Raw Japan
Slices of Japanese business, politics and life
MLB pitches to Kikuchi
Major League Baseball teams are lining up to lure Japanese high school baseball pitcher Yusei Kikuchi across the Pacific to join them in an unprecedented raid on the country’s young talent.
Kikuchi, an 18-year-old left-hander from Hanamaki Higashi High School in northern Japan, would be the most coveted young Japanese player to join an MLB team, but he is equally desired by Japan’s 12 professional teams.
His star rose at the national high school baseball tournament this summer as his 155 kph (96mph) fastball dazzled. Japan’s Koshien tournment is a big thing even for non-baseball fans in Japan, as the event catapults high school players into the pro ranks.
Sometimes just one high school star can affect an entire team’s fortunes. Masahiro Tanaka, now a starting pitcher for Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles, was a high school phenomenon in the summer of 2006.
MLB, which had previously observed a kind of “gentleman’s agreement” with Japanese pro baseball that it would not recruit high school talent, made no overt offers to Tanaka, unlike the aggressive efforts with Kikuchi.
Tanaka, who won 15 games this year, has also helped Rakuten increase fans. His team is now playing against the Nippon Ham Fighters in its first play-off season, a homecoming for Tanaka as he played in Hokkaido during his high school days and has many fans there.
Kikuchi may become another Tanaka in the future. That is, if MLB teams do not swoop in and remove a future star from Japanese playing fields.
Ichiro: Japan’s greatest sporting export
Japan’s Ichiro Suzuki underlined his position as his country’s greatest sporting export after shattering one of Major League Baseball’s oldest records.
The Seattle Mariners outfielder was described as a “Hercules” by fellow players after becoming the first man to record 200 hits for nine straight seasons.
The 35-year-old reached the milestone with a single in the second game of a double-header against the Texas Rangers on Sunday to beat the previous mark of eight consecutive seasons set by Willie Keeler in 1901.
Ichiro himself, who left Japan for the major leagues in 2001, spoke of a “sense of liberation” after his latest MLB record, set to be marked with a commemorative stamp in his home country.
In 2005, he broke an 84-year-old record for hits in a single season in 2004, finishing with 262, five more than Hall of Famer George Sisler had in 1920.
His latest achievement, which came after helping Japan win the World Baseball Classic in the off-season, came despite having missed 16 games of the 2009 campaign with a stomach ulcer and a calf injury. It should also fast-track him to a place in baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Very thoughtfull post on achievements. It should be very much helpfull
Thanks,
Karim – Positive thinking
The Hit Parade
Ichiro Suzuki has reached 2,000 career hits in 1,402 MLB games — the second-fastest pace ever — while over his nine seasons in MLB the Seattle Mariners star has ended on base once in about every three trips to the plate, based on his career batting average.
Add in his 1,278 Japanese hits, in shorter seasons, and Ichiro at 36 is pointing his bat at very rare professional air, including 3,000 career MLB hits and — on a cumulative basis — Pete Rose’s record 4,256 hits. He already set the MLB season hit record with an amazing 262 in 2004 and will likely be the first player, in a matter of days, to ever record 200 hits in nine consecutive seasons.
Still, when I asked Robert Whiting, author of “The Meaning of Ichiro”, at mid-season if the Japanese hitting phenomenon was a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, he wasn’t certain. He cited the failure of Roger Maris, whose feat of 61 home runs in a season was not deemed worthy enough, adding that Ichiro would likely need to break the 3,000 hit threshold to be a first ballot inductee.
That means another four to five seasons, eminently do-able for arguably the greatest baseball export Japan has produced, but a deep line in the baseball sand that may make it hard for compatriots to join him at the Hall, at least with current rules on mandated domestic team service before free agency.
Last week was the 45th anniversary of Masanori Murakami’s debut with the San Francisco Giants, the first Japanese to play briefly in MLB. Murakami, a pitcher not in the Hall, waited three decades for Hideo Nomo to follow him across the Pacific, and his basic message to Japanese players now is go if you can, because the best measuring stick for greatness is MLB — and a better salary doesn’t hurt.
Japan baseball still in little league?
I like going to watch baseball games, not just for the refreshments but also the great team-play on the field.
In Japan, you cannot win just with one or two stars, needing a team solid in both defence and offence.
Many Japanese share this feeling and that’s why the imported sport of baseball has become our No.1 sport.
Every night TV sports starts with results from professional baseball games, while tabloid newspapers’ top stories focus on the national pastime.
Yet most Japanese pro baseball teams are not making a profit. They pay a lot of money to rent stadiums, but at the same time have never really focused on profitability as corporate owners cover losses.
That might not matter immediately to fans, but the weak financial heath of teams contributes to why Japanese players leave for Major League Baseball, as teams can afford to pay, relatively, amazing salaries.
As a fan, I would like to believe in the potential of Japan’s baseball business, but the two big leagues only started taking it seriously a few years ago.
Jay Zazzera 15 years old from Exton, PA USA who was invited to play with the Yokohama Japan team did such a great job as designated hitter. Hitting 3 home runs about 370-380 feet and two singles against much older players was asked return back next summer. The young player was invited by the coach after watching him on teams USA 14 year old team last summer where his son was playing.
For more information on this USA player contact George at USSA Baseball.
Throwing good money after…
Daisuke Matsuzaka’s second trip to the disabled list this season is making some forget the Japanese pitcher’s heroics and wonder if he has been worth the investment of his Boston Red Sox team.
The “Dice-K” sweepstakes dominated Japanese baseball in late 2006, as the Boston Red Sox pursued the rights to negotiate with Matsuzaka — who’s now sitting – by commiting over $51 million to his then team, the Seibu Lions, and another $52 million to the pitcher and agent Scott Boras to sign.
After winning the inaugural World Baseball Classic tournament MVP in 2006 with an arm that had dropped jaws since high school, Matsuzaka was more than just the best pitcher available in the country or arguably the world at that time.
He was Boston’s marketing passport to baseball-mad Japan and its talent pool, as well as a poke in the eye for the rival New York Yankees who were outbid and had to settle for pitcher Kei Igawa, who’s spent most of his career in the minors at a total cost of about $46 million in contract and posting fee.
Dice-K’s first year was rather underwhelming, but the Sox won their second World Series in three years and he pitched well in the post-season. Not surprisingly, Boston raised its hand to begin the 2008 MLB season in Japan, with Matsuzaka and teammate Hideki Okajima helping “Red Sox Nation” literally to try to annex the archipelago.
Whirling Darvish
Half-Japanese, half-Iranian, but possibly Major League Baseball’s most coveted Asian prospect, Yu Darvish is pitching the opener of the World Baseball Classic tournament in Tokyo, the main question for many is how long he will continue to be only a local player.
The template for exports was set by Japan teammate Daisuke Matsuzaka, who followed his MVP effort in the 2006 WBC with an eye-popping $103 million contract with the Boston Red Sox, some $50 million of which went to his Seibu LIons, just for letting the right-hander leave Japan.
The amount was reportedly equal to the Lions entire 2006 team budget, and Darvish’s Nippon Ham Fighters may be eyeing that potential pay day without wanting too quickly to usher in his semi-free agency in the baseball-mad nation.
In sports parlance, Darvish, 48-19 since turning pro in 2005 with a miniscule 2.33 ERA, is filthy, and China Manager Terry Collins, a former skipper of MLB’s Angels and Japan’s Orix, was not relishing the chance to begin the WBC against a player he called “one of the best pitchers in the world”. (Ed. note – Darvish winning pitcher in 4-0 victory, allowing no hits in four innings.)
Still, the 22-year-old has not pitched particularly well this spring, nor in last summer’s failed effort to medal at the Beijing Olympics, but a strong WBC may raise Darvish’s eventual MLB payday, assuming he wants to go.
Under cross-Pacific baseball rules, MLB teams cannot contact Japanese talent before their pro team posts them and bids are taken.
When it comes down to things…I think that it would be best for the Japanese players to stay a little while in Japan and really make Baseball a part of the Japanese society. If after making an impact on Japanese youth female/male, they still want to play in the states than so be it.