The Nippon Ham Fighters found a new life in Sapporo, where they moved in 2004 to take up residence at Sapporo Dome after decades of being co-tenants with the Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo’s Korakuen Stadium and later Tokyo Dome.

The move, which corresponded with a front-office restructuring and the hiring of American Trey Hillman the year before, made the team as competitive as it had ever been. The club became the first in NPB to give the general manager the final say in player personnel decisions and team training and conditioning policies.

To some degrees, all Japanese teams are meritocracies, but the Fighters have established a reputation for casting Japan’s widest net in search of front-office and coaching talent. The man who engineered the move to Hokkaido and became the club’s top executive, Toshi Shimada, started out as an interpreter with the club. The current general manager, Hiroshi Yoshimura, is a former baseball reporter, and the organization has employed high school coaches to fill scouting and coaching vacancies.

In 16 seasons up north, the club has finished fourth or worse just five times, and has not had consecutive “B-class” seasons. Although Sapporo Dome is not a good place to watch baseball, the team is building its own roofed facility in the neighboring city of Kita Hiroshima that is due to open in 2023.

• Manager: Hideki Kuriyama
• 2019 Finish: 5th, 13 games out of 1st place

Manager’s record:

Kuriyama reportedly offered to resign at the end of his second fifth-place finish in three years, but management asked him to stick around, and he has. A journeyman outfielder, he was working as a TV analyst and university lecturer and had no managing experience when the Fighters picked him to take over for Masataka Nashida in 2012.

Once an extreme small-ball manager, whose teams led the PL in stolen bases from 2013 to 2016 and often led the league in sacrifices, Kuriyama changed gears in 2018, bunting half as often and drastically cutting down on stolen base attempts.

He and DeNA’s Alex Ramirez are the two managers most likely to adopt policies and tactics that fly in the face of convention. It may be no surprise that both clubs have large analytic sections. Last year, the Fighters became the first recent NPB team to try shifts against extreme pull hitters, who are rare in Japan, and also the first to modify its starting rotation, using openers and starters only expected to go through the opposing lineup once or twice.

The 2019 season, however, was an injury plague. No. 2 starter Naoyuki Uwasawa’s season ended in June, while Nick Martinez, who went 10-11 in his 2018 debut year had a season-ending injury to his forearm prior to Opening Day. Taiwan outfielder Wang Po-jung failed to make an impact, and while there were pleasant surprises from 24-year-old second baseman Ryo Watanabe, and side-arm closer Ryo Akiyoshi–picked up for a song from the Swallows, too many established regulars had somewhat disappointing seasons at the plate.

Key players

• Haruki Nishikawa CF
• Taishi Ota RF
• Kensuke Kondo LF, 3B, RF
• Ryo Watanabe 2B
• Sho Nakata 1B
• Takuya Nakashima SS
• Wang Po-jung LF
• Yushi Shimizu C
• Kotaro Kiyomiya 1B, LF

Strengths and weaknesses

With the departure of Brandon Laird to Lotte and the failure of Wang to adjust smoothly in his first NPB season, the Fighters’ home run ranking, once respectable despite playing so many games at the cavernous Sapporo Dome, fell to worst in the league.

Team Offensive rankings

• Best in the league: triples
• Next to best in the league: BABiP, Avg
• Next to worst in the league: runs, SB pct, GDP, Slug, Iso Power
• Worst in the league: home runs, stolen bases

The Fighters’ raw pitching-and-defense numbers always get a huge boost from Sapporo Dome, but despite the troubles faced by the starting rotation. The good thing is that the Fighters defense rebounded from a poor 2018 to lead the league in turning batted balls into outs. The biggest defensive issue for this club over recent years has been turning double plays.

Rankings against opponents’ offense

• Best in the league: home runs, walks, BABiP, OBP allowed
• 2nd best in the league: Avg, Slug allowed
• Next to worst in the league: triples allowed, pitchers’ strikeouts
• Worst in the league: GDP (5th time in 6 seasons Nippon Ham’s defensive GDP total has been worst or next to worst in the PL)

Other rankings

• Next to best in the league: Holds (138),
• Worst in the league: quality starts, complete games. Every other team had around 60 quality starts. But between Kuriyama’s openers and short starters, Nippon Ham had no dog in that fight.
• And… led the league in relievers used with an NPB-record 541. Kuriyama tied for fewest sacrifice hits with Seibu, and issued the third-most intentional walks, 19.

Roster

Notes: Names in all caps are imported players; names with asterisks still qualify as rookies, hyperlinks are to the player’s English language page.

2019 team data

Batters

Pitchers