Tag Archives: Yuki Yanagita

Baseball, Paid Content, Research

Straight talk about NPB hitters

2 Comments

In Japanese, a fastball is called a “straight”, a running fastball a “shoot” and with the exception of a cutter or a two-seam fastball, which are oddly enough called cutters and two-seamers, all other pitches are labeled breaking balls.

Way to Tsutsugo

Of course, pitchers call their deliveries what they will, whether or not the pitches actually behave like others with the same name. When researching Yoshitomo Tsutsugo after he declared his desire to play in the big leagues, it was pointed out to me that he had trouble with fastballs.

There is anecdotal evidence of scouts, who report what they see in limited samples, and now there is pitch tracking data, although that is proprietary and only available to the clubs. Delta Graphs, following in the footsteps of Fan Graphs, has pitch value ratings for hitters effectiveness versus different pitch types.

I’ve combed through the Delta Graph data for players with 300-plus plate appearances since 2014, and compared each of those batters to how much better or worse they are against fastballs, curves and sliders than the average of these regulars.

Frankly, Tsutsugo had a relatively poor 2019 against fastballs, 1.12 runs above the NPB average per 100 fastballs. This ranked him 33rd among the 89 hitters with 300 PAs in NPB in 2019.

The average of regulars relative to the NPB norm since 2014 has been 0.63 runs per 100 fastballs, and Tsutsugo’s 1.12 runs in 2019 was 0.37 standard deviations above that mean. For him it was a terrible year. Since 2014, he’s averaged being 0.90 standard deviations above the mean for NPB regulars. That ranks him 10th in NPB among current players with three years of regular service during that stretch.

Without further adieu, here are the best (according to Delta Graphs) fastball hitters in Japanese baseball based on the unweighted average of how many standard deviations they are above the mean in each 300-PA season since 2018. The one hitter who is head and shoulders above the rest will never make it to MLB following Yuki Yanagita‘s announcement this past week that he will forgo free agency in lieu of a seven-year contract with the SoftBank Hawks.

Japan’s best fastball hitters (3-plus seasons as regulars)

NameTeamFastball Score (SDs above avg)
Yuki YanagitaHawks2.42
Yoshihiro MaruGiants1.38
Tomoya MoriLions1.36
Alfredo DespaigneHawks1.30
Dayan ViciedoDragons1.30
Tetsuto YamadaSwallows1.24
Seiya SuzukiCarp1.20
Wladimir BalentienHawks1.06
Takeya NakamuraLions1.01
Yoshitomo TsutsugoRays0.94
Hideto AsamuraEagles0.90
Ryuhei MatsuyamaCarp0.89
Takahiro OkadaBuffaloes0.86
Alex GuerreroFighters0.73
Hayato SakamotoGiants0.69
Jose LopezBayStars0.59
Shogo AkiyamaLions -> ?0.55

Honorable mentions

If we only include players with two years as regulars, Neftali Soto of the BayStars would rank second (1.78) and Masataka Yoshida of the Buffaloes would be third (1.56).

Of course, there are two big differences between NPB and MLB in terms of the quality of fastballs. These are:

  1. While the tackier NPB ball is easier to spin, it doesn’t appear to run as much — giving less horizontal movement on fastballs, two-seamers, splitters and straight changes.
  2. The average velocity one sees in NPB is a few ticks lower than in MLB for several reasons. Japan imports virtually no international amateur talent, weight training is only beginning to take hold, and the year-round throwing practice and the necessities of pitching game after game in tournament play wipe out many of the nation’s best pitchers before they finish junior high school.

Because of those differences, one expects players — especially those in their prime or past it, to face serious adjustment issues in MLB.

Baseball, Commentary, Free, News

Another Hawk’s major dream bites the dust as Yanagita signs on for duration

3 Comments

For years Yuki Yanagita has made scouts wonder how much of an impact he could make in the majors when he was finally able to file for free agency and leave the SoftBank Hawks. On Wednesday we found out that the answer is nothing.

At a press conference, Yanagita, 31, announced a seven-year contract to stay with the Hawks. The Hawks will maintain his current salary of 570 million yen with additional performance incentives with salary boosts possible afterward depending on his numbers.

The deciding factor was a muscle tear behind one knee that saw him miss most of the 2019 season. He failed to make it back to the first team roster in time for the season to count as the eighth year of service time he needs to file for international free agency. Yanagita was deactivated on April 8 and didn’t play again until he reported no problems in his first farm team game on Aug. 8.

“I was able to swing like usual,” he said at the time. “I had no trouble running.”

There had been talk in early July of bringing him back in July as a DH so as not to put extra strain on the knee because he had been hitting in rehab. But at the time of the minor league start, the Hawks said Yanagita would need 10 games before being activated. Eventually, they settled on six games and 13 more days off the active roster.

13 days can be worth a year

Those 13 days, it turned out, were crucial to Yanagita’s future.

When the Hawks’ Pacific League season ended on Oct. 13 with the final day of the PL playoffs, Yanagita had amassed 135 of the 145 days needed to complete a year’s service time in 2019 and potentially file for free agency 11 months from now. He entered the year with 11 days he’d been carrying over since 2012, was on the roster for 64 days, and received the maximum of 60 days for players hurt in first-team games.

With that innocuous little delay, the Hawks, Japan’s most stubborn opponent of Japanese players moving abroad, were able to add an extra year of control. The Hawks are the only team in Japan that has yet to agree to post a single player, and now the club won’t have to deal with its best player leaving as a free agent.

That extra year and the extremely generous salary offer that was almost too good to turn down was enough to keep the best player of his generation in Japan for the rest of his career or at least until he’s 38.

According to the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association, Yanagita and his agent checked with the union about the shortfall. The union spoke to the Hawks and said the player and his agent were satisfied that the delay was not intentional.

My profile of Yanagita is HERE. Because of his extremely high peak value — he’s the only player other than Sadaharu Oh to lead his league in on-base percentage and slugging average in four consecutive seasons — I have Yanagita ranked as the 15th greatest player in NPB history.