Positions of Yakyu Stars/Comparison with Major Leaguers

- At this point it would be a great help if anyone could determine the primary position of these yakyu players, especially which outfield position (and give how many games they played at all their positions if possible). Sorry about abbreviation of first names, thank you very much.

Japan Baseball Daily has the exact outfield positions for some players, I haven't checked them all to see about all of them. But your best bet is to use that player database, seeing as you know what players you're looking for and see if you can pinpoint their position. There isn't a better English resource out there for historical stats than Japan Baseball Daily.

It only tells what positions players have played, not their majority position, and it's always listed in the order from 1B to OF, or am I reading incorrectly?

- It only tells what positions players have played, not their majority position, and it's always listed in the order from 1B to OF, or am I reading incorrectly?

I've looked at some of the players and it has the exact outfield position for some players. For example, Koji Akijama is listed as a CF and RF and I've looked at Yonamine, Matsui, Rhodes, Suzuki, the Lee Brothers, and many others. The thing to look for is where it says "Positions Played." A lot of the players I looked at had them. Granted, I don't have the time to look through them all, but if you have the time the information should be there.

Hope that helps.

Sorry, Jeff, disregard my post. I mis-read your question. I thought you wanted to know what positions they played and not the majority position. Maybe one of the historical stat gurus here can help. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I can only help you with a few.

A Mayumi used to play shortstop then he converted from SS to RF.

Leon Lee used to play 1st base and then got converted to 3rd base.

Again, I would like their majority position if possible, not just a list of the positions they played. And if it was pretty close between two positions, that information would be appreciated, thank you.

Not entirely sure if I can help you all with the details, but here are some. I checked Wikipedia and Mayumi's official web page.

Mayumi was drafted in 1972 but did not play much up until 1977. His position at the time was SS.

In '83 and '84 he played 2B due to an injured Okada. Okada returned from injury but Mayumi kept playing 2B and Okada in the outfield, but then Mayumi converted to RF and Okada to 2B in 1985.

I am not 100% sure if Mayumi played all of the games as SS from 1972-'83 or if he played some other positions during that time. He most certainly played the majority, if not all, the games as SS. The same can be said about 2B and RF.

In the link you can see how many games Mayumi played each season, but not where he played.

Thanks N 26, although I am a gaijin (who can't read Japanese).

Wow, I am amazed that no one has a Yakyu Encyclopedia or is familiar with any of these players. :-O

That's a long list of players. Is this for a website or something?

No, it's not for any website. I'm just trying to do comparisons of players so if I would mention a Japanese player to someone unfamiliar with him I could say "He was similar to major leaguer ..." I've already done at least seven per position, so I'm not asking for someone to do my entire project nor for the entire list, and I thank anyone for any help, and let me know if anyone has questions about major league players.

I've barely started on pitchers and I don't even know if I want to finish that job.

I've started on the pitchers, who knows how far I'll get. H. Iwase:

• Very recent closer
• Left-handed thrower
• Lots of saves
• Great strikeout to walk ratio
• Amazing ERA

Sounds like Billy Wagner.

I'm afraid that you misinterpret the lack of participation to your question. I have three Yakyu Encyclopedias, but this is the best I can do to answer your question:

Yasunori Oshima: OF: 1,115; 1B: 1,000; 3B: 437; 2B: 1; DH: 79
A Nagaike: Tokuji or Yasuo Nagaike are the only two
Hideki Matsui: OF: 1,258
Tooru Sugiura: OF: 1,052; 1B: 526
Tomonori Maeda: OF: 1,297
Alex Ramirez: OF: 416 (through 2003)
Koji Akiyama: OF: 1,948; 3B: 257; DH: 19
Yasuo Fujii: OF: 833, 1B: 614; DH: 135
Shosei Go: OF: 1,486; P: 31
Yoshiyuki Iwamoto: OF: 817; C: 3; P: 1; 1B: 1
Masayasu Kaneda: OF: 1,419; 1B: 11
Leron Lee: OF: 297; 1B: 23; DH: 979
Koji Minoda: OF: 1,271; 3B: 12; SS: 2; DH: 38
M Toshio Naka: OF: 1,791
Hiroshi Oshita: OF: 1,445; 1B: 111; P: 8
Tuffy Rhodes: OF: 1,074; DH: 7 (through 2003)
Ichiro Suzuki: OF: 934; 3B: 1; DH: 3
Kenjiro Tamiya: OF: 1,324; P: 50; 1B: 6
Wally Yonamine: OF: 1,061; 1B: 122
Shinichi Eto: OF: 1,229; 1B: 570; C: 175; SS: 1; DH: 122
Kazuhiko Kondo: OF: 1,309; 1B: 695
Yoshinori Hirose: OF: 1,505; SS: 469; 3B: 47; 2B: 37; P: 1; DH: 25
Akinobu Mayumi: OF: 814; SS: 699; 2B: 184; 1B: 60; 3B: 39; DH: 14
Leon Lee: 1B: 986; 3B: 286; OF: 14; 2B: 1; DH: 10

The 2004 Encyclopedia doesn't break down outfield positions, so your question can't be answered to the detail you ask.

Furthermore, such a long list of players you're looking into takes a great deal of time. It took 35 minutes to gather the above list. I don't normally have 35 minutes to answer a vague question with no obvious merit. (Yes, it has merit to you, but that merit wasn't expressed in a way that makes it important to others.) And since the outfielders aren't broken down as you requested, I fear that the 35 minutes spent looking up 24 players (plus another 10-15 minutes replying) will end up going unappreciated.

Regarding the question in the subject line, my knowledge of historical NPB players is still very basic and mostly based on what I've read in Robert Whiting's and Rob Fitts' books, all of which I assume you've read as background to the project you're working on. Most of my knowledge of MLB is based on being a San Francisco Giants fan through the 1970s - and that memory is slowly fading. I am therefore unqualified to answer that part of your question, sorry.

You'll find that how you ask a question is very important in getting the answers you're looking for. Asking specific questions with a limited scope, but still a scope that doesn't require a specialist, will get better responses than vague questions about a large number of players. For many, just seeing the long list of players is enough to turn them off, figuring that it'd take too much time to do the necessary research of each of them. If you want to get people to help you in your research, your question should draw the interest of others toward that research project.

P.S. Sadaharu Oh was the pitching ace for his high school team, Waseda, at Koshien before being drafted by the Giants who wanted to him for his bat. I believe there was mention of that in the Walley Yonemine biography by Robert Fitts. If you haven't read that, I strongly suggest you do as it mentions many of the historic players you're interested in.

Westbaystars-san nails it, but I'll add that I'm happy to share whatever knowledge I have. Still, I'm more motivated to do it in a public way where it will be available to many people.

The Yasunori Oshima & Leron Lee info was wonderful. JapanBaseballDaily lists them at several positions and now I know how the vast majority of their careers are categorized.

I'm sorry you spent so much time on it. I'm not asking for the whole list at once, even one player a day is wonderful. I don't even necessarily need to distinguish left field from right field, but there is a more important distinction between corner outfield and center field (for example, Richie Ashburn or Max Carey wouldn't have lasted so long if they had their same hitting production but as a left fielder, and Babe Herman would have had a tremendous career if he could have kept his hitting production and done it as a good center fielder).

Thanks for the tie-in to make Oh even more similar to Babe Ruth. I wish I had a website where this could be shared.

On the A Nagaike player, I was referring to Atsushi Nagaike. Did I goof up on that?

Well, I was only able to get the book "The Meaning Of Ichiro."

I'll give you an example of probably my best match. I first try to match the most important categories, where a player ranks high on a major statistic list.

Hiromitsu Kadota was a corner outfielder and a DH.
Barry Bonds was a corner outfielder and should have DHed at the end of his career.

Kadota is 3rd on the career HR list.
Bonds is 1st on the career HR list.

Kadota is 20th on the career doubles list.
Bonds is 14th on the career doubles list.

Kadota is 4th on the hits list.
Bonds is 31st on the hits list and probably in the same percentile in his league since there have been more major leaguers than Japanese League players.

Kadota had a .289 batting average.
Bonds had a .298 batting average (and Japanese batting averages tend to be a little lower than major league).

Kadota is 18th on the slugging average list.
Bonds is 6th on the slugging average list.

Kadota is 3rd on the RBI list.
Bonds is 4th on the RBI list.

Kadota is 8th on the Runs list.
Bonds is 3rd on the Runs list.

Kadota is 4th on the Total Bases list.
Bonds is 4th on the Total Bases list.

Kadota is 5th on the Walks list.
Bonds is 1st on the Walks list.

Kadota is 6th on the Strikeouts list.
Bonds is 35th on the Strikeouts list, so probably at the same percentile.

They both hit lefty and threw lefty.

They both had an MVP and an amazing number of homers after the age of 40.

They both led their leagues multiple times in homers, on-base percent, and slugging average, and were many multiple times All-Stars.

Both were playing from 1986 through 1992.

I'm not going to get into issues of perceived personalities or steroids, but they are otherwise amazingly similar.

That's interesting. I never would have matched up Kadota with Barry Bonds.

I didn't think of this before but you might find some matches for MLB'ers among Jim Albright's excellent work on the greatest NPB players of all time.

Did my analysis make sense?

Thanks for the link, I'll look into it.

Comparing pitchers is much harder but I've started.

Great analysis Jeff James!

Well, like I said, I wouldn't have thought of Kadota as a Japanese equivalent to Bonds, but I can see your line of reason.

The difference I would draw is that I don't think Kadota ever really dominated his league the way Bonds did from about 2000-2005. I think Bonds' career numbers are skewed forward by that phase of his career. In the '90s, Bonds was one of a number of excellent players, while in the early '00s he was in his own class.

Just eyeballing Kadota's numbers, they seem more Eddie Murray-ish to me.

Perhaps, but Murray did not rank on the career totals lists like Kadota does (and Bonds), and there's the position thing.

Yeah, I hear ya'. Comparisons between the two leagues are a pretty tough thing to pull off, but even if the matches aren't perfect, they give you a little more context on what the top NPB guys were like.

That's all I was hoping for, a little context. The pitchers are going to be very difficult, but I press on.

I realize that this is an old thread, but I just need to add this.

Does anyone have any idea why many of the better yakyu players are third basemen, when they are so underrepresented in the Major League Hall of Fame? Thanks.

In my opinion, this has more to do with the selection of the Hall of Fame (HOF). The evaluation of third basemen hasn't been clear. That is, the balance between defense and offense. I think many people agree that third basemen are somewhere between middle infielders and first basemen. But the HOF voters have been reluctant to vote in balanced third basemen. They have little problem voting in good defensive middle infielders with above average offense. But for third basemen, I am not sure there are any such standards. I recommend you search for the HOF watching blogs. You will find specific names and better explanation.

I think another contributing factor is that in NPB, there aren't many players that really can't play any other positions than first base. If trained, many would play serviceable third base. If they are planted in the MLB, they probably won't produce enough offense to play first base, so I am no sure what my observation really implies. But I think it's a contributing factor for your impression "many of the better yakyu players are third basemen."

True, I guess I just wonder why so many of the better yakyu players end up specifically at third base and not other positions. With major leagues, until Eddie Mathews got established in the mid 1950s, the best 3B to date was probably the overrated Pie Traynor.

I'd think that with all the bunting in the Japanese game, there's a premium on good defenders (and thus good athletes) at third. Then realize that the slugging 3B was becoming the norm in the majors from the early days of NPB, and I'd guess a synergy between that image and the need for a ball-hawk led Japanese coaches/managers/front office types to put more of their athletic, good hitting right handers in the spot.

If you mean better batters by "better yakyu players," it's rather natural. First, it seems to be universally true that it's rare to find good batters in defensive positions, catcher, middle infielders (and center fielder if you will). First base and corner outfields are typical positions for foreign-hired bats. So what position is left?

Seems like most (or about half?) of NPB players are pitchers (or pitch part time) when they are drafted out of high school. But then again, this doesn't seem so different in the States where most high school draftees seem to be pitchers or shortstops (though in either case they may not be drafted for their pitching).