Correlating Japanese with American
While Oh is in many ways the Babe Ruth of NPB, if you read my series of articles on Oh, his talent level comes out much more like his contemporary, Willie McCovey. A MLB comparison for Nomura's power and durability at catcher would be very difficult -- he isn't as talented as Piazza or Josh Gibson by any means, but in NPB terms, he's that kind of hitter.
Eventually, I will try to determine who in NPB I think would be worthy of Cooperstown, but I've got to finish the current project first.
Jim Albright
I guess I've already goofed on my Nomura comparison. True, I couldn't find a Major League equivalent, but I found an equivalent in another league that had major-league level talent.
The issue I'm getting at is that there are two ways to look at this: first, how Oh or other players look solely in terms of NPB, in which case Ruth is appropriate. The second is what kind of player was Oh in general, in which case McCovey is more appropriate.
NPB has yet to be the equal of MLB, which accounts for the difference. Of course, comparing a player to Willie shouldn't exactly be considered an insult, as he is one of the great all-time first basemen, just not the greatest.
Jim Albright
[Note by westbaystars: Willie was my favorite player growing up a SF Giants fan in California's Central Valley in the 1970s. I see it as a great complement.]
Projecting what a yakyu player would do in the Major Leagues is always dangerous. [...]
I wouldn't call it "dangerous" at all. Yes, the method I use is not exact, nor can it be. However, compare what I projected Oh at to how he actually fared against good major league teams (and pitchers), though usually in Japanese parks. There's more than a passing similarity.
The method I used is based on averages derived from tens of thousands of matched at bats (basically it's the same team used identically, one in the majors and one in NPB). Certainly, some players are somewhat better than the average, and some worse. However, for players with several hundred matched AB, I doubt you could find any players who don't come out reasonably close to the projection. You'd have to apply it to the nearest seasons in the other league, which is how the numbers were calculated. It mirrors Bill James' minors to majors projection system, which is quite accurate in describing the style of play and talent level of the player in question.
Frankly, I think my projection system is at least approximately as accurate as what you're trying to do for most hitters, and for tough cases like Katsuya Nomura, I think it is superior.
One class of players I would hesitate to make this claim for is pre-1946 NPB players due to the deadball nature of the game in Japan at that time. Pitchers are also more shaky in terms of projections, as their records have far less predictive quality (i.e. hitters will generally have relatively similar seasons year in and year out, though showing certain marks of aging, while pitchers can and do vary widely from year to year, often due to arm troubles).
Jim Albright
I think Hideki Matsui expressed it best when he stated that neither Japanese or MLB is better or worse. They are like comparing "apples to oranges."
Good luck with your project.
As I said, baseball, in the US, in Japan, from the sandlot, to the stadium, is such a great sport!
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
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I will use his text, the career totals and awards he provides, as well as Total Baseball 7, and try to consider the time period when each player played. I would like any help you can provide about whether a Japanese player had brief greatness or was above-average over a longer time, career walk totals for Japanese pitchers, Japanese park factors if relevant. I would like to go through one player each weekday that I'm at this e-mail address.
I will start at the top of Albright's list and work my way down, although some of the many pitchers seem to run together after a while. Please let me know where I am accurate or where I'm not.