Japan’s first all-star game was played Wednesday, and despite that, there was actual news, involving the Rakuten Eagles and their coaches, and the extraordinary players union meeting that takes place every year at this time.
Japan has two all-star games now, instead of the three NPB used to impose on us, and each is preceded by a home run derby between eight players. The current format is a vast improvement over what we used to have which was two different kinds of derby in each park with two winners each year, and few people understanding what was going on.
The advantage of people not really following it allowed pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii one year to swap uniforms with Yoshinobu Takahashi and take some of his cuts in the home run derby. But other than that, it was pretty lame.
In Wednesday’s bracket, new Dragon Seiya Hosokawa, a fixture on DeNA’s Eastern League farm club until he was freed by December’s active player “second-chance” draft, beat six-time PL home run leader Takeya Nakamura before defeating former DeNA teammate Shugo Maki to advance to Thursday’s final. Maki dispatched Orix’s 2021 PL home run champ Yutaro Sugimoto.
The PL won the actual game 8-1 and now leads the series 89-80 with 11 ties.
- Tsuyoshi Wada rewrote his record as the oldest player to play for the PL in an all-star game, at 42 years, 4 months.
- DeNA closer Yasuaki Yamasaki threw six pitches in a scoreless eighth, and all six were knuckleballs, a pitch I doubt he’s thrown in a meaningful game yet. They had a little spin on them in a windless dome, but that was different.
- The Hawks’ Yuki Yanagita hit a long second-inning homer, but was easily outdone in the power department by Nippon Ham’s Chusei Mannami, who hit a towering opposite-field shot high off the foul pole in right. Yanagita was the game’s MVP.
During the game, this year’s three inductees to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, first baseman Randy Bass, outfielder Alex Ramirez and the son of late composer Yuji Koseki, were honored in a brief ceremony.
Bass was a two-time Triple Crown-winner and the 1985 CL MVP Randy Bass, while Alex Ramirez won two CL MVPs and is the only import player to get 2,000 hits in Japan. Yuji Koseki wrote a number of sports-related anthems, including the Tigers’ iconic “Rokko Oroshi.”
It sure would be great if the greats got to make acceptance speeches to a huge crowd of fans and former players, but no, that’s not how Japan rolls. Their acceptance speeches, such as they are, are given in private to the media in a closed ceremony, and then when they are presented with their plaques, they stand on the field, get a bouquet of flowers, wave to the fans and make their exit.
Eagles make another coaching change
The Rakuten Eagles responded to their PL-worst 3.55 ERA, an artifact of the team surrendering an NPB-worst 162 runs since June 1, by sending pitching coach Shinichiro Koyama to the minors and replacing him with minor league pitching coach Satoshi Nagai, whose club’s 3.42 ERA is third best in the offense-heavy Eastern League.
It was the second such switch the Eagles have made this season. On May 26, they banished major league batting coach Yuhei Takai to the minors and replaced him with Toshiaki Imai. Through May 31, the Eagles’ 134 runs scored was the worst in NPB. Since June 1, their 154 runs are the most. After that happened, the Eagles probably figured it couldn’t hurt to try it again.
Players to push image rights, early free agency
The Japan Professional Baseball Players Association held an extraordinary meeting Wednesday, when it agreed to push the owners to allow players more flexibility in regards to their individual image rights. As a result of a 2008 court ruling, teams are free to manage players images as they see fit.
The players at the time were largely concerned with the use of players’ images in computerized baseball games. The new push is being made in light of the rapid expansion of social media.
On free agency, the players called for one more charge into the breach, demanding that the current rules stipulating seven to eight years of service time for domestic free agency and nine years for international free agency both be reduced to six years.
Unlike MLB, where free agency was forced upon owners, and the rules set in negotiation with the MLBPA, Japan’s owners imposed free agency on the players largely because Yomiuri couldn’t win the Central League often enough to suit owner Tsuneo Watanabe, and the draft allowed the signing rights of players the Giants coveted to be assigned to other teams. When other teams balked at the idea of free agency, Watanabe played Yomiuri’s standard trump card, and threatened to quit NPB. Or perhaps he threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue.
Either way, the players got free agency on the owners’ terms. The system, that has been periodically upgraded, had the unintentional byproduct of allowing Japanese players to move to MLB. To quote the Giants chief executive the year it was agreed to, “We would never have introduced free agency if we thought players would use it to escape to MLB.”
The sole intent was to create a system in which Yomiuri could use its considerable resources to secure the best and most well-known veteran players and ensure ticket sales and wins. That system was introduced in 1993, just two years after owners shot down a demand for free agency by the players — when current Tigers skipper Akinobu Okada was the union’s chairman — as being “antithetical to Japanese baseball.”
On a third note, the players discussed the possibility of a pitch timer being introduced next season, but failed to reach a consensus on the issue.
