Full Hideki Matsui Stats?

Unfortunatly, I don't know of such a site. The stuff that IBM BIS gives out is greatly wanting, isn't it?

Nonetheless, I can probably whip these up when I get home. (It's my lunch break right now.) I'll post them later, probably with a link to a CSV file so that you can import them into a spread sheet if you wish.

Before I get flooded with requests for full stats for evey player, please keep in mind that I don't really have enough time to do that. Believe me, if I did, it would be done. It is a goal of mine to eventually get all of the players into my database with full statistics, but a long term goal.

One thing that keeps me busy is writing about Pro Yakyu. Of course, if I had more people to write about what's going on in Pro Yakyu, I could retire from writing and concentrate more on data. Are there now enough English sources for Pro Yakyu articles that I can (once again) retire from the writing sceen? (Latham-san had started up when I went into temporary retirement a few years ago, keeping my concious clear. Unfortunatly, his great pages were mearly a stepping stone for a better job to him, so he's no longer a prolific source for Pro Yakyu fans.)

As promised, here are Matsui's career status up to last year.

Year	Team	LastName	FirstName	Age	G	PA	AB	RS	H	2B	3B	HR	TB	RBI	GWRBI	SB	CS	SH	SF	TBB	IBB	HBP	K	GIDP	AVG	SLUG	Err
1993	YG	Matsui	Hideki	19	57	203	184	27	41	9	0	11	83	27		1	0	0	0	17	0	2	50	1	0.223	0.451	1
1994	YG	Matsui	Hideki	20	130	569	503	70	148	23	4	20	239	66		6	3	1	4	57	1	4	101	12	0.294	0.475	5
1995	YG	Matsui	Hideki	21	131	569	501	76	142	31	1	22	241	80	11	9	7	2	2	62	1	2	93	12	0.283	0.481	3
1996	YG	Matsui	Hideki	22	130	569	487	97	153	34	1	38	303	99	13	7	2	0	7	71	1	4	98	5	0.314	0.622	6
1997	YG	Matsui	Hideki	23	135	596	484	93	144	18	0	37	273	103	14	9	3	0	6	100	10	6	84	5	0.298	0.564	7
1998	YG	Matsui	Hideki	24	135	603	487	103	142	24	3	34	274	100	10	3	5	0	4	104	2	8	101	7	0.292	0.563	4
1999	YG	Matsui	Hideki	25	135		471	100	143	24	2	42	297	95		0	4	0	6	93		2	99	3	0.304	0.631	1
2000	YG	Matsui	Hideki	26	135		474	116	150	32	1	42	310	108		5	2	0	7	106		2	108	1	0.316	0.654	2
				8	988		3,591	682	1,063	195	12	246	2,020	678		40	26	3	36	610		30	734	46	0.296	0.563	29

Those fields without totals I didn't have the full data for. The data through 1998 was provided to me from Jim Allen before his ill fated hard disk crash.

You can download the tab delemited version here.

Also, Matsui's OBP and OPS by year:

1993 -- .296 -- .747
1994 -- .368 -- .843
1995 -- .363 -- .844
1996 -- .401 -- 1.023
1997 -- .419 -- .984
1998 -- .421 -- .984
1999 -- .416 -- 1.047
2000 -- .438 -- 1.092
2001 -- .463 -- 1.081
2002 -- .460 -- 1.152

Can you post or give an opinion on Hideki Matsui's defensive skills or possibly his defensive stats? On the NYC Sports Radio show "Mike and the Mad Dog" (WFAN 660AM) it was suggested that the consensus of major league scouts was that Matsui was below average defensively. It would be nice to know if this was true.

Mike

Please see his player profile page.

I knew I'd start getting these requests, so I've gotten all the stats I have for him in that one spot.

There are a few threads here referring to his defense. Please have a look around while you're here. This Google search will give you a lot to choose from.

Here's what I wrote about Matsui's defense in a recent article for GACFF.com:

In the field, Matsui is a capable defender. He's won two Gold Gloves, although the common consensus is that his hitting got him those as much as his defense. Matsui played on turf and Japanese players are not encouraged to dive for balls, so his play is not as flashy as say, Ichiro's, or Darin Erstad's, or Andruw Jones, or Jim Edmond's. But, the thing to remember is that, he can play centerfield. Like all Japanese players, Matsui is very fundamentally sound. He has decent movement, and a good arm. The Yankees will be reluctant to move Bernie Williams to a corner, but defensively Matsui will do fine anywhere in the outfield.

That was a great article. If only you wrote for Peter Gammons, et. al., we wouldn't get so much mis-information yet again from the North American press.

Do you know how long articles stay up at GACFF? I'd like to link to there from Matsui's profile page for the influx of MLB information seekers who are starting to hit this site.

I'm not entirely sure how long they'll stay up. GACFF itself is still only a year and a half old. But, there are still articles from May 2001 up, so I imagine the Matsui article will remain accessible all through this season.

Mike Francesa and Christopher Russo are pretty tough on Hideki Matsui. Until they see him producing some tangible stats.

Hey look, I'm pretty upset at Mike and the Madog. They are already talking about the guy before he even plays. They go by scouts instead of really going by his achievements. I mean, he only made 31 career errors and his percentage is .986. I believe this would make me believe he is a decent outfielder. And isn't he a Gold Glove winner?

Fielding percentage isn't a good way to determine someone's defensive value, which also includes ball judgement, arm strength, and range. Matsui has average speed and an average (though pretty accurate) arm, but he has mediocre ball judgement (Henry Rodriguez is the guy he most reminds me of) and doesn't get to some deep balls other more solid outfielders (and I'm not talking Andruw Jones or Torii Hunter here) would. I would rank him below Manny Ramirez defensively when Manny first came up with Cleveland. Mind you, he isn't as bad as Chili Davis (who I saw with the Angels when he set the record for most errors in a season by an outfielder), but he isn't that big an improvement, either. And he's not a birdbrain like Luis Polonia or
Roger Cedeno and he is better overall with the glove than Jeromy Burnitz, though Jeromy has a better arm.