What is the single best pitch thrown in Japanese pro baseball? I wish to God I knew. But while best is a decision we can only guess at, one can make a reasonable estimate about how effective pitches are based on how they shape the run-scoring potential in innings. Every called ball increases it, every called or swinging strike decreases it.
If one had access to Trackman data that allowed us to calculate the value of batted balls based on their speed and trajectory, one could assign the same value to batted balls regardless of the quality of the defense behind each pitcher.
That is not available, and with the knowledge that the end results of batted balls are subject to some randomness, I evaluate them mostly on the end result, the number of bases gained or lost, the number of outs made, and the number of runs scored, with a tiny amount as the average value of fair balls hit into the outfield or the infield and bunts.
The valuations are related to the base-out situations, and counts, and park adjustments, and each individual pitch is given a value based on the increase or decrease in run expectation from the state prior to the pitch.
With the exception of about 20 pitches from one game in 2020 and an entire game in 2023, I am compiling a record of every pitch thrown in Japanese pro baseball from 2020 to the present.
Let’s start with the big picture, the best pitches 2,000 minimum thrown between 2020 and 2024. The average velocities are in kilometers per hour, while the swing-and-miss percentage is of all pitches offered at.
Most effective pitches in Japan: 2020 to 2024
| Name | Pitch | Run value | Avg. Velo | S&M Pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yoshinobu Yamamoto | Split | -.031 | 144.3 | 41.5% |
| Kaima Taira | Fast | -.026 | 152.7 | 25% |
| Yuya Yanagi | Cut | -.025 | 134.7 | 30% |
| Yuki Matsumoto | Fast | -.021 | 148.3 | 18.7% |
| Kona Takahashi | Fork | -.020 | 140.5 | 27.7% |
| Koyo Aoyagi | 2-seam | -.019 | 141.2 | 15.6% |
| Hiromu Ise | Fast | -.018 | 148.2 | 25.5% |
| Shosei Togo | Fork | -.018 | 133.6 | 41.1% |
| Hiroki Tokoda | 2-seam | -.018 | 136.2 | 20.6% |
| Hiroto Saiki | Fast | -.017 | 148.6 | 15.7% |
| Tomoyuki Sugano | Slider | -.017 | 133.2 | 24.9% |
Some notes
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s splitter was remarkable. It was the best swing-and-miss pitch, and the pitch most often thrown for a strike, 61.2 percent of the time.
- Shosei Togo was the only pitcher with two different pitches ranked in the top 10 in swing and miss, his forkball, at 41.1% was second to Yamamoto’s while his slider at 26.6 percent ranked 10th.
- The fastest of the pitches, was Roki Sasaki’s four-seamer, topping out at 165 kph, with an average since 2020 of 156.9. Despite the velocity, Sasaki’s fastball is evaluated as the 18th best of the 72 hard pitches thrown at least 2,000 times since 2020, and ranks 22nd in swing and miss.
- If we lower the threshold for inclusion to 1,000 pitches, the most effective in Japan would be the forkball of Dragons reliever Akiyoshi Katsuno, which was absolutely devastating in 2023, and has otherwise been OK. I’m not alone in this evaluation. Delta Graphs rates that 2023 forkball extremely highly.
- The existence of one good pitch is important but employing it in conjunction with others is what makes or breaks a pitcher. Hiroshima’s Allen Kuri may have one of Japan’s best two-seam fastballs, but his four-seamer is his most hittable pitch…
