Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Nomo card for the Meikyukai collection. Write-up about Nomo here.

In 1991 Hideo Nomo was the hottest name in Japan, and BBM went out of their way to include a ton of Nomo cards in their inaugural release. There's cards celebrating leading the league in all sorts of things, and award winner cards, and so on. The base Nomo card is kind of expensive (by 1991-era baseball card standards), but the other cards (like this one) aren't so bad.

I think that the back notes past rookie of the year winners. But if so, then Japan has a serious pro-pitcher bias. The pair of kanji that you see over and over again on the right-hand column means 'pitcher'.

[nat]

Masahiro Yamamoto pitched for the Dragons from, get this, 1986 to 2015. That’s 30 years, although he missed 2011, so he actually appeared in “only” 29 seasons. To be sure, some asterisks are involved here. His 1986 and 1987 seasons combined totaled two and a third innings, and in 2015 he pitched only an inning and a third, but that’s still an astonishingly long career. Eye-balling his stats, he seems to have been sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Inconsistent, in a Steve Carlton sort of way. He compiled 219 wins, so he wasn’t hanging around for the Meikyukai. In fact, he qualified in 2008, during his age 42 season, at which point there were still seven years to go in his career. His best year looks to have been 1993, when he went 17-5 with a 2.05 ERA. It was, however, the following year that he won the Sawamura award (for the only time in his career); his ERA was much worse (3.49), but he won 19 games, and it’s rarely a mistake to assume that award voters are going to over-rate pitcher wins. (Happily this is changing in the US, but for ages it was pretty much an iron-clad law.) For his career his ERA is 3.45, over a total of 3348 innings.

Although it lasted three decades, Yamamoto’s career did not start auspiciously. He was a fifth round draft pick, and was apparently not highly regarded until coming to America. As a 22 year old he played for the Dodgers’ Vero Beach team, with whom he learned a screwball and pitched to a 2.00 ERA in 148 innings. I don’t know exactly what went on there, but a number of Japanese players spent time in American minor leagues. Maybe it’s some sort of exchange program? The Dodgers were famous for their connections to Japan, so it’s not a surprise that Yamamoto would end up in their system if he ended up anywhere, but I swear that I’ve seen players on minor league squads affiliated with other teams too. In any case, it seems clear that he was never Dodgers property, and he returned to Chunichi in time to appear in the Japan Series. (The Lions won it in five, and Yamamoto was the losing pitcher in game three.) The Dragons would win the Japan Series only once during his time with them, but for Yamamoto it must be bitter-sweet. They were the champions in 2007, but that season the 41 year old pitched terribly early in the year and was demoted to the minor league squad. So he spent three decades with the Dragons, and yet the only Japan Series that they won in that time he didn’t get to appear in.

As you might expect from a pitcher with a 30 year career, he owns most of Japan’s age-related pitching records. Most of these records had belonged to Shinji Hamasaki, who made his professional debut in 1947 at the age of 45. He managed and (every once in a while) pitched for Hankyu. I’m sure there’s a story there, but I don’t know what it is.

As you might expect, given that he was a screwball artist, Yamamoto was not a power pitcher. In the US we’d call him a “crafty lefty”. Motonobu Tanishige, his long-time catcher (and fellow Meikyukai member) once said that his “He had the special ability to make the distance to the mound seem shorter. His 130 kph pitches looked like 140”. Maybe this was meant in all seriousness, but it sounds like a burn to me. 130 kph is only 80 mph. Crank that up to 140, and you’ve got pitches that look like they’re coming in at all of 87.

Finding a comparable American player for a guy with this unusual of a career is, of course, going to be tough. The obvious choice is Jamie Moyer, but Yamamoto was a bigger star than was Moyer. He was inconsistent, but sometimes great, like Steve Carlton. But he wasn’t as great as Carlton, and as a pitcher he seems to have been more in Moyer’s mold.

Meikyukai: Yes – Hall of Fame: YES - elected 2022

1991 BBM. This is my only Yamamoto card, but NPB Guy has a bunch more.

[nat]

Time for another Dragon.

Kenichi Yazawa was a Waseda product who played OF-1B for Chunichi from 1970 to 1986. He joined the Meikyukai in 1985, returned for an encore in 86, and then hung them up, finishing with 2062 hits. Offensively, he looks to have been a strong player, posting a career batting line of 302/368/481. If you just look at his raw numbers it will look like he got better as he got older (something that you almost never see), but he didn’t really. The Central League became more offense-heavy as his career went on. I picked an early and late year from his career at random: in 1974 the league-wide slugging percentage in the Central League was 392, in 1984 it was 425. League OBP also went up (albeit by not quite as much). In baseball, a rising tide lifts most boats, and so it was with Yazawa. That said, he did age well; he lost some batting average towards the end, and missed a number of games, but he was still a productive player when he was on the field. He had started coaching part-time for the Dragons while he was still a player, and there are rumors that Senichi Hoshino, who took over as manager in 1987, was not happy with this arrangement and forced his retirement as a player.

In total, Yazawa was a rookie of the year winner, an 11-time all-star, and two-time batting champion. (He won in 1976 with a 355 mark, and 1980, when he hit 369.)

Post-retirement, Yazawa has kept busy. He was a radio commentator and batting coach for a number of years, and then in the late 1990s he earned a masters degree from Waseda in international business administration. He’s currently a visiting professor at Waseda, teaching “sports theory” (that’s how Google Translate translates it, don’t know what it actually is), and he works with the University’s baseball team. He also seems to be involved in professional baseball (his Japanese Wikipedia page says that he founded a team), although obviously not top-tier pro ball. Maybe there’s Indy ball in Japan?

Here’s (what I assume is) his Instagram.

Allen has a nice interview with Yazawa about sign-stealing in Japan. Apparently it’s a big thing. He dishes dirt on the Carp and cops to it himself.


Meikyukai: Yes – Hall of Fame: No

1978 Yamakatsu. These are nice cards. Like Calbees, there’s no boarder, but unlike Calbees there isn’t any text on the front. Just a full-bleed photo.

[nat]

Alex Ramirez played 135 MLB games, about two thirds with the Indians and a few with the Pirates. A teenage amateur free agent from Venezuela, Ramirez showed early power but poor strike zone judgment. After some promise in the Appalachian League as an 18 year old, he struggled in the Sally league at 19, and posted a healthy batting average but otherwise had an unexciting year in Bakersfield at age 20. It was the following season that made him into a real prospect and probably gave him a shot at the majors. As a 21 year old he hit 329/353/519 in AA. Still not much of a walk rate, but if you can hit well over 300, you can made do. At this point he had a sort of poor man’s Vlad Guerrero look to him. The following year he was basically stalled in Buffalo, but he came on strong in 1998, hitting around 300 with a 566 slugging percentage. After that the Indians gave him a shot in the big leagues.

And it didn’t go well. His career batting line is 259/293/437, and he hit a total of 12 home runs. That’s one win below replacement level for his career.

The second act of his career was more successful than the first. Following the 2000 season he signed with Yakult and hit a respectable 280/320/496. Still a bit light on walks, but that’s respectable. Ramirez would play with Yakult through 2007, after which he signed with Yomiuri, and he finished up his career with a couple seasons with Yokohama, and retired in 2013. While in Japan he hit 380 home runs, and posted a career slash line of 301/336/523. It’s hard to identify his best year, as he had a few that were pretty similar, but I’m going to go with 2008. In his first year with the Giants Ramirez hit 45 home runs and drove in 125, to go with a 317/373/617 line.

Ramirez won a pair of MVP awards and was a best-nine selection several times. He is the first (and so far only) Western player to join the Meikyukai, and, in fact, was the second fastest (in terms of games played) to reach 2000 hits. Throughout his career he was frequently among the league leaders in most offensive categories. He is only the third players to manage to collect 200 hits in a season.

Japan has limitations on the number of foreign players that are permitted to appear on a roster and in a single game. (I think the latter is four. Less sure of the former.) After a player accrues eight years of service time, however, they are not counted against this limit, and Ramirez is one of the few Westerners to have reached this milestone, and since retiring he has become a naturalized Japanese citizen. There was apparently some difficulty in this. Naturalizing in Japan involves creating an entry in the Japanese Family Registry, which requires getting official documentation of things like marriages and births for those in the family of the person who is naturalizing. Venezuela is not exactly a well-functioning nation at the moment, so it’s no surprise that there might be some delay in getting paperwork done. But anyway, he did sort it out, and is a Japanese citizen as of 2019.

Ramirez had offers to return to MLB, but declined, saying that he’d rather spend the rest of his career in Japan. He’s probably not the greatest Western Japanese player (I suppose my nomination goes to Tuffy Rhodes, although I admit I haven’t put too much thought into it), but he’s certainly up there. He was a great player, and he really found a home in Japan as well.

He’s managing the BayStars now, and apparently having some success with it. Tatsunari Hara, the hall of fame manager for the Giants, said just before his induction into the hall of fame that he was impressed with Ramirez’ unconventional use of his pitchers, and thinks that Ramirez was doing things as a manager that he would not have been capable of. Ramirez also opened a Puerto Rican restaurant in Tokyo. It seems not to have lasted long, but it’s an interesting idea.

He is known as ‘Rami-chan’. ‘-chan’ is an affectionate suffix usually reserved for girlfriends, little kids, and, apparently, popular athletes.

Here’s his Instagram. Looks like he advertises fancy water, lifts massive weights, and spends lots of time with his kids. (I love the one where they all have matching pajamas.) Granted, what I know about him I learned exclusively from one afternoon on the internet, but he seems like a thoughtful, interesting, and nice guy. I think I'm a fan.

Meikyukai: Yes
Hall of Fame: No, but he might yet make it. He debuted on the 2019 ballot with 40% of the vote. UPDATE: as of 20023, he is a hall of famer.

2006 BBM

[seanofjapan]

I like Ramirez, he's seems like an all round good guy that its easy to cheer for.

The biggest obstacle to naturalizing is not so much the family register as it is giving up your other citizenship. Japan doesn't allow dual citizenship so Ramirez had to give up being Venezualan to become Japanese.

I meet the qualifications to naturalize too, and I'm already recorded on a family register (my wife's), but there is no way I'd ever be interested in giving up my citizenship to become Japanese (much though I like living here). I think only a handful of ballplayers have ever done so.

[nat]

Hideji Kato was a man who knew what to do with a baseball bat. Or, rather, he still is, although he probably does less of it now, considering that he’s 72. But from age 21 to age 39 he played first base in NPB. Most of his career he spent with Hankyu, and then he hopped around for a little while at the end. Although he was a strong batter for the first two thirds of his career, his age 31 season (1979) really stands out. He posted career highs in, well, everything, including 34 home runs and a slash line of 364/437/679. League-wide offense was pretty similar to current MLB, so mentally you don’t really need to adjust those figures. Now, that was his best season, but he was posting OPSs in the 900s through his early 30s. But he aged pretty quickly, dropping into below-average territory by his mid-30s (except for a nice rebound in 1985).

Kato was an 11-time all-star and 5-time member of the best nine at first base. He won his only MVP award in 1974, a championship year for the Braves. Japanese MVP awards, even more than American ones, tend to go to players on championship teams. The Braves would repeat as champions the next season, but Kato would not repeat as MVP winner, despite leading the league in several offensive categories and taking home a gold glove award.

Since retiring Kato has worked as an announcer, and has been coaching for the Fighters. Allen ranks him as Japan’s 40th greatest player. He’s not in the hall of fame, but he wouldn’t be out of place if he were to be elected.

Meikyukai: Yes – Hall of Fame: No

1976 Calbee

[seanofjapan]

Good write up about Kato, I've wondered why he isn't in the HOF already.

This is my favorite card of his, from the same set. For some reason they went with a photograph that cuts half his head off.