2002 Central League Predictions

Tigers
Swallows
Bay Stars
Carp
Giants
Dragons.

This year is it. Hanshin will win it. Hoshino will do the unthinkable. To win with Hanshin.

Giants will have one of the worst seasons in a long time. hahaha

Well I'll have to go with the Tigers too. They've shown they can win (15-3-2 in the preseason), and the law of averages says it's about time

In my opinion, four things will clinch it :

(1) Great pitching, especially from Moore and Igawa - and watch Date and the rookie Ando as well.

(2) Kataoka will have a banner year (he's just hitting his stride - a pair of doubles today, for instance)

(3) Tom O'Malley will provide a valuable communication link between the gaijin and management - no more Darrell May / Mike Blowers "misunderstandings." (Arias knows how the game's played in Japan, so that's an added bonus.

(4) Attitude. They really *look* like professional ballplayers for a change - you can see it in their eyes.

So...

1. Tigers
2. Giants
3. Swallows
4. Carp
5. BayStars (sorry Michael)
6. Dragons

I don't know what the folks at Shuukan Baseball are thinking putting the Carp second. They don't have the pitching to get them there plus Sasaoka, Ogata and Maeda are injury prone. Anyway, my picks:

Yakult Swallows: Alan Newman, provided that he stays healthy, should be able to compensate nicely for Hirotsugu Maeda going down to the farm. Shingo Takatsu is money in the bank. The middle relief is a question mark since Ryota Igarashi is subject to the home run ball. We will need Hirotoshi Ishii to step up big this season and pray that Taka Igarashi gives us some good innings as well. Offense won't be a problem, and neither will defense, save at catcher, where Furuta's knees are going to limit his playing time.

Yomiuri Giants: Too many questions in the rotation. Masumi Kuwata is washed up, imho, Kudoh's career is looking kinda dubious with his chronic aches and pains, and Takahashi has never won more than nine games in a season. He has added a cut fastball, but his spring results have been mixed. Uehara has been bugged by injury, too. Closer is unsettled performancewise and it's time they think about doing something with Hideki Okajima, either releasing or demoting him. The Giants are in a position where they will be relying on a rather young middle relief staff, though I like some of those arms. However, there will be growing pains.

Look for a career year from Godzilla and a big improvement offensively from Shinnosuke Abe. The Giants-Swallows race will go down to the last week of the season, I predict, due to the soundness of the Giants offense. Look for first round draft choice Hiroki Sanada to get some significant innings after the all star break.

Hanshin Tigers: Picking Hanshin this high is problematic, but the team now seems focused and the addition of Trey Moore, who has yet to permit an earned run in 18 innings this spring, has given them a stopper in middle relief they can rely on. The problem is that Hanshin, once you get past Kei Igawa and Tetsuro Kawajiri, has some major concerns. They could plug Moore into the number three hole, but if they do that, there will be a significant dropoff in the quality of their middle relief. Keiichi Yabu could be one of the stories of the year if he can prove that his showing this spring isn't a mirage. Shinji Taninaka has been up and down this spring while Shinobu Fukuhara, who may have the best pure stuff on the staff, has been up and down for his CAREER. If Fukuhara can find both consistency of focus and command, lookout! Buddy Carlyle will need to demonstrate a lot more than he did last season to make Hanshin a viable contender. The closer role on the team is unresolved with Masahide Narimoto doing little right and Mark Valdez recently getting knocked around. I've proposed, albeit facetiously, that Hoshino toy with the idea of bringing Minoru Kasai out of retirement.

The Tigers offense has one great addition in Kataoka, who I think will replicate his Nippon Ham numbers. The smaller ballparks in the CL should be good for George Arias to a degree, but the pitching is also much better, too. How he deals with that could make or break the season for them. The rest of their lineup is spotty at best. They will need lots of Mariners style "just in time" hitting to get it done, as they have this spring. But the Angels have had great springs and then gone on to stink when the bell rang. So Hanshin fans should be guarded in their optimism.

Yokohama Bay Stars: My dark horse favorite. But they can only win the CL if Daisuke Miura has a world beating year and they can get more production out of Nakane and Kinjo. Takuro Ishii obviously isn't going to go quietly. And bet the farm now on Takanori Suzuki having a career year. They need to find a place for Mitsuru Tanaka's speed and defense. And Yokohama fans will be hoping that Mike Gulan won't be this year's Ivan Cruz, all spring promise and regular season failure. The question marks for them will be the back end of the rotation and their middle relief.

My disagreements with manager Masaki Mori's control freak predilections aside, this should be an entertaining team to watch. If Uchikawa turns into the Bret Boone they eventually expect him to be, the Stars could be a real pain in the butt and sneak away with the pennant while the Swallows and Giants beat each other into ashes like Ali and Frazier. But for that to happen, a lot has to come together. I expect Hanshin to have a lot of problems with Yokohama and the Stars could squeak by them to end up third.

Hiroshima Carp: Decent, if inconsistent, offense with injury questions and their small park doesn't do their second rate pitching staff any favors. Unless Tomonori Maeda and Koichi Ogata both last all season and each hits 30 homers to go along with the kind of year you can expect from Tomoaki Kanemoto, they really don't have the profile of a club that wins pennants. But then again, neither did Kintetsu, which had NO pitching. The difference is that Hiroshima has to compete in a pitcher's league, Kintetsu didn't. And when Kintetsu had to go head to head a club with relatively deep pitching talent, it got killed. The same will happen to Hiroshima. Plus Godzilla eats these guys alive.

Chunichi Dragons: Kawasaki out for another year, Shigeki Noguchi gone for at least the first half of the season and an offense that, aside from Kosuke Fukudome, has just flat stunk this spring, it's gonna be a down year in Nagoya, like cellar down. For them to have half a chance, Felix Jose is going to have to look like the second coming of Tuffy Rhodes. I also wouldn't be surprised if Dante Bichette ends up with the Dragons despite supposedly retiring. I wouldn't necessarily count on either of those happening, though. The only other hope is Chunichi somehow getting a hold of Seung-yeop Lee from the Samsung Lions. They also ought to seriously look at Jin-pil Jung as well.

wow, so the experts from Shuukan Baseball have Hiroshima at 2nd. Well that's good news for a carp fan like me (probably the only one here at japanesebaseball.com). But to be honest I have my doubts... I think Swallows will win again. Hanshin have done some really good results in the pre season but they've done that many times before too. But when the season starts... they are always ending up last in CL. But I think they will do it a bit better this year, but Hanshin will always be a b-pool team no matter what. It doesn't help if the kantokus name is Nomura, Hoshino, O'Malley or R.Bass
This is my choice:

1. Swallows
2. Giants
3. Carp
4. Hanshin
5. Yokohama
6. Dragons

My bold predictions:

1) Tigers
2) Giants
3) Baystars
4) Swallows
5) Carp
6) Dragons

Last year, we saw a young Hanshin team really trying to find themselves. I think they have found what they were looking for in Hoshino. The Giants will slug their way. The Baystars have a good mix of veterans and young ones. Their pitching is the wild card. Yakult is not getting any younger and may have trouble with injuries. The Carp are the Carp. Pitching woes. I really hope they do better this year though. I placed Chunichi at the bottom 'cause I couldn't figure out where to put them. No telling how good/bad this team will do. But I am not good at predicting so...!

Morosuki-san actually has a sound basis upon which to
put the Swallows fourth this season (and as a Yakult honk I hate to say this) since almost everytime they
have gone all the way the following season they have
finished fourth.

Um...Pre-season, Open-Sen, Exhibition games, whatever you want to call it, is, I think we can all agree, time for pitchers and position players to get in shape and tweak their arsenals. So Hanshin winning the open-sen "pennant" is completely and totally meaningless.

First, I am a die-hard Hanshin Fan. Have been since the early 80s. Needless to say, they've broken my heart time and again, so this year I've wisened up. No more wishing for the improbable. People were saying that they would win the championship when Nomura came on board because he's a "great" manager. We all saw what came of that (consecutive cellar-dwelling). Hoshino is great, but with the position players he has (a bunch of utility guys, no pop except Arias), even Earl Weaver wouldn't win.

Hanshin will start the season strong (always do), becuase of their good pitching. But as happens every year, the batters will adjust to Hanshin pitchers, and Hoshino will ride his starters to exhaustion. Not to mention, Hanshin's bullpen is mediocre at best, washed up more like it (Tohyama? Itoh? Combined age of like 120.)

So, for what it's worth, my prediction:

1. Carp
2. Giants
3. Yakult
4. Yokohama
5. Hanshin
6. Dragons

Carp have good pitching (Takahashi, Kuroda, etc) and pop (Arai, Kanemoto, Machida), with breakout seasons from Arai and Machida, and comeback year for Nomura.

Giants should win, but their pitching staff is suspect. Kuwata and Kudo are washed up, Uehara takes himself out with a hangnail, and Takahashi is a one-year (or was it half-year?) wonder. The bullpen and closers are no better. For their lineup, they finally wisened up to the fact that their leadoff hitter needs to GET ON BASE, and took Nishi out of that role, but Hara's love for Nagashima will cause him to copycat, and a poor one at that. I remember Hara from his playing days, and he wasn't very intellegent then, and don't see him being any smarter now. With that lineup, bunting is criminal, but bunt away they will, giving out outs left, right and center. Oh, and Kiyohara is an overrated player, and will be a liability at first. (Can you tell I'm not a huge fan of Kyojin?)

Yakult without Ishii and a year older Furuta, injured Petagine and overrated Fujii will not be competitive, but not as bad as the three below them.

Dragons will be the first team to lose 50 games, and will probably end up not even winning 50.

Yokohama is too bland to comment on. I do like Nakamura over Tanishige, though. Tanishige was way overrated, and Nakamura can hit outside the spacious Nagoya dome...

It's interesting to see the wide range of opinions on the Tigers' chances. Pretty much everyone agrees that they're going to improve under Hoshino-kantoku. There are still many sceptics after Nomura-kantoku was supposed to be their savior and failed.

However, I find the hype over Hoshino to be much more sound than that of Nomura-kantoku. Hoshino is really taking the job with Hanshin seriously from the start. Nomura, on the other hand, seemed to me to not really want the job. Sure enough, Nomura didn't hold those meetings that he was so famous for with Yakult when he moved to Hanshin. He just didn't seem to have his heart in the game any more. When he originally agreed to extend his contract, the only thought I had was "why?"

Hoshino-kantoku, by contrast, appears to have regained something that he'd lost. There at the end of last season it looked like Hoshino had lost his fire, unable to do anything but laugh when his players goofed up. But right from the start with Hanshin he's said that he won't tolerate "bone head" mistakes. Now that's the Moeru Otoko of old.