Best (Current) Japanese Team

Behind the plate, you have to go with Furuta. He's amazing; 37 years old and still getting it done both behind the dish and next to it. I like Westbay-san's idea of Ogasawara at first. Second is kind of tough. Bobby Rose was the premier second bagger in NPB for so long, and no names really jump out as being the best. Imaoka is having a good year, and Iguchi's been on the best nine the past couple years, but I think I'd have to go with the Giants' Nishi. He's been pretty consistently good that last four years or so. Third base has to go to Norihiro Nakamura. Defensive questions aside, he's as a good an offensive force as you'll find at third these days. Besides, Kazuo Matsui at short will cover enough ground to keep the left side of the infield solid. The outfield's pretty easy. Hideki Matsui in left, Ichiro in center, and Yoshinobu Takahashi in right. If we have a DH, let's get Nobuhiko Matsunaka.

If I were the manager, my line-up would look like this:

CF Ichiro
SS K. Matsui
1B Ogasawara
LF H. Mastui
3B Nakamura
DH Matsunaka
RF Takahashi
C Furuta
2B Nishi

I'd bat Ogasawara 3rd instead of 1st because of his power numbers. With Ichiro's BA with runners in scoring position, I was tempted to bat him 3rd, but he likes the lead-off spot, his OB% is good, Ogasawara's power numbers better serve lower in the order. And hell, if both Ichiro and Kazuo Matsui got on, I'd double steal all the time.

If we go with an 11 man pitching staff, I'd go with:

Rotation
RHP Hideo Nomo
LHP Kazuhisa Ishii
LHP Shogo Fujii
RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka (when healthy)
RHP Koji Uehara or RHP "Johnny" Kuroki (depending on whether you want veteran experience or young heat)

Middle relief
RHP Shingo Takazu
RHP Shigetoshi Hasegawa
RHP Ryota Igarashi
RHP Yasuhiro Oyamada (I've never seen this guy, but he's got some great numbers the past two years. Any thoughts on this pick?)
LHP Hideki Okajima

Closer
RHP Kazuhiro Sasaki

That brings us to 21 players. In both MLB and NPB, only 25 players can be on the roster at game time, so lets pick two utility infielders and two utility outfielders.

Infielders
Daisuke Motoki
Makoto Kosaka

Okay, I know some guys hit better than Motoki, but he's one of my favorite players, he's a genuine UI, and he'll help keep the clubhouse loose.

Outfielders
Yoshitomo Tani
Koichi Isobe

Isobe seems to be having an off year, but in the past he's looked great. Tani's been hitting for a good average, which is what you want with a guy off the bench. I imagine you could easily replace one of these guys with Tsuyoshi Shinjo if you wanted a top notch defensive replacement.

Looking over this team, I have to say I like it. A lot. It doesn't have as much power as an American or Dominican team might, but it has enough, plus speed and great pitching.

Browsing around a while back, I came across this link

McCracken, whose done some real groundbreaking work in baseball analysis, suggests this as a possible Japanese team in a baseball World Cup.

Japan
Starting lineup: Atsuya Furuta - C, Michihiro Ogasawara - 1B, Tadahito Iguchi - 2B, Norihiro Nakamura -3B, Kazuo Matsui - SS, Hideki Matsui - LF, Tsuyoshi Shinjo - CF, Ichiro Suzuki - RF, Nobuhiko Matsunaka - DH.
Pitchers: Koji Uehara, Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Hideki Okajima.

By far the fastest and maybe the best defensive team involved, they lack the power of the other big guns, but are not completely without it as Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui and Michihiro Ogasawara are both big, strong power-hitters. The fame of Tsuyoshi Shinjo could hurt the club because I believe Tomoaki Kanemoto or Yoshitomo Tani might be better players. The team leans heavily toward left-handed hitters making them match-up well with the Dominican pitching. The best Japanese player might be shortstop, Kazuo Matsui. Matsui is rumored to be heading stateside in 2003 and he's a lightning fast .300 hitting switch-hitter with very good glove-work and 15-20 homer power. In other words he's a faster Derek Jeter with a better glove. The pitching is not as strong as the USA or the Dominicans, but Uehara and the hard-throwing Matsuzaka compliment the stateside Japanese pitchers well. Okajima is a tough left-handed reliever.

He says that Japan would probably finish 3rd, after the U.S. and the Domincan Republic. I like that he picked Okajima, but not so much that he gave Shinjo a starting spot. The picks of Tani and Kanemoto are good, but I can't believe he overlooked the average-power-defense combo of Takahashi. Personally I think the team I came up with would probably be able to beat any team in a short series.

Oh my God! What was I thinking??? Only one catcher? Let's take Motoki out and replace him with Daiei's Jojima.

I have to disagree on Okajima. Hirotoshi Ishii would be a better choice. He's been more consistent than Okajima has and he throws harder. Otherwise, there's not much to argue about, though I would probably have
Hiroki Kokubo at third since he's more solid defensively than Nakamura and his offensive numbers
won't be that much worse. But I can understand why you would pick Nakamura. So whatever works.

My God, Jojima is simply the best catcher in Japan right now. Cannon for an arm. Cannon.

Looking at the proposed teams, one interesting question for us old time NPB fans. What would be the NPB "team of the early 90s"? In the pre-Ichiro/Matsui era.
I would propose:
C Furuta
SS Ikeyama
CF Akiyama

P Hideo Nomo
P Masaki Saito
to be the without-a-doubt choices...anybody cares to add to the list?

Ochiai or Kiyohara at 1B? Ishige or Hara at 3B? and the rest of the pitching staff, maybe we can pencil in Kaku, Watanabe, Kudoh and the entire Seibu staff.

My picks of the late 1980's:

C: Furuta (a no brainer, though he didn't come along until 1990)
1B: Ochiai (ditto)
2B: Kenjiro Nomura (Yeah, I know I'm cheating here; maybe Hatsuhiko Tsuji?).
SS: Hiromichi Ishige (can't hack Ikeyama's whiffs).
3B: Hiromi Matsunaga
OF: Akiyama (another no brainer)
OF: Makoto Sasaki
OF: Tsutomu Wakamatsu (I'm cheating again here, since his best days were behind him by 1986, but what, you want me to pick Masaru Uno?).
DH: Kadota
Pitching Staff:

Kudoh, Kuwata, Saito, Taigen Kaku, Nomo and I would have Yutaka Ono close.

Suppose we don't exclude foreign players in this list...

1. K. Matsui SS
2. Y. Takahashi RF
3. T. Rhodes LF
4. Cabrera DH
5. H. Matsui CF
6. Nakamura 3B
7. Petagine 1B
8. Furuta C
9. Nishi 2B

> Suppose we don't exclude foreign players in this
> list...
>
> 1. K. Matsui SS
> 2. Y. Takahashi RF
> 3. T. Rhodes LF
> 4. Cabrera DH
> 5. H. Matsui CF
> 6. Nakamura 3B
> 7. Petagine 1B
> 8. Furuta C
> 9. Nishi 2B

This is a good team. I'm not completely sure I'd take Petagine over Ogasawara, but Petagine's plenty good. There's no way I'd take Takahashi over Ichiro, but I suspect you've gone from "best Japanese players" to a purely NPB team. I'd put Petagine or Matsui in the 3 spot; Rhodes had a great year last year, but over the course of his career I don't think he's proved himself a better hitter than Matsui or Petagine. I'd probably put Matsui and Petagine at the 3 and 4 spots, switching them according to the opposing pitcher. Righty, Matsui bats 3rd, with a lefty, Petagine would bat 3rd. I'd put Cab in the 5 spot and bat Rhodes 6th, switching them depending on who bat 3rd, so I could get alternating left and right-handed hitters.

Now that I think about it, I forgot about Ogasawara totally...but I suppose I will take him over Petagine, since I choose to mainly look at this year's stats. (You could make a case for Matsunaka, too if we look deeper into the past.) By the same reasoning, in the past two years, Rhodes and Cabrera have been the most dominating hitters in the Japanese game, hence the 3/4 selection. Of course, I couldn't really find a way to quantify the supposedly higher caliber of pitching in the central league, so I ignored that factor. (Actually, the central league might eventually be significantly better than the pacific league, given how they attract FAs and how the pacific league seems to lose more of their top players to MLB.)

What about the pitching staff? Is there any foreign pitcher in NPB right now that deserves to be placed in the rotation? I saw Nate Minchey on Seibu's webcast the other day, and his cutter and curve made K. Matsui look really bad. This makes me worry about Matsui's future MLB performance...

Also, the new Taiwanese gaijin Chang chi-chia looked really impressive. It seems like he could just throw high 130- low 140 fastballs right down the middle and nobody could hit it because his change-up is so good, not even mentioning his killer fork ball. (a fork-change-up combo, not sure if I've seen it anywhere, let along NPB)

Now that I think about it, I forgot about Ogasawara totally...but I suppose I will take him over Petagine, since I choose to mainly look at this year's stats.

It's really kind of a wash. You could say that Petagine has been better longer, since he's played at about the same level going on his fourth year now. Ogasawara has only played at this level since 2000. His 1999 season, while good, wasn't quite up to the standards he's set. Ogasawara's two years younger, and might have more upside. Both play in bandboxes, but Ogasawara has to play in bigger parks on the road, while Petagine gets to play in bandboxes almost everywhere else he goes (except for Nagoya, of course). I wish I had their home/road splits! An argument may be made that the Central League has a higher caliber of pitching, I suppose, but I'm still not quite convinced of that. In the past, Petagine has consistently outperformed Ogasawara, with an OPS of 1099 vs 989 in 2001, and 1033 vs 958 in 2000. This year, they are very close. Their OPS is 1116 (Ogasawara) and 1115 (Petagine). Defensively, they both won Gold Gloves in 2000 and 2001. With Ogasawara being two years younger and playing in larger parks, on average, I'd still pick Ogasawara, but you couldn't go wrong picking Petagine, either. Frankly, it surprises me that no MLB team has tried to bring him back, but I guess once you're labeled, that's it.

(You could make a case for Matsunaka, too if we look deeper into the past.) By the same reasoning, in the past two years, Rhodes and Cabrera have been the most dominating hitters in the Japanese game, hence the 3/4 selection.

Looking at the 2000 season, I'd have to say that I'd take Matsunaka over Cabrera. Cabrera walked a lot that year, but Matsunaka still ended up with a higher on-base percentage, and his slugging was still very high, if not quite as high as Cabrera's. Their OPS for that year was 1032 (Matsunaka) vs. 998 (Cabrera). This year, things seemed to have flipped; Matsunaka's average is down, and since he doesn't walk as much as Cabrera his on-base percentage has taken a big hit. Their OPS now stands at 1096 (Cabrera) vs 963 (Matsunaka). It'll be interesting to see how they'll stand at the end of the year. Matsunaka's longer history at this level of baseball gets him the bye in my book.

I'm not sure there'd be a better candidate for LF than Rhodes. Last year was an aberration for him, but he's still proven to be one of the most consistent offensive outfielders. In my example above, having Ichiro to put into center bumped Matsui to left while Takahashi took right. But if we take Ichiro out of the equation, Matsui goes back to center, Takahashi takes right field, and I can't think of anyone better to put in left other than Rhodes. Of course, that doesn't mean that there isn't anyone better, and if anyone has an idea, I'd be glad to hear it!

Of course, I couldn't really find a way to quantify the supposedly higher caliber of pitching in the central league, so I ignored that factor. (Actually, the central league might eventually be significantly better than the pacific league, given how they attract FAs and how the pacific league seems to lose more of their top players to MLB.)

Hmmm... The best way to do this, I think, would be to compare that stats of all those who have switched leagues in the past five years or so, and see if the numbers of those going to the CL from the PL have gone down, or vice versa. Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to really accomplish that kind of study. CL pitchers pitch in smaller parks, but OTOH, there's circumstantial evidence that the PL has been using a livelier ball recently. My hunch is that any difference there might be between the leagues is probably negligible. No one assumes that one of the American leagues might have a higher caliber of pitching than the other, and I can't see the evidence to make me think the CL and the PL are any different...

What about the pitching staff? Is there any foreign pitcher in NPB right now that deserves to be placed in the rotation? I saw Nate Minchey on Seibu's webcast the other day, and his cutter and curve made K. Matsui look really bad. This makes me worry about Matsui's future MLB performance...

Minchey is definitely the class of the foreign pitchers, particularly since May has left. But I'm not sure he could break into a rotation of the best pitchers in NPB. Jeremy Powell is having a fantastic year, and looks like Kintetsu's ace right now, but he hasn't proven he can sustain it at NPB's level. Another couple seasons like this, and I think he could earn himself a spot among the best pitchers (currently) in NPB. Dae-sung Koo has also pitched well this year, but wasn't so great as a closer last year. But, in my above team, if I were to replace Nomo and Ishii with current NPB pitchers, I would probably replace them with either Chunichi's Noguchi Shigeki or Masahiro Yamamoto, and Hanshin's Igawa Kei or Chiba's Kuroki Tomohiro. It's kind of a tough call; Kuroki has historically been very good, but has been battling the injury bug of late. Last year was Igawa's first full year, and he pitched great. He is, hands down, the best CL pitcher this year. His numbers are sick compared to the rest of the pack. But can he sustain it?

I wouldn't worry too much about Kazuo Matsui in the Majors, though. Every player has some guys he just can't hit. He may just have problems picking up the ball with Minchey's delivery. If he goes to the Majors, the question will be whether he'll be able to make the adjustment. Shinjo knocked around the best of the Major Leaguers in the last Nichi-Bei series, to a the tune of .400 something. But he hasn't been able to break .280 over in the Majors.

Also, the new Taiwanese gaijin Chang chi-chia looked really impressive. It seems like he could just throw high 130- low 140 fastballs right down the middle and nobody could hit it because his change-up is so good, not even mentioning his killer fork ball. (a fork-change-up combo, not sure if I've seen it anywhere, let alone NPB)

I believe Shigetoshi Hasegawa throws both a forkball and a change up. Although I think the fork is just a "show" pitch, like Kazuhiro Sasaki's curve. He just shows it to the batters to get them thinking about it, but he uses his fastball and his change-up to get batters out.

The problem with Matsunaka is that he spends lots of DL time (if the Japanese had a true DL) every year. Defensively, Petagine and Matsunaka are a wash. I like Matsunaka's stroke better than Peta-chan's and since he has a tendency to use more of the field, he will hit for a higher average in MLB than Petagine would. However, due to his being so injury prone and the fact that he will be up there in age before he is eligible for free agency, I doubt you will see him in MLB.

As for pitchers, I don't think that Masahiro Yamamoto has MLB stuff and he has certainly looked like
retirement may not be far off this season. Igawa should indeed be included in any list. Chang was rated by MLB scouts who saw him at the Baseball World Cup in Taiwan as being one year away from being MLB ready and that assessment has been right on the mark. I say he is in Japan another couple of years and then ends up in L.A. or Seattle.

As for the Petagine vs. Ogasawara argument, it is the Fighters first sacker by a good distance for me. The guy can steal a bag for you (he had something like 25 steals a couple of years back), is a truly great defender (whereas in the CL, there are no true MLB Gold Glove quality first basemen), a smart baserunner
and he hits to all fields even with those big hacks he takes. Plus he has been much more durable than Petagine. Petagine, in fact, is more one dimensional, though speaking as a Swallows fan, his contributions have been indispensible to the team.

Hi, everyone. Ok, here is my list..

Ichiro CF
Matsui ss
Ogasawara 1b
Matsui lf
Nakamura 3b
Imaoka 2b
Hiyama/Takahashi RF
Furuta/ Yano c
Igawa p

Nomo
Matsuzaka
Uehara
Ishii


relief pitchers.
Sasaki
Toyoda
Takatsu

What about Fumiya Nishiguchi? He went 15-10 with 180 strikeouts in 29 games. Is this good enough to make the All-Japanese team?

I am sorry that I left this out with my last post. Tomokazu Ohka of the Montreal Expos has emerged as a pretty good National League pitcher. He has a career record of 20-25 with a 3.91 ERA and with a 204/106 strikout/walk ratio. In 2002, he was 13-8 with a 3.18 ERA and a 118/45 strikeout/walk ration. Does he not earn consideration for the all-Japanese team?
Also, Mr. Westbay, I thank you for running such a great website.

This is my all-Japanese team that I would have compete in any World Cup of Nations and the Olympics. I am open to suggestions.

C Kenji Johjima
C Shinnosuke Abe
1B Michihiro Ogasawara
1B Nobuhiko Matsunaka
2B Makoto Imaoka
SS Kazuo Matsui
SS Makoto Kosaka
3B Norihiro Nakamura
3B Atsushi Kataoka
LF Hideki Matsui
LF So Taguchi
CF Tsyoshi Shinjo
RF Ichiro Suzuki
RF Yoshinobu Takahashi
SP Kazuhisa Ishii
SP Hideo Nomo
SP Fumiya Nishiguchi
SP Koji Uehara
SP Tomokazu Ohka
RP Shigetosi Hasegawa
RP Takahito Nomura
RP Yasuhiro Oyamada
RP Kiyoshi Toyoda
RP Satoru Komiyama
CP Kazuhiro Sasaki

I wouldn't put Takahito Nomura/Satoru Komiyama in. Komiyama is OK against the AAA players. Nomura was simply out-classed during his time in the U.S. in both AAA and Major levels.

What would be the best current Japanese team as of right now? They don't have to be born in Japan. Just the predicted all star team you people think.

For me, I think experience is more important! For me the best line up is this:

1. RF Ichiro Suzuki
2. SS Kazuo Matsui
3. 1B Norihiro Nakamura
4. DH Hideki Matsui
5. 3B Hiroki Kokubo
6. CF Tsuyoshi Shinjo
7. C Atsuya Furuta
8. 2B Tadahito Iguchi
9. LF So Taguchi

Starting Pitchers:
1. Hideo Nomo
2. Tomo Ohka
3. Kazuhisa Ishii
4. Naoyuki Shimizu
5. Keichi Yabu

Relief Pitchers:
1. Shigetoshi Hasegawa
2. Akinori Otsuka
3. Takatsu Shingo
4. Masao Kida
5. Satoru Komiyama
6. Shinya Okamoto
7. Masato Yoshii

Closer Pitcher:
1. Kazuhiro Sasaki

My team:

Fielders:
C Jojima or Furuta
1B Ogasawara
2B Kosaka
3B Kokubo
CF Akahoshi
LF Kanemoto
RF H Matsui
SS Nioka (superior in every respect to K. Matsui)

Pitching:
Uehara
Igawa
SubMarine
Matsuzaka
Ishii

Relief Pitching:
Fujikawa
Katoh
Miura

Closing Pitching:
Igarashi
Takatsu

Why anyone is still considering Sasaki is beyond me. He was a great pitcher in the past but is now fading. In my team I have gone for speed combined with power.

Hmmm. And apparently taken Akahoshi over Ichiro. Very surprising

Why hasn't anyone considered Iwamura or Imae at third base?

It is scandalous that Iguchi has not been included in these lists. I may be a little biased, but seriously; I would stack his stats, smarts, abilities, and past successes against any of the second basemen that have been mentioned.

He was included on Jen Wei's list.

To be honest, with the amount of RBI's that Imaoka bats, in I am not surprised that most people included him instead. Personally I wanted someone faster (hence Kosaka), but if I picked my team again I would include Imaoka. More RBIs I'm afraid.