2001 Best Nine and Title Holders

Central League:

Pitcher: Fujii (YS)
Catcher: Furuta (YS)
First: Petagine (YS)
Second: Diaz (HC)
Third: Etoh (YG)
Shortstop: Ishii (YBS)
Outfield:
      Matsui (YG)
      Inaba (YS)
      Kanemoto (HC)

Pacific League:

Pitcher: Matsuzaka (SL)
Catcher: Johjima (FDH)
First: Osawara (NHF)
Second: Iguchi (FDH)
Third: Nakamura (OKB)
Shortstop: Matsui (SL)
Outfield:
      Rhodes (OKB)
      Tani (OBW)
      Isobe (OKB)
Designated Hitter: Bolick (CLM)

I'll repost this with the number of time this makes for each player joining the "Best Nine."

Central League:

Pitcher: Fujii (YS) 1st
Catcher: Furuta (YS) 8th
First: Petagine (YS) 3rd
Second: Diaz (HC) 1st
Third: Etoh (YG) 7th
Shortstop: Ishii (YBS) 5th
Outfield:
      Matsui (YG) 7th
      Inaba (YS) 1st
      Kanemoto (HC) 3rd

Pacific League:

Pitcher: Matsuzaka (SL) 3rd
Catcher: Johjima (FDH) 3rd
First: Osawara (NHF) 2nd
Second: Iguchi (FDH) 1st
Third: Nakamura (OKB) 4th
Shortstop: Matsui (SL) 5h
Outfield:
      Rhodes (OKB) 3rd
      Tani (OBW) 2nd
      Isobe (OKB) 1st
Designated Hitter: Bolick (CLM) 1st

Central League:

Pitcher: Noguchi (CD)
Catcher: Furuta (YS)
First: Petagine (YS)
Second: Nishi (YG)
Third: Iwamura (YS)
Shortstop: Miyamoto (YS)
Outfield:
      Takahashi (YG)
      Matsui (YG)
      Akahoshi (HT)

Pacific League:

Pitcher: Matsuzaka (SL)
Catcher: Johjima (FDH)
First: Osawara (NHF)
Second: Iguchi (FDH)
Third: Nakamura (OKB)
Shortstop: Kosaka (CLM)
Outfield:
      Taguchi (OBW)
      Shibahara (FDH)
      Tani (OBW)

Thanks for the info.

Out of curiousity, how many golden gloves has Godzilla won? Some claim that defense isn't his strength but this seems to suggest otherwise. Is he or is he not an outstanding outfielder?

- Out of curiousity, how many golden gloves has Godzilla won?

Actually, this was only his second. His first was in 2000, so that makes it two in a row. Takahashi, on the other hand, has won the award all 4 years he's played, and is a much better fielder than Matsui.

- Some claim that defense isn't his strength but this seems to suggest otherwise. Is he or is he not an outstanding outfielder?

I wouldn't go so far as to say "outstanding." When he was first converted to center I thought it odd because he doesn't have nearly the range that many of the more fleet footed center fielders have.

At one point, I thought that the Golden Glove Award was just a popularity contest, like the Best Nine. But generally, the people voted in do have the best error to attempt ratios. Looking a the fine print, I see that outfielders are only reqired to play 1/2 of their teams' games in the outfield to qualify. After that, members of the media with at least 5 years of covering Pro Yakyu vote. So perhaps it is a popularity contest after all.

Going through some stats, I see that Matsui committed 6 errors, Takahashi 4, and Akahoshi 2. However, Hiroshima's Kanemoto committed only 3 errors in the outfield playing all 140 games. Asai (also Hiroshima) played in 107 games and committed only 1 error. (However, since he only had 214 at bats, I'm guessing that he didn't play those games full time.) Yokohama's Suzuki only committed 3 errors in left, and Kinjyoh greatly improved to just committing 5 errors after becoming Yokohama's main center fielder this season. Yaklt's Manaka committed no errors in 123 games, but I'm not sure if over half of those were in the outfield or not. And Inaba, Yaklt's main center fielder, committed just 4 errors. (Or was Manaka in center and Inaba in right? Yakult fans?)

Unfortunatly, I don't have any stats on how many chances each player had, so Matsui's 6 errors may be better or worse than Inaba's 4 with respect to how many chances each had. But I feel that Inaba has a much better range than Godzilla, so even if I did have numeric proof that Matsui had a better error to attempt ratio, I would have probably gone with Inaba instead.

Defensive statistics are pretty much neglected here, which is a shame. I'm tempted to say that many of the media people may have ended up voting for popularity (and/or offense) rather than for skill with the leather. But I don't have all the data. This is a key point. Because I don't have all of the data, I'm not really qualified to say that it is a popularity contest. So you anti-Giants' fans, hold off on using this as evidence aganst them for now.

I will say that Matsui has done a much better job in center than I expected him to. And I think that his range has improved from when he was first converted to center to give right to Takahashi. But Matsui's strenth is his bat, not his glove.

General

Most Valuable Player: Petagine (YS-1st)
Rookie of the Year: Akahoshi (HT)

Batting

Leading Hitter: Matsui (YG-1st) .333
Home Run King: Petagine (YS-2nd) 39
RBI King: Petagine (YS-2nd) 127
Most Hits: K. Ishii (YBS-2nd) 171
Most Steals: Akahoshi (HT-1st) 39
Highest OBP: Petagine (YS-2nd) .466

Pitching

Best ERA: Noguchi (CD-2nd) 2.46
Most Wins: Fujii (YS-1st) 14
Top Closer: Takatsu (YS-3rd) 37SP
Top Middle Reliever: Kizuka (YBS-1st) 28.40
Most Ks: Noguchi (CD-1st) 187
Most Valueable MEP: Fujii (YS-1st)

The numbers in parentheses with the teams are how many times this makes winning the awards. There are many first time winners this time around, as you can see.

After all of these years, I still don't know what the MEP award is. It seems to be a Central League only thing. Can anyone help me out here?

General

Most Valuable Player: Rhodes (OKB-1st)
Rookie of the Year: Ohkubo (OBW)

Batting

Leading Hitter: Fukuura (CLM-1st) .346
Home Run King: Rhodes (OKB-2nd) 55
RBI King: Nakamura (OKB-2nd) 132
Most Hits: Ogasawara (NHF-2nd) 195
Most Steals: Iguchi (FDH-1st) 44
Highest OBP: Nakamura (OKB-1st) .434

Pitching

Best ERA: Minchey (CLM-1st) 3.26
Most Wins: Matsuzaka (SL-3rd) 15
Top Closer: Pedraza (FDH-2nd) 38SP
Most Holds: Yoshida (FDH-2nd) 19
Most Ks: Matsuzaka (SL-2nd) 214
Best Winning Percentage: Tanoue (FDH-1st) .650

As you can see, it's pretty even between 1st time and 2nd time takers of awards in the Pacific League. Also, the Pacific League has hold points whereas the Central League has some other bizzar formula for calculating the best middle reliever.

I think it's interesting to see that Daiei and Seibu dominated the awards for pitching, whereas Kintsu took half of the offensive categories, leaving room for three other teams to divide the other half.