Style of Play / Lead Off Hitters

> Pitchers:
> - Are most of them fastball throwers or breaking
> pitches?

Breaking pitches. Japanese pitchers are not generally taught to just get by with fastballs. Even the power-hurlers like Matsuzaka are expected to locate their slider, curve and fork. (Which make up the standard Japanese pitchers repertoire.

> - Do many of the pitchers try to strike batters out
> or do they just try to get the batters out with as
> few pitches as possible?

Oddly enough, the batter is considered solely the pitcher's responsibility. It's almost as if a strike out is expected, but the fielders are there to back him up. Lot'ta deep counts. Lot'ta deep counts.

> Relievers:
> - Does a typical manager prefer to leave the starting
> pitcher in the game or will he bring in a reliever
> immediately?

Starters are expected to throw complete games whenever possible, so I would say, generally, managers tend to leave their starters in longer. But it varies from manager to manager, and not everyone follows a clear logic. I do know that in the 2000 season, Sadaharu Oh had a policy of always removing his starter the minute he gave up 3 runs.

> - Does the manager usually keep a reliever as long as
> possible or does he relieve him immediately after a
> certain batter or a certain number of innings?

Because of the large roster and the six-day pitching rotation, managers have a lot of bullpen they can call on, so they aren't afraid to go for lefty-righty match-ups. In generally, relief roles such as long man, middle relief, set-up and closer are not as clearly defined as in MLB.

> - Do most closers pitch 1 inning or more than 1?

When a manager decides to have a closer, they generally keep to that role: 9th inning only.

> Hitting and running:
> - Do many of the players steal?

Only when the manager tells them to.

> - Or do many of them just try to hit home runs (like
> in MLB)?

I don't think that's quite a fair characterization of MLB players, but let's set that aside for now. Contact is valued over all else in Japanese baseball, and strike outs are looked down upon, so only those who are "Official Clean-Up Batters" are really allowed to try and hit home runs.

> - How many hit-and-run plays occur?

I don't know; they don't keep stats of that. But in general Japanese managers like to manage the game, so I don't think it's a low number. The sac bunt may be used more, though...

There are several roles that the "typical" Japanese manager has for pitchers, each with their own criteria.

First, there's the starters. Starters are often expected to throw an entire game. If a pitcher has a shutout going, even if he's already thrown 150 pitches, he'll be left in there to finish it more often than not. There have been a few managers who made pitch count a high priority (like Yokohama's Gondoh-kantoku a few years back) who were actually critisized for the lack of complete game pitchers under their rein.

The next role in prestege is the closer. Yokohama's Sasaki (now with Seattle) is often sited as the person responsible for making this a glamor role. A closer is often seen as someone you may only call on for the final three outs (or less). If a closer fails due to coming in in the 8th, no announcer will blame him for the loss. He was brought in too soon.

Then there is the setupper. I think it was Yokohama's Kondoh-kantoku back in the early '90s that made the Morita-Sasaki relay one of the most respected in the era. With Sasaki coming in to close, teams feared that they only had 8 innings to get the lead against Yokohama. With Morita as the setup man, that was pushed back to 7 innings, as Morita was pretty much a one inning man himself.

Next there is the spot reliever. This is where the righty-lefty thing comes to play. The spot reliever is often called in in a pinch with the hope that he can pass the ball on to either the setupper, closer, or middle relief with less of a situation.

Standard middle and long relief (mop up) is where pitchers trying to prove themselves are place. Good for up to three innings, or until his place in the batting order comes around for Central League pitchers, these pitchers just try to look impressive enough to get a better job (starter) in the near future.

It sure did seem like Yokohama used way too many middle/long relievers last season. Yoshimi was perhaps the best thing to come out of that whole mess.

Nonetheless, other than starters' expectations, I don't think that any of the roles are very diffrent from the MLB, are they?

Yakult manager Wakamatsu also tends to like to keep his starter's pitch count on the lowside, though, as was noted, if he has a shutout going, he will leave the starter in longer.

As for Yokohama, their starting pitching was either injured (Miura) or inconsistent (Yoshimi in the early going, Bowers, et al) that you can't blame Mori-kantoku for having to use a lot of relievers, who became more ineffective as the season wore on due to overwork. One interesting development, however, was Domingo Guzman, who was terrible in relief and looks like the second coming of Pedro as a starter. If Holt, Miura, Guzman, and Yoshimi can stay healthy and ring up a good number of quality starts, you'll see the relief innings take a dive. Now who will fill the five hole? Hata? He's a bit young to be throwing 200 innings. Their relief itself is a big question mark. Kizuka proved he doesn't have what it takes to close if Saito says sayonara. So in 2003, you may see the starters overworked and not the relievers. And they can't bring in any more foreign help for the closer's role since they need that spot to get a power foreign bat such as Petagine.