Yomiuri Giants right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano on Tuesday became Japan’s ninth winner of three or more MVP awards after completing on of the best seasons of his career at the age of 34. And like his last MVP, in 2020, he’s following this one up by attempting to sign an MLB contract.
SoftBank Hawks outfielder Kensuke Kondo, a converted catcher who never seemed to be able to play 120 games a year before joining the Hawks as a free agent last year, produced his second straight MVP-caliber season. “It took a while, but I did feel I might win it someday,” said the 31-year-old Kondo, who was a standout for Japan in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Sugano, who failed to come to terms with any MLB teams in the winter of 2020-2021, returned to the Yomiuri Giants for three mediocre seasons. Speaking of his 4-8 2023 season Tuesday, Sugano said, “A year ago, I don’t think anyone thought Sugano could win an MVP. But I believed I could do it. (Next year) I want to take it to the next level.”
The 35-year-old led the CL in wins, going 15-3 and finishing second with a 1.67 ERA for the league champion Yomiuri Giants. He received 253 of the 302 first-place votes cast for the CL award.
A year after he barely missed winning the PL Triple Crown, Kondo won the PL batting title, and led the league in walks, on-base percentage and slugging average. Kondo received 158 of the 259 first-place votes cast for the PL MVP. Hawks first baseman Hotaka Yamakawa was runner-up with 78 first-place votes.
My system ranked Ryosuke Tatsumi of the Eagles first, but the Eagles were extremely unbalanced because the team’s pitching and defense as a whole was so atrociously bad, that the offense got a gargantuan share of the team’s credit in my system. This led me to question the credentials of the Eagles’ players. By my system, Yuya Ogo ranked third in the PL, Hideto Asamura fourth and you get the picture.
So what’s up with the Best Nine-MVP split?
As I wrote yesterday, I forgot to shift Tatsumi downward and left him No. 2 in the PL MVP vote with out giving him a Best Nine vote. I thus ended up with the kind of ballot I abhor, a player getting a vote for MVP who wasn’t, in my opinion a clear choice for Best Nine.
My bad. Even without my help, Tatsumi led all PL outfielders with 240 out of 259 possible votes in the Best Nine, 13 more than Kondo got.
At least 13 people thought Tatsumi was more valuable at this position this past season than Kondo, but on the SAME ballot, filled out by the SAME voters, 158 of 259 voters thought Kondo was the league’s best player, and 101 voters thought someone else was, but while the sentiment among outfielders was that Tatsumi was a little better, NOT ONE voter put their money where their mouths were in the MVP vote.
Tatsumi got one second-place vote (my mistake) to Kondo’s 62, and one third-place vote to Kondo’s 13. Only 16 voters did not name Kondo on their MVP ballot. That means that of the 240 voters who thought Tatsumi was one of the PL’s three best outfielders, I’m guessing only one really thought he was the PL’s third best player.
What I meant to say was…
After seeing Tatsumi decked out as a samurai warrior at the NPB Awards, I’m wondering if I might be better off reconsidering my logic on his value this season. I’ll be 65 in a few months, and I don’t need someone chasing me around with a sword.
A note about my system
I am largely influenced by Bill James’ Win Shares, which assigns credit for wins not by comparing players to league averages at their position offensively and defensively, but by crediting individuals within their team contexts. Players on good teams have more total credit but more good performances vying for that credit, while an exceptional player on a poor team can still be credited with an MVP-caliber season, because he gobbles up a huge share of the credit for the team’s wins.
One of the interesting results of Win Shares is that over time, starting pitchers’ win share totals tend to match their career win totals. Sugano this season was credited with 14.9 win shares, which is equivalent to about five wins, but in my estimate, was the Giants’ fourth most valuable player behind Kazuma Okamoto, Naoki Yoshikawa and Yoshihiro Maru.
A system that values individual contributions relative to teams rather than to league averages, credits today’s star pitchers much less than star pitchers from 50 or 60 years ago. This isn’t because the pitchers are worse, but because the demands on their arms are much higher, pitch-by-pitch, than they used to be.
Sugano rated higher than any other pitcher in Japan this season, but in value among all players, he ranked 37th. The highest rated player by my estimate in either league was Seiya Hosokawa of the Dragons, although I gave my CL MVP first-place vote to a player who was close, Koji Chikamoto of the Tigers, because while winning a lot of games is essential, the end purpose is to win more games as a team, so I tend to give players on better teams a tiny bump for that.
Seibu Lions lefty Natsuki Takeuchi won the PL Rookie of the Year Award in a landslide, taking 242 of 259 votes, while Giants reliever Hiromasa Funabasama won the CL’s award with 190 votes.
Takeuchi went 10-6 for the last-place Lions and was runner-up for the league ERA title with a 2.17 mark over 145-1/3 innings. The 28-year-old Funabasama, a fifth-round draft pick in 2022, was 10th in the CL’s middle relief rankings with 22 holds and four wins. It was not a banner year for CL rookies. My ranking went: 1. Mikiya Tanaka, Dragons, 2. Ryuki Watarai, BayStars, 3. Takumi Kurohara, Carp – the CL runner-up. Funabasama ranked sixth.
