2005 In Review

I've got a 2005 year in review article to write for the SABR Asia Committee. I've thrown something together this weekend, and want to run it by all of you first, as I'm awful at proof reading my own work. Were these the biggest stories of 2005? Did I get anything incorrect? What can be cut, what should be added?

Keep in mind, the target audience for this review is not you guys who follow Japanese baseball, but rather for people who know little to nothing of the sport over here. This will most likely end up being trimmed down to fit on two sheets of U.S. letter size paper, so not much can be added without removing something else. Your advice is most welcome.

Nippon Profession Baseball 2005

It's that time of year again, "bounenkai season" here in Japan. Bounenkai literally means "Forget the Year Party." But first, let's review what happened in 2005 that may or may not need to be forgotten.

A New Team

At the end of 2004, the players staged their first strike and forced the management, intent on reforming NPB with fewer teams, to add a new team in the wake of the merger between the Kobe-based Orix BlueWave and Osaka-based Kintetsu Buffaloes (resulting in the Orix Buffaloes). Rakuten Ichiba, an Internet shopping-mall like company, won the rights to join NPB and set about building a team in the northern city of Sendai, becoming the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. The team was made up of mostly the discarded remnants of Kintetsu and Orix, but a number of fine players like Hisashi Iwakuma (15 and 2 in 2004, who refused to join the merged team) and team captain Koichi Isobe (who was outspoken against the merger). Not part of the scandal of paying top collage prospect Yasuhiro Ichiba money under the table, the Golden Eagles where able to attain Ichiba's services as well.

On Opening Day, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles defeated the Chiba Lotte Marines by a store of 3-1 at Chiba Marine Stadium in a well played game by both sides. This was a very good start for the new ball club. Unfortunately, they lost 26-0 the following day, and things seemed to only get worse from there on out. Here's how the Eagles did month by month (Source: Shukan Baseball, Issue #57 for 2005):

    Month  Games  W   L  T   W%    BA   HR  RS  RGU   ERA
    -----  ----- --  --  -  ----  ----  --  --  ---  -----
    March     5   5   1  0  .200  .160   0   6   47  10.32
    April    24   5  19  0  .208  .237  12  87  142   5.48
    May      25   7  18  0  .280  .251  19  89  141   5.42
    June     22   8  14  0  .364  .247  19  89  120   4.92
    July     20  10   9  1  .526  .289  14  85  103   4.84
    August   24   3  21  0  .125  .251  12  72  164   6.37
    Sept.    16   4  12  0  .250  .283  12  76   95   6.10
    ======  ===  ==  ==  =  ====  ====  ==  ==  ===  =====
    Total   136  38  97  1  .281  .255  88  504  812  5.67

Despite finishing 59 games under .500, the move of a professional baseball team to the Tohoku region proved to be very good for Rakuten. Many were unsure if a small city the size of Sendai could support a professional team, and judging from attendance alone, Rakuten finished 11th overall.

    2005 Central League Attendence

    Team     Games Attendance   Avg.     2004      Diff
    Hanshin    73   3,132,224  42,907  3,523,000  -11.1%
    Giants     73   2,922,093  40,029  3,744,500  -22.0%
    Chunichi   73   2,284,400  31,293  2,330,500  - 2.0%
    Yakult     73   1,307,731  17,914  1,686,000  -22.4%
    Hiroshima  73   1,050,119  14,385    986,000  + 6.5%
    Yokohama   73     976,004  13,370  1,500,000  -34.9%
    Totals:   438  11,672,571  26,650 13,770,000  -15.2%

    2005 Pacific League Attendence

    Team     Games Attendance   Avg.     2004      Diff
    Softbank   68   2,115,977  31,117  3,070,000  -31.1%
    Nippon Ham 68   1,365,643  20,083  1,616,000  -15,5%
    Orix       68   1,356,156  19,943  1,415,000  - 4.2%
    Lotte      68   1,334,014  19,618  1,596,000  -16.4%
    Seibu      68   1,103,148  16,223  1,649,000  -33.1%
    Rakuten    68     977,104  14,369          *
    Totals:   408   8,252,042  20,226 10,684,000  -22.8%

    * Kintetsu had 1,338,000 reported for 2004.

    Source:  Nikkan Sports

    +--------------------------------------------------------+
    | Note:  Up until the 2005 season, all attendances were  |
    |        estimated.  Most people knew that 55,000 people |
    |        would not fit into Tokyo Dome, but it wasn't    |
    |        until the 2005 season when teams started        |
    |        publishing actual gate attendance that such a   |
    |        fact could be confirmed.  Considering that      |
    |        teams grossly over-estimated attendance in past |
    |        years, little can actually be said about the    |
    |        reported drops this year.  In fact, many of     |
    |        them may actually be increases.                 |
    +--------------------------------------------------------+

Yet, thanks to marketing goods to the region (and available throughout the country from their Internet site), low priced players, and controlling all concessions at their home grounds (something most teams don't do, if any others do at all), Rakuten became the first Pacific League team in recent history to finish with a positive cash flow. This is significant because one of the major reasons for contraction was that the Pacific League teams continue to bleed red ink.

If they are to continue running in the black, though, Rakuten is going to have to field a better team next season. Their manager, Yasushi Tao, was released at the end of the 2005 season and veteran manager Katsuya Nomura was hired. Rakuten's owner, Hiroshi Mikitani, said that he should have hired a manager to build a new team, something that Nomura-kantoku has had experience at with Yakult, so the team's inability to win was not a true reflection on Tao-kantoku.


Godfather Leaves and Returns

At the end of the 2004 season, three "owners" stepped aside from control over their respective teams due to the recruiting scandal of paying excessive amounts of money to collage prospect Yasuhiro Ichiba. Of them, the most public figure was Tsuneo Watanabe, the head of the Yomiuri Group, and who most consider to be more powerful than the NPB Commissioner himself. In fact, throughout the debates that marked the Kintetsu-Orix merger, the push for contraction by Watanabe and then Lions' owner, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the Commissioner parroted whatever Watanabe said or tried to stay out of the debates completely. Many saw the Ichiba Scandal as a way for Watanabe to get out of the hot seat he'd gotten himself into for pushing so hard for contraction against public opinion that was very much against him.

Takuo Takihana, president of Yomiuri Shimbun's Tokyo office, took over as new owner of the Giants. He was observed having frequent lunches with Watanabe, who would only give the press a cold "no comment" (when not telling them off for bothering him) before getting into a car and being driven away. Despite his "taking responsibility" for the scandal and retiring, it was obvious to all that Watanabe continued to control the Giants as puppet master instead of in front of the press.

However, not having Watanabe's boisterous, egocentric remarks about the Giants in the daily press seemed to give Japan's Team a back seat to other things going on in NPB. In fact, the Giants seemed to be totally void of direction the entire season, finishing in fifth place, their worst finish since 1979. Without Watanabe instilling fear into all those who work for the Yomiuri Group, Yomiuri TV affiliates in Hokkaido and the Tohoku regions got permission to not broadcast Giant games but to broadcast local (Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles) games instead. In fact, when the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters went to Sendai to play the Golden Eagles, they sold more tickets to those games than when the Giants came to town, Giants having always been the premium tickets where ever they went. It was as though the entire Yomiuri Empire was crumbling without their long time godfather there to keep everything running smoothly, and everyone in line.

So before the season ended, a new position of team chairman was created and Watanabe took that seat. Watanabe started talking to the press again. Rather than talking through Takihana-owner, Watanabe-chairman was clearly in charge of selecting Tatsunori Hara as the new manager for the Giants next season. (Ironic, since it was an argument between Hara and Watanabe a few years ago that forced Hara to resign the post then.)

The Giants suffered greatly from lack of leadership in the media in 2005. But Watanabe still has a way to go to regain his pre-strike status of NPB Godfather. 2006 should see more of the man Pro Yakyu fans love to hate.


Inter-League Play

2005 saw the introduction of inter-league play between the Central and Pacific League teams. Even the most optimistic of fans didn't think that the Central League teams would allow two cards to be cut from their deck of Giants' matches during the regular season, as the national TV revenue for such games can pay several salaries. But they did agree, and for close to two month of the first half of the season, we got to see match-ups that only existed in a handful of post-season games or during the pre-season when teams were fine tuning their lineups.

Going into inter-league play, the Chunichi Dragons were way out ahead in the Central League, looking to repeat their 2004 league victory. But the Dragons couldn't seem to buy a victory against the Pacific League teams during the first month of inter-league play. In fact, against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, who finished last in both the league and inter-league competitions, Chunichi went 2 and 4, the only team with a losing record against the new team (Yakult went 3 and 3 against them). At the end of inter-league play, the Dragons found themselves behind the Tigers and, despite playing better than .500 against the Central League teams the rest of the season, were unable to catch up.

The Chiba Lotte Marines were the victors of the first inter-league competition, beating out the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks by just a single game, and the Hanshin Tigers by 2.5 games.

    Inter-League Final Standings
    Team      Games  W   L  T   W%    GB
    Lotte       36  24  11  1  .686    -
    Softbank    36  23  12  1  .657   1.0
    Hanshin     36  21  13  2  .218   2.5
    Giants      36  18  14  4  .563   4.5
    Yakult      36  20  16  0  .556   4.5
    Yokohama    36  19  17  0  .528   5.5
    Orix        36  17  16  3  .515   6.0
    Seibu       36  18  18  0  .500   6.5
    Chunichi    36  15  21  0  .417   9.5
    Nippon Ham  36  12  22  2  .353  11.5
    Hiroshima   36  11  24  1  .314  13.0
    Rakuten     36  11  25  0  .306  13.5

After years of playing against the same five teams over and over and over again, inter-league play brought a welcome relief to the monotony and introduced players in the Pacific League to the more populous Central League fans. Inter-league play will be continued in 2006.


JFK

In mid-summer of 2005, JFK made the headlines of the daily sports papers on almost a daily basis. No, not that JFK. This is Jeff (Williams), (Kyuji) Fujikawa, and (Tomoyuki) Kubota, the triple-stopper trio for the Hanshin Tigers.

The idea of a double-stopper started in the early 1990s by Yokohama manager Akira Ejiri. Ejiri-kantoku had Koki Morita come on in the 8th inning, then Kazuhiro Sasaki close out the 9th, effectively putting pressure on other teams to get their scoring done by the end of the 7th inning. This era marked the beginning of specialized relief pitchers.

While there may have been triple-closers before this season, there's no doubt that Hanshin's manager, Akinobu Okada, made it popular in 2005. Jeff appeared in 75 games this season, closing 7 of them, with a 3 and 3 record and 2.11 ERA. Fujikawa appeared in a record setting 80 games, closing 7 games while going 7 and 1 with 1 save and a 1.36 ERA. Then Kubota was the closer, finishing 63 of the 68 appearances he made, going 5 and 4 with 27 saves and a 2.12 ERA. This trio effectively cut down the opposition to just six at bats before being shut down. After all the criticism Okada-kantoku got from taking the 2003 champion Tigers to fourth place in 2004, this pitching move redeemed himself in the fanatical eyes of the /torakichi/.


Pacific League Playoffs

2004 saw the introduction of playoffs in the Pacific League. The First Stage is a best 2 out of 3 game series between the second and third place finishers. The Second Stage puts the winner of Stage One up against the teams that finishes the league play in first place in a best 3 out of 5 series. Depending on the number of games back by the challenger, an advantage of one game may be given to the regular season first place team.

Both in 2004 and 2005, the second place team in the regular season has advanced to the Second Stage. In both 2004 and 2005, the second place team won 3 out of 5 to advance to the Nippon Series, without any advantage given to the first place finisher. That is going to change for 2006 as the following changes are to be made to the playoff system:

1. The team who finishes in first place during the regular season gets a 1 game advantage in Stage Two regardless (it was only if they finished 5 games above the challenger).


2. The home field will for the Second Stage will be played at the team's stadium who finished higher in the standings for the first two games, at the team's stadium who finished lower in the standings for the second two games (if necessary) (it was all games at the upper team's stadium).


3. Even if two teams finish the season with the same winning percentage in first place, the First Stage will go on (Stage One would have been skipped up until now). However, the playoff winner does not change the mode by which the league victor is decided.

That last one is actually the biggest change that's being made. The Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 2004 and the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in 2005 finished the season in first place, but were not given the Pacific League Pennant. The third change will give them the Pennant even if they lose the playoffs for the right to go onto the Nippon Series. Of course, that extra game advantage (change #1) will help a great deal as they lost Stage Two in five games twice.


Nippon Series

The Chiba Lotte Marines took on the Hanshin Tigers in what was one of the most one-sided Series in recent history. Lotte swept the Hanshin Tigers in four games, out scoring them 33-4. Lotte won the first game 10-1 after being called due to fog in the 7th inning. The second game, also at Chiba Marine Stadium (without the fog) was won 10-0 by Lotte. Then to the Tigers' home ground of Koshien, but Lotte wasn't deterred, defeating the Tigers against a fan base of well over 90% by the score of 10-1. Then, the only game that Hanshin was really in, Lotte won the fourth game 3-2.

During the regular season, Hanshin's Makoto Imaoka and Tomoaki Kanemoto combined to drive in 272 runs, 37.2% of the team's 731 runs, the second most for a duo in NPB history. But during the Nippon Series, Kanemoto and Imaoka combined for a 0 for 6 record in Game One, 0 for 6 in Game Two, 1 for 8 record in Game Three, and a 2 for 7 record in Game Four, Imaoka driving in one of Hanshin's two runs that last game. Hanshin's JFK never had a chance to appear until Game Four, but it was too late by then.


Asia Series

Bobby Valentine, manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines, took his team to Tokyo Dome for the first ever Konami Cup Asia Series. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Mainland China came had their respective league champions come together to compete against one another to claim the title of best Asian team. This is viewed by many as a precursor to a "True World Series."

The Chiba Lotte Marines, coming off of a month long set of winning the Pacific League playoffs and Nippon Series, had more momentum built up than any of the other participants. And they had a team that could even have challenged the North American champion White Sox. But the Sox didn't accept Valentine-kantoku's challenge, so we may never know that outcome.

In the Asia Series, the Marines took all three games against the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization) champions Samsun Lions, the CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League) Sinon Bulls, and the team made up of all stars from the CBL (China Baseball League). The Samsun Lions narrowly defeated the Sinon Bulls to earn a spot in the championship round to face the undefeated Marines.

In the final, the Samsun Lions managed to out-hit the Chiba Lotte Marines 13-6, but it was the Marines who made the most of their hits, outscoring the Lions by a score of 5-3. The Chiba Lotte Marines thus became the first Asian Champion.