Japanese HOF Project

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Manabu Kitabeppu pitched for the Carp for 19 seasons, 1976 to 1994. He broke in when he was just 18 years old. It's got to be crazy being that young and playing on the biggest stage. (Then of course there's Joe Nuxhall. I doubt anyone else had eight years between big league appearances.) Kitabeppu won 213 games with a 3.67 career ERA. I don't know of any website that has league ERA for ranges of seasons available; it's possible to calculate it from the data available for individual seasons, but that sounds pretty tedious. Suffice it to say that, looking over a bunch of years during Kitabeppu's career, 3.67 is a bit better than league average, but not super impressive. He's got a weird career shape. He was super good occasionally - he won an MVP award and a pair of Sawamura awards - but he mixed in a bunch of clunkers. Sort of like Zack Greinke, or, to take a much more extreme example, Steve Carlton. He was sent to the minor leagues for the first time in 1989, when he was 31 after a rough patch. He would post two more good years, but he was done at 36. Albright does not list him on his ranking of the top 115 (what a weird number to stop at) Japanese players. In all he's kind of an unexciting hall of famer. The Greinke comparison is probably a good one. They're both fine pitchers, if what's his name who is on the Phillies now hadn't gone bonkers in the second half Greinke would have two Cy Young awards also. But they're not the kind of guys whose starts I make it a point to watch.

On the other hand, Wikipedia says that he was one of the most popular right-handed pitchers ever. Now, it's possible that that was written by his mother, but it's also possible that he was a much more exciting pitcher than his statistics indicate.

YouTube doesn't seem to have any videos of him playing. Which is a surprise, given how recently he retired. It does have a short and boring interview with him from 2012, filmed a charity golf tournament. I'll spare you the link, but basically he tells kids that if they want to be good at baseball they need to practice every day.

The card is from the inaugural 1991 BBM set. Looking at his card I just noticed that the kanji for "strikeout" just means "three", which is commendably to the point. The symbol that they use for "walk" - Nishi - means "west". I guess home plate is to the north?

Eventually I'll probably end up with some more BBM cards, but I've now posted all of those that I've got on hand. It'll be back to menkos and bromides (and a few Calbees) for the near future.