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On this past week’s Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast, a listener asked:

Who had the single most dominant season in the Heisei era (1989 to April 30, 2019)?
Who was the best player of the Heisei era in NPB?

To recap our answers, we split on Question 1. John (@JBWPodcast) Gibson answered Masahiro Tanaka‘s 2013, 24-0 MVP season for the Rakuten Eagles, while I had Tetsuto Yamada‘s 2015 MVP season at second base for the Yakult Swallows, which ranks — according to Bill James’ win shares — as the seventh most valuable season in Japanese pro baseball history.

The Heisei Most Dominant Season Award

Tanaka’s season ranks 457th overall among all players in history, and second behind Hall of Famer Masaki Saito’s 1989 season for the Yomiuri Giants. But if one thinks about how the game has changed, Tanaka’s season is pretty darn remarkable.

The quality of play in NPB has increased steadily along with the number of pitches needed to get batters out. Saito, who is a big strong guy like Tanaka had a season that was a little better but required 33 more innings to accomplish.

In terms of how much Tanaka accomplished per inning pitched, his 2013 season is third in Japanese baseball history, behind two more Hall of Famers, Masaichi Kaneda (1958, Kokutetsu Swallows) and Tadashi Sugiura (1959, Nankai Hawks) during Japan’s most pitcher-friendly years since the end of World War II.

John, for those of you who haven’t heard it, brought up Wladimir Balentien‘s 60-home run 2013 season, but Win Shares has that ranked right behind Hotaka Yamakawa‘s MVP season last year for the Seibu Lions and the 28th most valuable during the Heisei era.

The Heisei MVP Award

John and I both picked Tomoaki Kanemoto as the Heisei MVP, which came as a shock to Mr. Gibson. The question excluded Ichiro Suzuki, but if I valued his MLB win shares at 1.2 per NPB WS, he ranks as the undisputed Heisei king. Through that somewhat conservative formula, Suzuki’s 540 ranks him third in Japanese baseball history, far behind the run-away leader, Sadaharu Oh (723 WS) and catcher Katsuya Nomura (581). Because the bulk of Suzuki’s win shares come from MLB, he would shoot past Nomura if each WS was valued at 1.5 per NPB win share.

If we allowed MLB win shares, Kanemoto would finish third, right behind Hideki Matsui.

Anyway, here are the top Heisei win share seasons:

Position players

Player	Year	Team	WS
1. Tetsuto Yamada	2015	Swallows	46.8
2. Yuki Yanagita	2015	Hawks	42.0
3. Hideki Matsui	2002	Giants	41.7
4. Ichiro Suzuki	1995	BlueWave	40.5
5. Kosuke Fukudome	2006	Dragons	39.1
6. Kazuo Matsui	2002	Lions	38.8
7. Alex Cabrera	2002	Lions	37.7
8. Tuffy Rhodes	2001	Buffaloes	37.4
9. Yuki Yanagita	2018	Hawks	36.4
10. Takeya Nakamura	2011	Lions	35.8

Pitchers

Player	Year	Team	WS
1. Masaki Saito	1989	Giants	29.8
2. Masahiro Tanaka	2013	Eagles	27.3
3. Masaki Saito	1990	Giants	26.6
4. Masahiro Tanaka	2011	Eagles	26.3
5. Hideo Nomo	1990	Buffaloes	25.1
6. Hideyuki Awano	1989	Buffaloes	24.2
7. Shinji Imanaka	1993	Dragons	23.2
8. Tomoyuki Sugano	2017	Giants	23.2
9. Yu Darvish	2008	Fighters	23.1
10. Koji Uehara	1999	Giants	22.8

And for the guy who doesn’t fit anywhere easily, Shohei Ohtani had 32.3 win shares in 2016 as a pitcher and a hitter, and would have ranked high in either list had he only batted or pitched.

You can find my post on NPB’s Heisei era pitching leaders HERE.

In a land where sports editors pretty much dictate that the top news of every game is who got the game-winning RBI, a lot of things fly under the radar and go unreported by the media.

The game-winning RBI “hero” is so ingrained here that a bad swing at a fat pitch is praised as “great hitting” if it gets the job done. Never mind that the guy swung and missed at Ball 4 on the previous pitch or that the runner on third had drawn a 10-pitch walk, stole second, and put himself in position to score by taking third on a flyout to medium-deep right field.

A quick scan through stories from Wednesday’s action found this gem of a headline:

“Shimauchi’s small ball philosophy ‘Batting .300 is not important’ a rejection of eternal No. 4 hitter tradition.”

It’s a hard one to translate because the Japanese verb “tsunagu” means to connect or preserve, and in baseball is typically a synonym for a “productive out” or doing the little things to improve a scoring opportunity rather than trying to drive the ball. It implies sacrificing, hitting behind the runner, focusing on making contact.

I’d guess that roughly a third of postgame on-field “hero interviews” involving hitters include the following exchange:

Interviewer: “That was some hit you had there. What were your thoughts there?”

Player: “I was focused on keeping the rally going (play small ball) but I got a good swing on the ball and got a good result.”

But in Japan, if a No. 4 hitter says he doesn’t care about batting .300, it’s kind of weird. Mind you, the Eagles’ got blown out so Shimauchi was giving his thoughts to reporters and not announcing his nonchalance in front of the fans.

The reporter thought it fit to repeat another iconoclastic remark when Shimauchi said he did a good job of hitting on a ball that caught for an out that didn’t contribute to the scoreline.

“Like (the home run I hit in) the first inning, the ball I hit (for an out) in the ninth was from a good at-bat,” Shimauchi said in an expression bordering on yakyu heresy.

“Batting .300 is unimportant. I’d rather have a .400 on-base percentage.”

The story concludes with the reporter adding that Shimauchi is third in the league in on-base percentage and with this “unabashed” philosophy is contributing to the team.

Mind you, the reporter was covering the losing team in a blowout, so there’s always that. But still, couldn’t he do it without the condescension?

Here’s the original report in the Nikkan Sports.

writing & research on Japanese baseball