Tag Archives: Yusei Kikuchi

Baseball, Commentary, News, Paid Content, Yusei Kikuchi

Lions Kikuchi ready to roll into posting circus

Leave a comment

Yusei Kikuchi will be posted on Dec. 3, the Seibu Lions said Friday as they held their victory parade and fan appreciation day in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture. With captain and second baseman Hideto Asamura leaving as a free agent for the Rakuten Eagles and former No. 1 catcher Ginjiro Sumitani reportedly set to move to the Central League’s Yomiuri Giants, the Lions’ chances of defending their Pacific League championship in 2019 are taking huge hits.

Asamaura’s departure is the second major player the Lions have turned over to the Eagles in recent years, following the move of star right-hander Takayuki Kishi two years ago.

Elsewhere, Hiroshima Carp center fielder Yoshihiro Maru, a good bet to win his second-straight CL MVP award next week, has been courted by the PL’s Lotte Marines and the Giants, while the Carp remain hopeful of bringing him back. Maru is a native of Chiba Prefecture, and by filing for domestic free agency this year, has forfeited his chances of moving to the majors next season as an unrestricted free agent–unless as some have hinted that he signs with a team willing to post him.

It’s hard to see how that would happen since the new posting system awards posting fees based on contract value, and the market isn’t likely to be that strong for a Japanese center fielder with some pop, defense and good plate discipline who will be adjusting to MLB at the age of 30.

While the Carp wait on Maru’s decision, they have handed manager Koichi Ogata a one-year contract extension for what will be his fifth season at Mazda Stadium. He is only the second manager in CL history to lead the same team to three straight championships, though that’s a bit of a red herring since the other guy was Tetsuharu Kawakami and he did it nine times.

Commentary, Paid Content

Yusei Kikuchi gets all technical on us

3 Comments

Yusei Kikuchi may not be the best pitcher in Japan, but he is among the best. On top of that, he is expected to move to the majors after this season ends. Nine years after his eyes filled with tears when he announced he would turn his back on major league offers to sign with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Seibu Lions, Kikuchi has now grown into an elite starter in NPB, and is making the most of the TrackMan pitch tracking data the Lions have been using at the end of the 2016.

“Now I check each game’s data with our analysts, three or four points, my release point, my extension and so on,” he said Saturday, a night after he threw seven scoreless innings against the Pacific League-rival Lotte Marines. “It allows me to make adjustments, and as I make adjustments and see how they go in games, I get a sense for where I need to be.”

“My release point has been higher recently. I noticed in my game against the Giants (on June 8). It turned out to be 9 centimeters higher than a year ago. I worked on that by tilting my torso slightly and got it down to around 3 cm higher than last year in my last start against Chunichi (June 15). I haven’t seen the data for last night’s game, but I would bet that in my final inning, I was within a centimeter of the release point I want, which is 167 cm.”

“In the past, all I had to relay on was video. This is completely different because just looking at a video didn’t give you an exact figure. In the end it was always about feel.”

Many, including myself, have attributed Kikuchi’s dramatic improvement in strikeouts and control to his maturity, and his growing confidence that he can attack batters in the zone, but after striking out around 8 batters per nine innings through most of his career, the lefty hit 10.5 a year ago. Where he had walked over 10 percent of the batters he faced in his first three full seasons in the rotation, 2017 saw that drop to 7 percent. This season, it’s 6.