Japanese HOF Project

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Seiichi Uchikawa is a LF/RF/1B kind of guy, currently with Softbank. He broke into the league in 2001 at an 18 year old with the Yokohama Bay Stars, then left for the Hawks in 2011 and has been with them ever since. Uchikawa has a little power, but more of what we’d think of as “gap power” than the real thing. Expect teens HR numbers each year, topping out at 19. Likewise, his batting average is healthy but he’s not a guy whose game solely depends on it (like Gwynn, or Boggs, or Ichiro). That said, he did win two batting titles, in 2008 and 2011. That 2011 batting title also came with an MVP award. For his career he’s got a 304/350/443 batting line and 2140 hits. He’s one of the newer Meikyukai members, having qualified just last year. Allow me to nominate Fred Lynn as a comparable player, with the notable exception that Lynn was a center fielder. Looks like he was a 5x best-nine, and made a bunch of all-star teams. Notably, he had a key pinch hit in the 2017 all-star game. Who was he pinch hitting for? Shohei Otani. You’d think that wouldn’t be necessary, even though he’s a pitcher. But Otani wasn’t even pitching in this game, he was in at DH. Maybe this was one of those “get everybody into the all-star game” moves. Which I sort of understand (especially when the game is in Baltimore and Mike Mussina is in the pen), but it also leads to some very weird outcomes, where, e.g., Dereck Turnbow ends up pitching important innings in a close game.

As near as I can tell, his Japanese Wikipedia page says that his .378 batting average in 2008 is the record for a right-handed hitter in Japan. The previous mark was Tetsuharu Kawakami’s .377 mark in 1951. It also lists this as “his song”. Which I guess means walk-up music?

His initial contract with Softbank was worth 1.36 billion Yen. Which sounds like a lot of money, until you remember that one Yen is worth about a penny. I mean, I’ll take a 4 year, 13 million dollar contract, but if that’s the kind of cash that star players are pulling down it’s no surprise that Otani wanted to come to the US. (Of course what is surprising is that he didn’t wait until he was a free agent, but that’s another matter.)

Now is a good time to be a Hawk. Uchikawa has won the Japan Series five times since joining the Hawks, including four of the past five years. Things are looking promising for them this year too, they’re in first place in the Pacific League, with a healthy but not insurmountable lead over the Lions.

The Japan Times refers to him as a “future hall of famer”, which, I guess. Now I'm not advocating his induction, but Fred Lynn wouldn’t exactly be an embarrassment to the US hall either.

Meikyukai: Yes – Hall of fame: No

The card is from the 2013 BBM set. BBM sure loves its subsets. The one that this card is drawn from celebrates league leaders.