Japanese HOF Project

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Shinya Miyamoto was Yakult’s shortstop (and sometimes third baseman) from 1995 to 2013. He qualified for Meikyukai as a 41 year old, in 2012, and finished his career with 2133 hits. In total, he posted a slash line of 285/329/350. That should tell you a lot about him. Somewhat surprisingly, for a shortstop with no power, he also had very little speed. For his career he stole 111 bases, which works out to an average of about five or six per year.

Do you remember Placido Polanco? Polanco put up a slash line of 297/343/397, despite playing the first part of his career during MLB’s silly ball era. (Actually, his career almost perfectly overlaps Miyamoto; Polanco played from 1998 to 2013.) Seemingly every year in the 2000s, my fantasy baseball team would manage to be short an infielder, and so I somehow always ended up with Placido Polanco. Polanco could do exactly one thing well (that was relevant to fantasy baseball), he could hit for a good batting average. Other than that – nothing. Zero power, zero speed. Polanco moved around the diamond a bit more than did Miyamoto, but in a lot of ways, these guys are twins. They were active during basically the same time. Miyamoto picked up nine more hits than did Polanco. Polanco’s batting average was a bit higher than was Miyamoto (it took him 200 more games to get those extra nine hits), but batting average was the best part of Miyamoto’s offensive game, just like it was for Polanco. Neither had any power. Miyamoto didn’t even hit doubles, not really. Polanco was a little bit better at drawing walks – he had 30 more of them in 200 fewer games.

Now, focusing on his offense would really be beside the point in a discussion of Miyamoto’s baseball career. This man was a shortstop, back when that meant something. He won nine gold gloves. And while I don’t have fielding statistics for Japan, I assume that a guy who wins nine gold gloves must have been really good out there. Thing is, Polanco was also a really good fielder. He won a pair of gold gloves, and while the years in which he won them were not his best fielding years, he did have some seasons in which he was really sharp with the glove. In 2001 he recorded 23 rField (that’s expected runs saved through fielding) which is better than Ozzie Smith’s second-best season. (In his best season Ozzie saved an incredible 32 runs.) Now, that was far and away Polanco’s best fielding season, but the point is that he was a really sharp fielder.

Miyamoto had notable pedigree in baseball. Yoshio Yoshida was his coach when he was a youngster, and in high school he won at Koshien. (With PL Gakuen, the baseball powerhouse that also featured Kazuhiro Kiyohara.) He did not, however, go straight to the pros after college, playing in the industrial leagues first.

In the late 1990s he was convicted of tax evasion, and was sentenced to ten months in prison along with a lengthy probationary period and a fine of 3.5 million yen.

After retiring he was a baseball commentator for a while, before coaching Yakult. And in 2018 he took over the field manager position with them.

Meikyukai: Yes – Hall of Fame: No

2002 BBM.