Japanese HOF Project

nat · #1 09-14-2019, 09:18 PM

Haruyasu Nakajima was a star in the early days of Japanese pro ball. He played with the Giants (through several incarnations) from 1936 through 1949, and spent the last couple years of his career with Taiyo. An outfielder, he posted a career line of 270/324/393, managing 897 hits, 57 home runs, and 103 stolen bases over the course of his career. Remember that in early Japanese baseball, very few runs were scored. His best season was probably the fall season of 1938. The league as a whole hit 219/319/293. Only 110 home runs were hit in the whole league that season, 22 of them by the Kyojin. Get this: in that league, Nakajima hit 361/428/626, and bashed out ten home runs. That�s completely nuts, and it was Japan�s first triple crown. He hit almost 50% of his team�s home runs that year, and, what, like, 9% of the home runs in the entire league. (You actually just couldn�t do this anymore. To do that in the 2019 American League � to this point in the season � you would need to hit 286 home runs.) Nakajima�s slugging percentage that season was more than double the league average. I decided to check out Babe Ruth real quick. In 1918 (so this is still during the deadball era) he slugged 555 against a league average of 322. In 1919 he slugged 657 and the league mark was 359. Neither of those seasons matched Nakajima�s feat. His best season � as far as raw slugging percentage goes � was 1920, when he slugged 847 and the league managed 387. Okay, so Ruth did manage to double the league mark for slugging percentage. But that�s what we need to compare Nakajima�s fall 1938 season to: perhaps the best season of Babe Ruth�s career. (By WAR Ruth�s best season is 1923, but that�s being propped up by an anomalous 19 runs saved in the field.) As you might have surmised, power was Nakajima�s calling card. In fact, he hit the first home run in Giants� history (off of Tadashi Wakabayashi).

Nakajima didn�t have the consistency that Ruth did, but at his best he was Ruthian in his performance. Japan didn�t go to a single season each year (as opposed to split between fall and spring seasons) until 1940, when Nakajima was 30 years old. His batting average and on-base percentage were better than average that year, but his slugging percentage was still excellent, about 50% higher than average. That�s quite a drop-off from his Ruthian heights, but he was still hitting roughly like (this year�s version of) George Springer.

Then the war came calling. His 1943 season was abbreviated, whether that was due to injury or enlistment I don�t know. But he lost his entire 1944 and 1945 seasons to the war. When he came back he was 36 years old, and not at the top of his game anymore. In 1946 he was a little below average in the on-base department, and a little above average in the slugging department. My guess (and this is only a guess) as to what happened: he found that he was old and out of practice, and started selling out for power. Guessing on fastballs and trying to pull things. That would explain a precipitous drop in BA/OBP and a still-healthy SLG.

By 1947 he was genuinely bad, but at this point he had been relegated to a part-time role anyhow, probably at his own choosing, since he took over as manager of the Giants in 1946. Nakajima�s managerial career was brief, 1943 with the Giants, continuing after the war through 47. They got a slow start to the season and he was relieved of his duties, only to take the top spot again in 1949. But that didn�t last. He managed a partial season in 1949, and then another partial season with the Whales in 1951. Under Nakajima�s leadership the Giants were good and the Whales were not. About what you expect. I don�t know about his other managerial abilities, but he seems to have been a good judge of talent. Tetsuharu Kawakami was originally moved from pitcher to first base at his suggestion, and he, together with Shigeru Mizuhara, scouted Takahiko Bessho for the Giants. (They didn't manage to sign him - he went to Nankai instead.)

The professional part of Nakajima�s career was in fact only the fourth act of his life in baseball. In 1928 he led his high school team to victory at Koshien. Afterwards he starred at Waseda, playing for one of Japan�s most storied university baseball teams. At the time, baseball at the Big Six universities was the highest caliber baseball in Japan. After he graduated he played in the industrial leagues (which pre-date genuinely professional baseball in Japan). He then joined the Giants as soon as that was an option.

The other player on the card is Kikuji Hirayama. He�s the one throwing on the left, Nakajima is standing on the right. Hirayama is not in the hall of fame, but was a pretty good outfielder in his own right, playing for the Giants from 1937 to 1949, and then leaving with Nakajima for the Whales. There�s a nice write-up about him on Noburo Aota�s Fan Notes.

Meikyukai � No : Hall of Fame � Yes

The card is an uncatalogued bromide. The back has the players� names, but nothing else. (Unless, that is, you count damage due to being removed from a scrap book.) The condition of this card is obviously terrible, and I�d be happy to upgrade it at some point. Since both players featured left the Giants after 1949, this card must be a late 40s issue.

Nakajima is not a meikyukai member (his disqualification is over determined, he has neither enough hits nor the right birthday), but he is in the hall of fame. In fact, he was the third player ever elected. This card does, therefore, contribute to my hall of fame project. I just need three more cards at this point.

seanofjapan · #2 09-18-2019, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat

This card does, therefore, contribute to my hall of fame project. I just need three more cards at this point.

Wow, getting that close!

I can guess that Eiji Sawamura would be one of the three, who are the other two?

nat · #3 09-19-2019, 12:43 PM

As far as anybody knows, no cards of Sawamura were ever made, so I'm not counting him. I'm also not counting guys who only played pre-war. Some of those guys have cards (others don't) but they're very rare and expensive. When I set out on this project I didn't know anything about Japanese cards and wasn't really up for tracking down rare and expensive ones, so while I'd like to get them, I didn't include them on the list. I've also included some but not all of the managers. Everyone who is in the hall as a manager, and who also had a long and successful career as a player (think the Japanese version of Joe Torre) is included, but only some of the managers who didn't have much of a pro career themselves are included. Obviously there is an element of arbitrariness to the parameters of my project.

Anyways, as to your question Sean:

As of yesterday the list of missing players is down to two. Sotokoba was one of the missing guys, and I got a letter from a certain friend in Japan (

) with a Sotokoba card in it. Many thanks. The other two players are Sadao Kondo and Mutsuo Minagawa. But I've got a lead on both of them, so I'm going to be done pretty soon.

seanofjapan · #4 09-20-2019, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat

As of yesterday the list of missing players is down to two. Sotokoba was one of the missing guys, and I got a letter from a certain friend in Japan (

) with a Sotokoba card in it. Many thanks. The other two players are Sadao Kondo and Mutsuo Minagawa. But I've got a lead on both of them, so I'm going to be done pretty soon.

Oh awesome, glad they arrived!!!

And I feel kind of stupid asking that question forgetting that one of the ones you needed was the card I had just sent you!

nat · #5 09-21-2019, 11:11 PM

Yoshiro Sotokoba pitched for the Carp from 1965 to 1979. Some of those were some pretty abbreviated seasons though. His full-time work was just 1968 to 1976. Quite short for a hall of famer. In total he logged about 2400 innings with a 2.88 ERA. His best season was almost certainly his first as a full-time pitcher. In 1968 he threw 302 innings and posted a 1.93 ERA (this figure led the league). Historically the Carp have been a bad team, and it shows in the win/loss records of their pitchers. Including Sotokoba. For his career he’s got a 131-138 record. To their credit, the Japanese voters didn’t let the losing record discourage them from inducting him into the hall of fame. But that a pitcher with a sub-3 ERA for his career has a losing record really tells you something about his team. (They went 25 years without a pennant. Not Cubs territory exactly, but pretty rough, especially considering the fact that the league is smaller.)

I wonder what the American electorate would do with an otherwise-qualified hall of fame candidate who had a losing record? It’s hard to know, since there’s never been such a creature. They did give Felix Hernandez a Cy Young award despite having only 13 wins. But he did, at least, have a winning record.

Anyways, as was long common for Japanese pitchers, Sotokoba did a lot of pitching in relief in between his starts. He finished 86 games (Japan seems not to have recognized saves as a statistic until 1974, so we don’t really know what kind of games he was finishing), and in total seems to have made about 120 relief appearances.

Sotokoba’s biggest claim to fame is his no hitters. In fact, his very first win was a no hitter. Three years later (so 1968), he threw a perfect game against the Whales. In 1970 he tossed his third and final no hitter (over the Giants). This feat equaled Eiji Sawamura’s record. There have been 93 no hitters in Japan’s history (regular season only, and counting combined no hitters), so Sotokoba is responsible for something in the neighborhood of 4% of them.

Japan doesn’t have many pitchers that have thrown multiple no hitters. Hiroshi Nakao threw two of them, so did Hideo Fujimoto, Juzo Sanada, Masaichi Kaneda, and Keishi Suzuki. Everyone else who has thrown a no hitter managed only one. (source)

Although I think that 1968 was his best season, it was in 1975, toward the end of his career, that Sotokoba won the Sawamura award. He pitched a tremendous number of innings, and so led the league in most of the counting stats. The Carp were, unusually for them, also good this year. They made a very unusual appearance in the Japan Series, but lost to the Braves.

Meikyukai – No : Hall of Fame – Yes

One down, two to go.

1976 Calbee.

nat · #6 09-24-2019, 10:29 PM

This is post #2 about Tsuneo Horiuchi. He was the Giants ace from the mid 1960s. Many Japanese pitchers crumple under frankly insane workloads. Horiuchi�s workload was more reasonable than many (no 400 inning seasons for instance), but he was pitching full-time while he was still just 18, and was done as a full-time starter after his age 30 season. He finished with 203 wins, and qualified for the Meikyukai with his 200th win in 1980.

Horiuchi won the 1966 and 1972 Sawamura awards. (Baseball-reference says that he also won in 1974, but that appears to be an error.) In 72 he was also the MVP. In 1966 he was a young phenom, going 16-2 with a 1.39 ERA in 181 innings pitched as an 18 year old. His second win may not have been quite as exciting, but it was probably a more valuable season. He had a record of 26-9 to go with a 2.91 ERA in 312 innings.

Meikyukai � Yes : Hall of fame: Yes

1976 Calbee

nat · #7 09-28-2019, 10:39 PM

Shinnosuke Abe is the Giants� first baseman. He�s been with them since 2001 when he broke in as a 22 year old catcher. Most of his career has been spent behind the plate, but he�s getting older and has transitioned to first in the past few years. And he�s still good. This season he�s got a 297/406/465 batting line. That would be a lot more impressive if he was still a catcher, but still, every one of those figures is considerably better than average. Abe�s best season, well, it�s hard to say. In 2010 he hit 281/368/608 with 44 home runs. One hell of a line for a catcher. On the other hand, his 2012 and 2013 seasons were also excellent and were pretty much identical, at least as far as total batting value is concerned. 340/429/565 in 2012, 296/427/564 in 2013. Of course the batting average in 2012 was a lot higher, and since he�s never been a 340 kind of hitter before I�m guessing that he got lucky with some balls in play. Anyway, he made up for it the following season with an improved batting eye. Upon reflection, the 2012/2013 seasons were probably better than 2010. A point of on base percentage is worth more, in terms of expected runs, than is a point in slugging percentage, but I�m certainly not going to complain about a catcher who slugs 600. That 2012 season earned him a nearly unanimous MVP award.

Abe qualified for the Meikyukai in 2017, and while his playing time has decreased the past couple years, he still got into 93 games this year. He joked that although many people have 2000 hits, he�s so slow that no one in the Meikyukai has fewer infield hits than he does.

It turns out that Abe�s hit total is complete at 2131, as is his home run total, 405. Last Wednesday he announced that this would be his final season. Which means that yesterday�s game was his final regular season game with the Giants.

Abe was a 9x best-nine and 4x gold glove winner. It�s often hard to find comparable American players, but in Abe�s case it�s easy, at least if you ignore the gold gloves. This guy is Mike Piazza.

Here�s a story about Abe�s final game.

�I like baseball more than anyone� he said during his retirement press conference.

Meikyukai: Yes - Hall of Fame: Eventually

The card is from the 2013 BBM set.

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