikaru Ito DB 133,528
  5 Shuhei Nakamura S 131,872
First Basemen
1 Kazuma Okamoto 2(2) G 308,401
  2 Dayan Viciedo D 189,313
  3 Tomotaka Sakaguchi S 167,186
  4 Jose Lopez DB 158,633
  5 Masahiro Nakatani T 156,304
Second Basemen
1 Tetsuto Yamada 3(5) S 424,435
  2 Ryosuke Kikuchi C 286,976
  3 Kento Ihara T 244,737
  4 Naoki Yoshikawa G 79,507
  5 Neftali Soto DB 67,530
Third Basemen
1 Munetaka Murakami 1(1) S 376,036
  2 Yusuke Oyama T 309,194
  3 Shuhei Takahashi D 216,519
  4 Toshiro Miyazaki DB 117,798
  5 Tomohiro Abe C 106,696
Shortstops
1 Hayato Sakamoto 8(11) G 424,557
  2 Seiya Kinami T 243,398
  3 Kosuke Tanaka C 161,186
  4 Naomichi Nishiura S 115,891
  5 Yota Kyoda D 112,325
Outfielders
1 Seiya Suzuki 3(4) C 485,526
2 Koji Chikamoto 1(1) T 389,868
3 Yoshitomo Tsutsugo 5(5) DB 319,896
  4 Norichika Aoki S 298,738
  5 Yoshihiro Maru G 291,973
  6 Yoshio Itoi T 248,870
  7 Yohei Oshima D 212,562
  8 Hisayoshi Chono C 202,207
  9 Kosuke Fukudome T 185,949
  10 Wladamir Balentien S 182,349

Pacific League

  Rank Player Team Votes
Starting pitchers
1 Kodai Senga 2(3) H 260,211
  2 Yoshinobu Yamamoto B 212,451
  3 Kohei Arihara F 73,148
  4 Hideaki Wakui M 67,682
  5 Tatsuya Imai L 65,552
  6 Taisuke Yamaoka B 62,538
  7 Takayuki Kishi E 61,782
  8 Rei Takahashi H 59,080
  9 Naoyuki Uwasawa F 53,367
  10 Kotaro Otake H 38,199
Middle Relievers
1 Naoki Miyanishi 2(3) F 304,380
  2 Hiroshi Kaino H 265,479
  3 Yuki Karakawa M 150,043
  4 Katsunori Hirai L 146,099
  5 Keisuke Sawada B 80,793
Closers
1 Yuki Matsui 3(3) E 337,789
  2 Hirotoshi Masui B 189,452
  3 Yuito Mori H 157,586
  4 Ryo Akiyoshi F 140,160
  5 Naoya Masuda M 118,938
Catchers
1 Tomoya Mori 3(3) ※1 L 425,723
  2 Takuya Kai H 302,332
  3 Tatsuhiro Tamura M 113,138
  4 Motohiro Shima E 67,416
  5 Kenya Wakatsuki B 65,975
First Basemen
1 Hotaka Yamakawa 2(2) L 531,187
  2 Sho Nakata F 172,215
  3 Daichi Suzuki M 153,325
  4 Seiichi Uchikawa H 103,824
  5 Takahiro Okada B 62,836
Second Basemen
1 Hideto Asamura 6(7) E 384,668
  2 Shuta Tonosaki L 214,570
  3 Shogo Nakamura M 176,157
  4 Shuhei Fukuda B 85,634
  5 Ryo Watanabe F 78,811
Third Basemen
1 Brando Laird 1(3) M 431,395
  2 Nobuhiro Matsuda H 259,432
  3 Takeya Nakamura L 173,716
  4 Yuma Tongu B 75,055
  5 Zelous Wheeler E 71,712
Shortstops
1 Kenta Imamiya 5(5) H 348,794
  2 Sosuke Genda L 305,762
  3 Takuya Nakashima F 124,092
  4 Yudai Fujioka M 99,609
  5 Eigoro Mogi E 95,034
Outfielders
1 Shogo Akiyama 5(5) L 514,262
2 Masataka Yoshida 2(2) B 394,866
3 Yuki Yanagita 5(6) H 331,338
  4 Taishi Ota F 318,716
  5 Haruki Nishikawa F 307,047
  6 Takashi Ogino M 259,918
  7 Seiji Uebayashi H 145,392
  8 Katsuya Kakunaka M 129,930
  9 Yuji Kaneko L 128,214
  10 Yurisbel Gracial H 125,451
DH
1 Kensuke Kondo 2(3) ※2 F 287,249
  2 Alfredo Despaigne H 239,339
  3 Jabari Blash E 162,961
  4 Takumi Kuriyama L 151,484
  5 Kennys Vargas M 86,968

writing & research on Japanese baseball

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