Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1316: Oh Say Can Yusei

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Mariners signing Yusei Kikuchi, Willians Astudillo’s last 10 days, and Oliver Drake’s latest designation for assignment, and then grade the Hall of Fame’s many choices of in-game artifacts from the 2018 season. After that (44:41), they bring on Kyodo News writer Jim Allen to talk about Kikuchi’s […]

One of my favorite selections from my true collection Yeah, it was just one of my favorite selections from my true collection Oh, oh, oh Hello and welcome to episode 1316 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Ben. Thank you. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year, Ben. Thank you. We are going to talk later on this episode to Jim Allen of the Kyoto News, who's been covering Japanese baseball for quite a long time. He's going to tell us about Yusei Kikuchi and about Yuki Yanagida and some other interesting players, although he will, I think, very carefully avoid mentioning the name Kei Agawa, which you will hear or not hear at one point. name Kei Agawa, which you will hear or not hear at one point. But we want to talk about Kikuchi because he is now the newest Seattle Mariner. And of course, because it's the Mariners and because it's Jerry DePoto, that news had to come out on New Year's Eve, late on New Year's Eve. As many

people were preparing to celebrate, ring in the new year. We got news that the Mariners had made a move. So this was the most stereotypical thing DePoto has done since he made a trade from his hospital bed. But the move itself, it's never that surprising when a Japanese player signs with the Mariners because I believe they have had a Japanese player every year since, I believe it's 1998, something like that, maybe since Sasaki came over. I don't remember if he was the one who started the string, but there has almost always been a surprising for some people. I suppose just because of all the other moves. The Mariners have made this winter. Which largely have made them worse. Although maybe not quite that much worse.

When you really drill down and think about it. Yeah you can think about it. Well how good do you think Justice Sheffield is going to be? How good is Eric Swanson going to be? How good is J.P. Crawford going to be? But what's interesting here. The consensus on Yusuke Kuchi, if there is one, is that he'll be something like a mid-rotation major league starting pitcher. I think he's drawn comparisons to pre-breakout Patrick Corbin, if that makes anyone feel better. I don't know.

But he was a fairly prominent available player and the most prominent available Japanese player this winter. And had the Mariners just gone into the offseason with the team they had, and had they signed Kikuchi, you'd think, oh, well, they're going to be there in the hunt for the wildcard. You know, still not a great team, still not as good as the Astros, maybe not even as good as the Angels or the A's, depending on what you think. But the Mariners plus Kikuchi and plus some sort of hitter, whether that's re-signing Nelson Cruz or just bringing some of the bed, you think, well, that team could still kind of hang around. But now it's interesting timing. Now, maybe Kikuchi

wanted to stay on the West Coast and you figure he's too expensive for the A's and maybe the Dodgers just aren't interested in adding another starting pitcher because they have so many. And then, you know, you've got the Padres who still aren't very good, the Mariners who still aren't interested in adding another starting pitcher because they have so many and then you know you've got the the Padres who still aren't very good the Mariners who still aren't very good the Giants who aren't very good and then you have whatever it is that the Angels are doing I don't know where they were in this but you know Otani they already have Otani but Kikuchi it's surprising to see Kikuchi end up on the team that is trying to basically intentionally taking a step back and not planning to be good in the short term. But I guess if you are Kikuchi or really any other player in a circumstance, you're coming over and thinking

maybe less about I'm going to win a championship right away and more about I'm going to prove that I can actually be good right away. And Kikuchi is going to get that opportunity because there are, you might know this, there's a lot of open spots in the Seattle Mariners starting rotation. Yeah, right. So the contract itself is pretty interesting. It is, I guess, similar in some ways to the Jake Arrieta Phillies contract, which was also a Boris deal last year, but there's a lot of flexibility in it, or there are kind of these contingencies that can happen. So he's going to earn $43 million over the first three years. And then at that point, the Mariners can choose to extend him for $66 million from 2022 to 2025. And if they do that, that would make the contract a seven-year $109 million deal. If they don't exercise the four-year

extension, then he can opt to exercise a player option for 2022 that would pay him $13 million. And I'm reading this from John Heyman's reporting on MLB Trade Rumors. So it's hard to say exactly what this will end up looking like, but we've seen a trend toward contracts where it's harder to analyze exactly what the contract is because we won't find out for years how long the player will actually be there or what he will end up netting from this so any thoughts on the structure or size of the deal it's fun and and we'll we'll talk to jim allen a little bit later and he'll say he was surprised that there wasn't some statement that came out saying that oh some team found something in the mri and so therefore the contract is going to be heavily incentivized

or whatever like the kentamayada contract and and given all the contract is going to be heavily incentivized or whatever like the Kintamae had a contract and and given all the talk about Kikuchi's shoulder that would have been easy to I don't know expect but now on the one hand the team that won the sweepstakes to sign Kikuchi is going to be the team that is least concerned about risk I guess and the Mariners have already traded away so much future money well now they have a long-term commitment but if you try to break it down there's a very narrow band of outcomes where I think the Mariners wouldn't extend the four extra years. If Kikuchi is really good, then the Mariners will presumably say, well, here's four more years and a high salary because you are good and you've earned it. So

the Mariners have the upside here is protected from the Mariners standpoint, because if Kikuchi is great, then they get to keep him. If Kikuchi is very bad, then they'll get to the end of three years. The Mariners will say, well, we're not going to extend you. You're bad. And then Kikuchi will say, OK, but I'm going to bill you 13 million dollars good enough to get extended the four years, but is good enough to hit free agency. I think he could do better than that $13 million he would have coming his way four years down the road. So it's fun to think about.

There's a good amount of protection for the Mariners. But again, the big uncertainty here is whether the shoulder is going to hold up to say nothing of, I guess, the quality of the pitches. But this could end up being, I don't know, have you seen any reporting yet on how the posting fee for this kind of contract is calculated now? Because it's unclear to me how exactly this is treated for the MPB's perspective. Yeah, that's a good question because it's a percentage of the contract now, right? So it's hard to say what the contract will end up being. So it's hard to calculate a percentage. That is a good question.

But I do not know the answer to that question. But yeah, I mean, Kikuchi is what? He's only 27 years old. And the Mariners intend to be good within the first four years of his contract, let alone the seven that it might end up being. So it makes sense in that way. You don't always have to just sign a player when you are ready to be good again. We know that the Mariners seem to be targeting what 2021 is kind of what DePoto has said. So if that's the target, Kukuchi, Koto has said. So if that's the target, Kikuchi, if his shoulder holds up, would still be productive at that time. So sometimes it makes sense to buy early when a guy is available and you know he's

not going to be available later and you need pitching as much as the Mariners do. So I don't think it's inconsistent with the other moves that they've made. Yeah, they've spent a lot of time targeting players who are, if not close to the majors, like an Eric Swanson or a Justin Sheffield, players who are just already in the majors, someone like an Omar Narvaez or a Malik Smith or Domingo Santana, players who have multiple years of control left, but who aren't necessarily prospects. They're already there. And so in a sense, I think this is mostly a full rebuild from the Mariners standpoint standpoint but it's also a rebuild where they have opted to to try to i think we've talked about skip skip the the middle stage

of just being dreadful and it will be interesting to see if that works because it would be kind of a i think a preferred new sort of tanking if you will because it wouldn't necessarily really be tanking and it would be i think better for the health of the game if you will because it wouldn't necessarily really be tanking and it would be i think better for the health of the game if teams are able to sort of rebuild quicker and you don't have to worry so much about that like five-year process that that team's talking about so it'll be interesting to see if it works i i can't promise that it's going to work for a variety of reasons that they have to do with more things than just the players on the roster there's player development and other considerations to to maintain but it is interesting now that the

mariners are going to move forward and they will presumably be better than the rangers in that division and i don't know you you look at the team and this is a team that's traded away a lot of talent but it hasn't become i don't think it's become like a dreadful baseball team. So at least for the first time in a while, Mariners fans, well, for what, the 18th time in 18 years, Mariners fans will watch a Mariners team that doesn't go to the playoffs. But for the first time in a while, I think you'll be able to watch a Mariners team and think, oh, there's actually something to have hope for that we can watch for this season and the season after that and the season after that because for so long it's felt like oh we're just trying to scrape by while while we can before we drive off the cliff and at least they have reshuffled which is cool so one bit of banter that i think we have to include there was some news about former effectively wild guest oliver

drake oliver drake just couldn't get out of 2018 without one more designation for assignment. So December 30th, the Blue Jays DFA'd him, and that was as a result of what the Clayton Richard signing, and he was the odd man out. And we had Oliver on episode 1304, fun interview, you can go back and listen to it, less than a month ago. on episode 1304, fun interview, you can go back and listen to it, less than a month ago, we were all hoping that the musical chairs that teams had been playing with him all year had finally come to a stop. But no, he was DFA'd for the seventh and final time in 2018. We don't know yet where he will end up. He will end up somewhere, but hopefully he just got it out of his system and and it's all behind him and this will not follow him into 2019 but man i thought maybe it was over but it was not over and i guess in keeping with old themes because it's been a little while i wasn't paying a whole

lot of attention to baseball during the holiday break but i will say i don't know if you've noticed but i have noticed if you go to williams estadio's page on mlb.com and you look at his last 10 days in the venezuelan winter league he's batted 41 times and he has 14 hits he's batted 341 he has two walks zero strikeouts and five home runs williams estadio five home runs in the last week and a half. He's up to 10 in the winter. I think, I don't know exactly where that puts him in the leaderboard, but last I checked, the leader was Delman Young, who was leading with 16. So Williams-Estadillo, who we love for his opposite of three true outcomes, basically the zero true outcomes,

he is second in the Venezuelan winter ball in home runs. Delman Young now is 19. Williams-Estadio is 10. Nobody else has more than seven. So Estadio turning into a one true outcome kind of player. Yeah. One more thing I wanted to say about Drake before we get to Jim. He got into the Hall of Fame, which is the one silver lining of this ordeal he has been through here. There was an interesting tweet that was posted by John

Shestakovsky, who is the VP of Communications and Education for the Baseball Hall of Fame. And he had a list of all of the artifacts, the game-used artifacts from the 2018 MLB season that will be preserved at the Baseball Hall of Fame. And one of those is the Twins cap worn by Oliver Drake on August 28th when he appeared for his record fifth team of the season. So Oliver Drake is in the Hall of Fame or something he wore is in the Hall of Fame. I don't know if it's on display or if it's just stuck in an archive somewhere, but at least he's you know forever the answer to that trivia question and now he's got something in the hall and i wanted to just assess how hall worthy you think the other items that were preserved here are like if you were the person who tasked with getting game used

artifacts from the 2018 season give me like scale 1 to 10 how eager you would be to acquire each of the following items. Alright, here we go. The cap worn by the Angels' Shohei Otani when he made his big league pitching debut on April 1st along with a batting helmet, shin guard, and elbow guard worn during the 2018 season. 8 out of 10.

Yeah, that's, yeah, gotta get something from Otani. Alright. The cap worn by the Rangers' Adrian Beltre on April 5th when he recorded career hit number 10 yeah that's yeah gotta get something from otani all right the cap worn by the rangers adrian beltray on april 5th when he recorded career hit number 3054 passing rod crew on the all-time list for latin american players i guess also added 10 maybe seven and a half out of 10 yeah definitely up there all right the batting helmet worn by the twins joe mauer when he recorded his 2000th career hit on April 12th. Five and a half out of ten. Yeah, okay.

These kind of go together. The Spikes worn by the Orioles' Adam Jones to celebrate Jackie Robinson Day on April 15th, and Spikes honoring Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby worn by the Blue Jays' Curtis Granderson on April 17th. Individually, that's like a seven out of ten, but they celebrate and observe jackie

robinson day every season right so now granted i i'm not looking at these spikes so they were should i should i look them up so there's presumably something special yeah but i mean you there must be okay okay so there's a these are a baseball hall link here baseballhall.org slash discover slash shortstop slash Jones. I'm not going to read a URL for Christ's sake. So there is an article written by Kelly Yakabu, part of the shortstop series that is talking about Adam Jones' spikes. honored the 71st anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier to celebrate his legacy Baltimore Orioles. Center fielder Adam Jones wore special cleats that featured not only the date of Robinson's debut,

but also the date of Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. The shoes, which Jones donated to the Hall of Fame, are from Nike's annual Black History Month collection, which celebrates black heritage. The red, black, and green stripe on the back of each shoe represent the Pan-African flag, a movement that encourages solidarity among people of African descent. These shoes salute African-American icons whose bravery and sacrifices opened opportunities for people of color. So it's all good, of course, but I would need to see a list of all of the different items that have been worn in honor of Jackie Robinson Day.

Maybe this year, would there have been a loosening of the restrictions? Could you not wear custom cleats like this before? I don't know exactly where the shoe conversation is in the game, but I know they've had their meetings. Yes, right. Yeah, you're right. It does kind of depend on whether this is one of the better artifacts from a Jackie Robinson Day

or whether they already have 50 of them from previous Jackie Robinson Days. Anyway, there's no harm in acquiring another one, right? Why wouldn't you want that? And let me, before you advance, I just want to make sure that I didn't want to sound too down on Joe Maurer, right? Because 2,000 hits, that's like a really good career, especially for at least a player who's a catcher half the time. But it's one thing if it's 3 000 hits right because 3 000 hits is is still a lot of hits but when we are talking about 2000 i'm scrolling i'm scrolling i'm scrolling uh i'm beyond uh peewee reese 2170 hits cecil cooper larry boa

joe carter joe carter 2184 hits billy Hamilton, but not that one, 2,164 hits. I'm still scrolling. There have been 287 players with at least 2,000 Major League hits, and that's good. Bobby Bonilla had 2,010 hits. Jason Giambi had 2,010 hits. Todd Zeal, Sean Green is up there. Brandon Phillips has more than 2,000 career hits,

but do you think Brandon Phillips' cap from his 2 his 2000th hit game is in the hall of fame why why wouldn't it be jack glasscock 2041 hits dixie walker i could just orlando cabrera 2055 hits there was orlando cabrera get something in the hall of fame well yeah that is a good I mean, I guess it is the last season of Joe Maurer. Hopefully Joe Maurer himself will one day be in the Hall of Fame or at least a plaque with his likeness. But what you're saying, I think the fact that his counting stats are not particularly impressive may be something that helps keep him out or helps keep him out for a while. Anyway, it was his last season. I mean, if I were going for artifacts involving Joe Mower from 2018, I would want the glove that he wore for the one pitch that he caught at the end of the season.

But maybe that wasn't up for grabs. Maybe he wanted the glove. So if you can't get the glove, then sure, take the batting helmet. Ian Kinzler is likely to be the next major leaguer to get to his 2000th hit. He's at 1,943 now, and he is going to be starting somewhere for the Padres to open the season. So he's 57 hits away. Will Ian Kinsler get his batting helmet or bat or gloves or anything in the Hall of Fame? I don't know, but he'll have his own kind of, well, I should probably double check this before I say anything, but he'll have his own sort of interesting borderline Hall of Fame case, right?

Just in the same way that Joe Maurer is kind of on the fence. Ian Kinzer has followed that kind of Chase Utley path of just being quietly really good for like a long time. So I don't know. Look for Ian Kinzer to get maybe his like eye black stickers can go to the Hall of Fame. How big is the Hall of Fame? My goodness. My understanding is that there is a lot more stuff stored there that is not on display than is actually on display, and the displays rotate. So presumably this is just in a sub-basement

somewhere. But continuing on, I'm trying not to give away what I think of these artifacts with my tone of voice. I'm just reading it straight down the middle here. The helmet worn by the Brewers' Ryan Braun on April 19th when he reached the 1,000 RBI level for his career. Three. Three out of ten. Yeah, if that. All right. The cap worn by the athletic Sean Minaya and a game-used ball from his April 29th no-hitter.

I think that's pretty standard. So that's an 8 or a 9 out of 10. I would assume the Hall of Fame collects those things. Yeah, probably. All right. The Nationals jersey worn by Bryce Harper when he hit two home runs against the Phillies on May 4th. What?

The only thing keeping that from being a 1 out of 10 is that it is baseball paraphernalia, but that's about it. 2 out of 10. Yeah, that's why I wanted to do this, because there's a great mix of no doubters and then complete doubters. Why do we want Bryce Harper? I don't know. All right. Ball used in May 4th game when four Dodgers pitchers combined for a no-hitter against the Padres in Monterrey, Mexico.

Combined no-hitters are pretty dumb, but that's a, that's a, because it's a no-hitter and that's a story of baseball, it's five out of ten. Okay. The spikes worn by Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrell on May 5th when he recorded his 300th career save in fewer appearances and save opportunities than any pitcher in history. Whatever. I mean, that's good, I guess. But that's a 5. 5 out of 10. Yeah, all right.

The cap worn by the Mets' P.J. Conlon on May 7th, when he became the first native of Ireland to play in the majors since 1945. Well, now I don't want to, want to upset the Irish listeners to the podcast. I guess that, I mean, there's only so many countries, right? Is Gifton Gopay's cap in the whole thing? Yeah, you would hope that Nevarescus and all those guys, I hope they're in there. Yeah, they should be. So, I mean, based on that, I guess that's fine.

That's a six out of 10. You could get away with not having the cap for an Irishman, but I think that, whatever, you might as well. It's fine. The cap worn by the Mariners' James Paxton when he pitched a no-hitter on May 8th against the Blue Jays. Same as Minaya, 8 or 9 out of 10. Okay. The cap worn by the Rays' Johnny Venters, another effectively wild guest, when he recorded his first win of the season on May 15th after missing five seasons due to three tommy john surgeries no that sucks first game back not first win what a waste yeah you want if you're going to commemorate it they've actually reduced the value of the item because they waited for some arbitrary bullshit achievement instead of just being like oh

look he pitched in the major leagues so that's a that's a three and a half out of ten. They should have had the ligaments that were replaced. That would be if they could collect some body parts of Johnny Betches. That would be one out of ten. What if they had a UCL wing and it was just like a bunch of boxes of all the shredded UCLs that were removed from pitchers? Yeah, that'd be great. All right. Yeah, that'd be great. All right. The dugout lineup card from the May 19th Rays versus Angels game when Sergio Romo started his first career game after 588 relief appearances. This is one where I don't think that we can actually know how worthwhile it is for the Hall of Fame until we see what the opener does over the next five years. If this basically goes away or just remains a fringe strategy, it's not a Hall of Fame quality at all.

But if it does change the game, then I think it's a great item. I think that's one of the ones that the Veterans Committee should elect. This lineup card is the one that we want in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, might as well stash it away just in case it turns out to be significant. And even if it doesn't, Romo was like the longest. He was like the most relief appearances made before a start or something like that. So it's not the funnest fact, but it's something. All right.

Bat used by 2018 MLB Futures game MVP and Reds prospect Taylor Trammell. That's it? Just bat? That's it, yeah. Bat used by minor league baseball player. Yes. Two out of ten. Futures Game MVP.

Get out of here. All right. The cap worn by the Red Sox Chris Sale when he started the All-Star game for the third straight season, tying a record set by Lefty Gomez and matched by Robin Roberts. Ooh, tying a record. Very sexy. Three out of ten. Two out Roberts. Ooh, tying a record. Very sexy. Three out of ten. Two out of ten.

Two out of ten. Not three. I'd go higher than that. If I go to the Hall of Fame, I see a hat worn by a guy who tied a record of some other thing because he was able. Tied a record set by two other Hall of Famers, for what it's worth. Yeah, great.

But still, that doesn't mean anything to me. It's starting an All-Star game. Get your head out of your ass. You're a small Hall guy when it comes to artifacts, I think. Big Hall guy with players, small Hall guy with artifacts. The bat used by the Astros' Alex Bregman in the All-Star game when he hit his 10th inning homer that powered the American League to victory

and won him the game's Most Valuable Player Award. Wow, All-Star game. I just couldn't. The two All-Star game items are going to the Hall of Fame. Two All-Star game items. The game that everybody cares about the least. The game that has literally no stakes anymore. They have taken the stakes away because the whole concept and premise was stupid. Two out of ten. Get it out of there. We're not done with All-Star game artifacts.

Car you see or hits? Number three, the final one the ball hit by the reds scooter jeanette for for the seventh homer in the all-star game setting a new all-star game record for most homers by both teams in a single all-star game just burn the storage shed down don't keep any of this all right the bat used by the cardinals matt carpenter when how many items are going to the hall of fame quite a few as it turns out the bat used by the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter when he hit... How many items are going to the Hall of Fame? Quite a few, as it turns out. The bat used by the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter when he hit two doubles and three homers and drove in seven runs July 20th against the Cubs.

That's a good game, I guess. Good game. I mean, I don't know how historically relevant... Because it's not a four-homer game, which is already, it's cool. You should have something from a four-homer game, but a three-homer, five-extra-base-hit game? Same number of total bases. Yeah, no. I mean, that's a good game, but does every really, really good game get an item in the Hall of Fame? Maybe it does.

Is this just like some sort of sprawling, complex? Is there a Cooperstown anymore, or is it all just within the Cooper of Fame? Maybe it does. Is this just like some sort of sprawling complex? Is there a Cooperstown anymore? Is it all just within the Cooperstown Hall of Fame walls? But all right. The bat used by the Angels' Francisco Arcia on July 28th when he drove in six runs in his second big league game, giving him a record 10 RBI in his first two big league games. One and a half out of 10. Okay. Yeah. Some of these are like entering just bad fun fact territory. The cap worn by the Rangers' Bartol Colon on August 7th when he won his 246th game,

passing Dennis Martinez for first place on the wins list among Latin American-born pitchers. Now, this is sort of in the same category as the first player from Ireland, so I'll put it pretty high out there because that's a notable achievement. But now, just pull that Dennis Martinez crap from the shelves. It's not worth anything anymore. Right, yeah. Just toss that. Broken bat with a unique tapered handle used by the Mets' Jeff McNeil on August 15th. Wait, that's it?

That's it. Tapered handle, broken bat, implying bat did not succeed in being a good bat to use. Right. One out of ten. Okay. The bat used by the Blue Jays' Kendris morales to hit two home runs against the orioles on august 20th the second of seven straight games where you hit a home run uh i was i wasn't with you until the end seven straight games of the home run that's that's pretty remarkable you have to figure is the bat the right item to submit in that case because you kind of want something that

encompasses all of it right well yeah if you could get a ball, what could it... Like if you were wearing the same jersey the whole time, you mean, or something? Like maybe... So it was over the course of like seven days, right? Seven days, seven games, something like that, seven or eight days. If you could like... So his hair would have grown over the course of those seven or eight days. So if you cut off like some fraction of his hair that would encompass, I think, the length

of the home run streak, then you can be like, this is the hair that Kendris Murray... Well, I guess you'd have to actually cut out from the bottom because the new hair is what you're going for. You want the new hair that's coming out of the skin. So you have to cut... The hair of lucky underwear that he wore that entire week because he doesn't take them off when

he hits a homer, maybe? Yeah, right. The piece of spinach caught in his molars just put that in the whole thing okay the players weekend jersey worn you're still going you know what there are too many of these we probably should just stop i've enjoyed this but there are a lot of keep going okay all right the players weekend jersey worn on august 25th to 26th by the Diamondbacks' Brad Boxberger, who selected emojis featuring a box and a burger on the back of his jersey as his nickname. That's ridiculous. Four out of ten.

Okay. The jersey worn by Michael Gibbons on September 18th that featured Braille lettering as the Orioles celebrated the National Federation for the Blind. I like that. Six and a half out of ten. Okay. The jersey worn by the Rays' Blake Snell on September 23rd when he set a new franchise record with his 21st win of the season. Nope, don't care.

That's two. That's two out of ten. Yeah. Okay. A jersey worn by Nationals' Juan Soto during his notable rookie season. That's good. That's it. I mean, he didn't even win.

He didn't win the rookie of the year yeah he did do some things that were unique for rookie like didn't he have like the most walks by a rookie or like the best walk to strikeout ratio like he had really historically great like plate discipline for a rookie so if you could get like his eyes or something in the exhibit or uh i don't know something pertaining to that maybe just a jersey worn i mean whatever he was he's a great rookie and will probably be a great player so like his rookie jersey will be valuable someday maybe like the hall of fame is just in in the memorabilia speculation business here. That's what this is. All right. Oh, man, this one.

All right. A bat used by Cubs all-star Javi Baez during the 2018 season in which he became the fourth primary second baseman in Major League history to have a season with both 34 or more homers and 111 or more rbi that sucks i tried to read that with a straight face but i couldn't do it you send that bat back and you send it with a threatening letter that says if you send us any more nonsense from your stupid baseball fun fact season then we're just going to burn the stadium down oh that is such an unfun fact. The fourth, fourth, all right, first of all, it's the fourth,

which is never good. It's the fourth to do something. Primary second baseman, so you know you're probably excluding someone who played like 49% of his games at second base or something. And then both 34 or more homers

and 111 or more RBI. The magic 34-111 season. i hate that you said those words to me a jersey worn by philly's all-star pitcher aaron nola on september 29th a jersey a jersey worn by nola just a thing worn by a good player during a season yep one out of ten. I don't care. Do people go into Hall of Fame and be like, I don't know what a baseball jersey looks like? There's jerseys everywhere. This fit the criteria? Maybe he set a record for the number of jerseys

worn in a game or something. Maybe he wore a different jersey every inning and they wanted one of them. I don't know. The spikes worn by Indians pitcher Mike Clevenger On September 22nd When he reached the 200 strikeout mark For the season

Giving the Indians a record four pitchers With 200 strikeouts on the year Two and a half Yeah I mean If you could get the ball That was the 200 strikeout It's one of those records that like Three years from now every team will have Four 200 strikeout It's one of those records that like Three years from now every team will have

Four 200 strikeout pitchers so It won't be so special Alright the spikes worn by Reds First baseman Joey Votto on September 30th His final game of a season where he Finished the year with an NL best 417 On base percentage But somebody finishes with the best

On base percentage every season Usually Joey Votto. Do you want to just read me a list of items that aren't going to the Hall of Fame? Yeah. This was, let's see, this was the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8th time, I think. No, 7th time that Joey Votto led the league on base percentage. I doubt that's a record. I don't know if all of his spikes from those seasons are

in the hall of fame but yeah i i don't know i mean okay so hold on it was it was spikes it was spikes right vato spikes okay so they're joey game worn spikes by joey vato in the season in which he led the nl the nl not even the main the nl and obb put that on ebay and you know it'll it'll go for more right because it's like game worn by a great player so that means something maybe that'll go for it i don't know i haven't been on ebay in a while 250 maybe more but like where would be your hall of fame threshold because should it be like would people build a thousand dollars ten thousand dollars like what right these are just spikes historical significance would not always be perfectly correlated with value, but usually it would.

So, yeah, that doesn't clear the threshold for me. Do you think anybody would buy Chris Sale's third straight All-Star Game Start hat for more than maybe double the price of what a hat would normally go for? A hat goes for. It's probably all sweaty and gross so you can't even wear it all right the jersey worn by 2018 mlb home run leader chris davis of the athletics on september 24th when he hit his 44th and 45th homers of the season including a walk-off in the 10th inning i'd rather have a bat by the other chris davis in this season that's a more notable season yeah if you're gonna have a chris davis artifact you have to have like his

final hit to get the the 247 batting that's the one i mean that's the one that's what you want you did 24.7 of his final bet yeah batting helmet worn by the mets david wright in his final game on september 29th uh that's that's fine six or seven six and a half or seven out of ten it was a nice game nice moment good player yeah the bat used by the braves ronald acuna on october 7th when he became the youngest player in history to hit a postseason grand slam wait why does david wright get a last game item but joe mauer just got a shitty 2000 hit item he played his last game too he caught right yeah why did he get jobbed here i don't know i guess they thought milestone

was better milestone trump's last game i don't know i just know yeah and obviously it was since what they're clearly not drawing like firm lines where they're like well we couldn't possibly accept another item to anyway you said acuna a bat grand slam yeah youngest player in history to hit a postseason grand slam the bat he used to do it yeah all right christian yellich's batting gloves and spikes from the cycles recorded by the brewers outfielder against the reds on august 29th and september 17th why the gloves and the spikes that's a good question i don't know i guess if he was willing to give you both you take him cycles are silly but he was was he he was the first guy to have two cycles in a season. I don't even remember if he was because who cares, but I think maybe he was.

I mean, I don't know. I don't care about cycles, but it is kind of like a fun baseball novelty, so five. Sure. All right. We're almost there. The jersey worn by the Rockies' Trevor Story on September 30th and October 7th during a season when he led the National League with 85 extra base hits. That's... Let's go to the next one.

That's a one. That's a definition of a one. That's a definition of a one. Jersey worn by the Dodgers Hyunjin Ryu in Game 2 of the 2018 World Series, who became the first Korean-born pitcher to start a World Series game. Crap. Okay, so I already opened the door to these nationalistic items. Great.

Countries of origin, it's important. But then there's going to be a first everything from players from different countries. So you have to draw some lines. Well,'s a five it's fine okay all right jersey worn by the red socks david price during world series game five when the left-hander picked up the win in the series clinching game no no you want the you want the ball that ended it's always the ball or the bat that like hits the hit but you don't just get a thing from david price because the red sox won the world series you get the ball that clinched the series i agree yeah i mean david price was a very meaningful figure in that series and his

redemption story was part of the narrative so it would probably be a valuable item if you were to sell it. But for the haul, eh, all right. Bat used by World Series MVP Steve Pearce in Game 4 when he homered for the Red Sox in a 9-6 victory. I guess it's just all fives now. Like World Series is great, I guess. There's going to be turning points in every World Series. Somebody has to win it. It's a five, but you you know you're you're going through the hall of fame you're like oh we have to go into this room and i'm like oh what's what's

featuring that room there's like a david price thing is steve pierce thing it's like oh but there's not it's not like the a ticket from the first baseball game or like i don't know like somebody's blood that they like bled like kurt schiller sock like i would yeah you know what it would be interesting just like body parts that go to you know just like and submitted in this list is like a real cabrera's leg yeah yeah or maybe somebody's dead relics of a saint where you'd carry around like a finger bone of a saint and venerate it forever something like that that'd be right yeah yeah yeah okay all Alright would this make you walk into The 2018 World Series display room

Glasses worn by Red Sox reliever Joe Kelly In World Series Game 5 Sucks That's less than a 1 That's a 0 out of 10 Doesn't even qualify Cap and spikes worn by Red Sox pitcher Nathan Ivaldi

During the World Series qualify cap and spikes worn by red sox pitcher nathan ivaldi during the world series it doesn't even specify that it's during the game the the of all the game like if it were during game three it's probably like a off-brand like he was just wearing it in the dugout during game two or something i don't know but but i know that it was nathan yovaldi only in the world i know he pitched in three games in the world series and i know that game three was like heroic and whatever but also he was the losing pitcher in the game he threw the pitch that won the only game that the dodgers won so i know that nathan yoovaldi was like a fun October story and he threw two important innings of relief in games one and two, but no, no, that doesn't belong. It doesn't, yeah, it doesn't go. Well, how about this one? That used by Red Sox infielder Eduardo Nunez

during the 2018 season. Does that even get a zero? Can we vote on the people in charge of the Hall of Fame? How long do you have to be in the BBWA before we can put this to a stop? Is this like some sort of speed bus? And they're like, if we don't stop collecting baseball bats, the Hall of Fame is going to explode.

A bat used by terrible player Eduardo Nunez during the season. Not even during the World Series. Just during the season. Eduardo Nunez this season had an on-base percentage of 289. He slugged 388. He was one of the worst players on the Red Sox. Their worst offensive

regular, but for Sandy Leone. And his bat is in the Hall of Fame. His bat, not J.D. Martinez, not Mookie Betts, not Andrewd martinez not mookie betts not andrew benintendi not xander bogarts not rafael devers not jackie bradley jr not hamley ramirez not steve pierce not mitch morland eduardo nunez is setting a bat to the Hall of Fame. Yep. I think either the other players weren't willing to part with bats

and Eduardo Nunez was like, yeah, why would I even want one of those bats that didn't serve me very well? Or maybe there's just like a Red Sox fan at the Hall of Fame who's just compulsively collecting Red Sox. I tell you what, look, the Eduardo Nunez bat can go

if Jim Rice is out of the Hall of Fame. That's the negotiation I'm willing to make. All right. Three more. Three more? Yeah. These are not like in descending order of desirability. So the next ones are not worse than Eduardo Nunez's bat.

But all right. Ball strike indicator used by home plate umpire Ted Barrett during World Series Game 3, the longest game in World Series history. Ball strike indicator? Like just the little thing he presses? The clicker that he holds to keep track of the count. Yeah. Okay. If you put that, okay, you put that item up in a box and it doesn't have a placard or like an explanation and somebody walks through the wing and they look in the glass case and they're like oh it's like a thing with two buttons yeah you don't even know what it is

that's the best indicator they can come up with from the longest game a clicker what what would you want from that game i guess maybe you could want the like the ball that ian kinsler bobbled to extend the game or something then you get your ian kinsler artifact as well i don't know see what what you do is you have the game from start to finish, full commercial breaks, and when you go in the room, the game starts to play and the door locks behind you. That is the exhibit. Right. It's like those 15-minute videos that show at museums and people just cycle in and out

and watch them, except it's seven hours and 20 minutes and you can't leave all right batting helmet and batting gloves used by the red sox brock holt throughout the postseason including on october 8th when he became the first player to hit for the cycle in a postseason game what are we doing here brock holt andolt and Eduardo Nunez both just get assorted things in the Hall of Fame for having been Red Sox. Yeah. We're doing the cycle thing again? We're doing the cycle thing. All right.

Last one. Hoodie worn by Red Sox manager Alex Cora during the World Series. Are they even supposed to wear hoodies? I guess it's probably allowed. It's got to be allowed now because they all have their slogans. Terry Francona used to get in trouble Is that, I guess it's probably allowed, it's gotta be allowed now because they all have their slogans. Terry Francona used to get in trouble for that, didn't he? I don't know. Yeah.

It's just a hoodie. It's just a hoodie. I don't what, in what visit to a museum are you like, you know what would make this complete? Seeing a red sweatshirt worn by a man who oversaw players who won the World Series. Yeah. It's nothing happened.

There's nothing about the, no, that's Jim Race now goes to prison. So he's out of the Hall of Fame. He goes to prison and then you get the Nunez bat and the Cora sweatshirt. Oh boy. Well, that could have been a whole episode. I didn't realize how long that would take and how many things there were, but that was fun. All right. Do that again next year. Yeah. I don't know if there have been lists for previous years. I hope so. But weird omissions from this list. Maybe there are things that were not there,

but like nothing from like Jacob deGrom or like the Yankees breaking the single season home run record or something. But we've got the Eduardo Nunez bat. Not a Mike Trout element anywhere. Nothing from J.D. Martinez. We got everyone else on the Red Sox, not Mookie, the MVP of the season. Oh, man.

No, Verlander? No. This is just what a crap assortment of items. Lots of not-so-cool items. Anyway, scattershot approach there. All right, so we will now take a quick break, and we will be right back With Jim Allen to talk about

Kikuchi and Otani And other Japanese players of note A bat used by Eduardo Nunez This season In which he was a terrible player In the Hall of Fame Unbelievable

Unbelievable player in the Hall of Fame. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Like I love you And if you feel like talking Talk away I'm gonna hang on Every word you say All right, so we have the pleasure to be joined now by one of the foremost, certainly, English language authorities on Japanese baseball, Jim Allen, who covers Japanese baseball for the Kyoto News and has been writing about NPV for decades. And I believe this is the first time we've had him on very belatedly. So, Jim, welcome. Oh, well, thank you for having me. I love the show.

Thank you. I can't always remember which shows I've been on and which shows I haven't been on, so I think you're right, though. How did we not have you on during the Shohei Otani sweepstakes when that's all... Yeah, I think that was whether it was divine. I don't know what. It was sort of like I was out in the wilderness and proud to be out in the wilderness as much as I tried to self-publicize. Well, now you are on the, you say, Kikuchi speaking tour. You are writing about him. You are talking about him. And that is primarily what we have brought you on to talk about today. So for people who don't know, give us a little primer

on Kikuchi. You've been watching him for years. You've seen his whole career. What should we know about his recent performance and just his origin story and how he got to this point? Yeah, his origin story is interesting. He was a hard-throwing, left-handed kid in northeastern Japan. He took his junior high school team to the national semifinals, which is not really a thing in Japan. The high school finals are, but the junior high school finals are not. But he went to a local high school, which is now quite famous as the school that Shohei Otani went to. And he was basically a very, very hard thrower. He helped put that school on the map. And there was nothing about him that screamed, I'm going to be a future major league

talent, other than the fact that he was a left-hander who threw really hard. He's always had these little injury issues in high school, throughout high school. He dealt with lower back issues. And I guess I discovered the other day, or it hadn't occurred to me, that he had been pitching one of his games in high school with a broken rib, which seems to carry a lot of weight in Japan. There are famous stories here about Sadaharu Oh pitching the Koshien final with a blister on his finger, and they eat that stuff up. So that was him. And at some point in high school, he was told that Major League teams were interested in him. And he talked with eight Major League teams, the story goes, and he talked with all 12 Japanese teams. But unlike Shohei

Otani, who said, I don't want to go to NPB. I don't want to play in Japan. I'm going to the majors. He said, I'm not certain if I'm ready for MLB. That meant six teams nominated him in the first round, which is a lottery. And the word is, and I was talking with Jason Cosgrave of the Japan Times the other day. We have no idea what happened, but we've had numerous people tell us that the Lions did something very bad in how they recruited him. He was crying at his press conference when he said he was not going to sign with MLB, but would sign with the Sabre Lions. I have friends who were there, told me this. And it was, you know, so we don't know what happened, but, you know, were they talking to the coaches? Were they saying bad things to his family? Were they throwing money? I don't think they were throwing money around, but that was, you know, something happened. And he did sign with Cebu, and then he had a very kind of troubled first few years. He was the most popular new player in Japan.

was the most popular new player in Japan. And he tried to change his form. And this is a repeated thing with him. He changed his form. He went from three quarters to more overhand. He barely pitched his first year. He had some pain in his shoulder that first year. And it was sort of like every year there was like, what's wrong with Yusei Kikuchi? And then I guess the big thing happened in his third year. His manager balled him out after a game for saying, you know, this isn't kindergarten because he'd gone to the mound with a twinge in his shoulder where he'd hurt in high school and had to come out of the game early and he missed most of the rest of the season. And from there, he became, you know, he was sort of this poster child of the immature professional who never grows up and never goes anywhere. And from there, he just completely

changed. And every year, he got better and better and better. And the last couple of years, he's been Japan's, I guess, dominant strike thrower. he throws his fastball in the strike zone. He's got great command. Well, command, less command and more location. He locates his fastball and his slider really, really, really well. He dominates at bats. He gets, he throws it in the zone and then when he wants to get people to chase, he throws it out of the zone and they chase. It's really, it's like a sabermetrician's sort of fantasy. I know when Kenta Maeda came over and signed with the Dodgers, enough people indicated that his medicals were so bad that he was signed to a low base salary contract with a lot of incentives.

And now we've seen Yusei Kikuchi's contract now with the Mariners. It's an interesting structure, but it's not structured quite like Maeda's. But one of the big questions for the past couple years with Kikuchi was regarding the the health of his shoulder so given that he has pretty good location he's got a good fastball he's got a good slider it seems like maybe the big question is going to be whether he can pitch 150 to 180 innings a season so do you have any sort of update or current evaluation of the health of Yusei Kikuchi's left shoulder? No, I don't. He hasn't had any, well, let's see, I guess this last year was shoulder stiffness. I don't know if they pick a description out of the book every year. This

year it's this and this year it's that. It wasn't long. He wasn't out long. They called it fatigue at first. I know this year he was going through a lot of iterations on his form, how he had been flagged for illegal pitches. For some reason, the umpires didn't like the way he changed that front leg pump that they do in Japan. And he was trying to do that. I know he was working with pitch consultants to modify his pitches. And he was doing lots of different things this year, almost as I don't want to say NPB was an afterthought, but it seems like it. His primary goal going into the season was to go to MLB in 2019. But as far as his health goes, I haven't heard anything other than what Scott Boris tells me. Right. Always reliable. And his performance as he was doing that tinkering was not quite at

the level of his previous year. I mean, he was still really effective, good starting pitcher, but not as he had been prior to that, right? Well, he did take a step back. 2017 was his career year. And I know Frank Herman, who pitched for the Rock 10 Eagles last year, said that he should have gone after last season. And Frank's smarter than I am, so I don't want to gainsay him. But, you know, who knows? I don't know if, I don't know what the issue was, why he took a step back. He pitched, you know, I was, it occurred to me that he might have thrown more games against the team that he beats like a drum, the Eagles, and fewer games last year against the Hawks, who he has sort of a mortal terror of. I don't know. You wrote not too long ago that this season Kikuchi tried out a two-seam fastball

because it was a pitch that was considered effective against Japanese competition. But at the same time, you also wrote and then you also just said a few minutes ago that Kikuchi was working on modifying his pitches and making himself more major league prepared for this past season. So while you don't want to say that his full-time job was the afterthought, is there a difference in your estimation between pitching such that you will be better against major leaguers and pitching such that you will be better in Japan? You know, that's a good question, and I wonder about it. But I talked to all the Japanese

players who go over, and they are very about the adjustments they make. And I don't have a, I'm still trying to get a handle on this, but there's a whole subset of players in Japan that really doesn't exist in the major leagues, except for a very few. It's a very tiny population in the U.S., which are these guys, mostly left-handed hitters who basically just try to poke the ball to the opposite field and are up there to make contact. You have to learn to deal with them in a sort of a different way. And I don't know what it is about that. It's still sort of a thought in progress, a work in progress. But all the pitchers who come here have to deal with that. And I wonder if, and then conversely, when the Japanese guys to America, they have to deal with that. And I wonder if, and then conversely, when the Japanese guys to

America, they have to deal with hitters who want to drive the ball over the fence pretty much anywhere in the lineup, any part of the game. There's no fixed part where they can say, oh, this guy's just, he's not going to take me deep so I can throw it in the middle of the zone. So there's a mindset adjustment that pretty much everybody's aware of. And it wouldn't surprise me if he was up there trying to think everybody's a major league hitter this year. I don't know that's true. That's just speculation on my part. But there is a mental adjustment. The two-seam fastball did not work.

My guy told me it was basically because he throws three-quarter and he couldn't quite get the hang of it. And he only threw like 10 of them in-game. And what would you say are the greatest differences in pitching style? You just touched on some of them, and obviously the velocity is generally a little bit lower. But in terms of pitch types, for instance, what tends to be thrown much more there than here? And has that changed at all over the years that you've been covering the game, than here? And has that changed at all over the years that you've been covering the game as it's been easier to watch MLB for people in Japan? And as it's become more common for Japanese players to come to the majors, has there been any shift or any convergence between the two?

Yeah, that's a good question. The curveballs, I think there is. I think it's becoming more so because more of the teams are going to taller, harder mounds. Takashi Saito, who was a closer briefly for the Los Angeles Dodgers, told me that the big difference in Japan was the irregular mounds. Some mounds, like Koshien in the Osaka area is famous for having a low soft mound that makes it very hard to throw a two-seam fastball. He implied that Japanese pitchers are shorter, making the two-seam fastball flatten out a little bit more. I don't know if that's a thing or not, but more and more the Japanese teams, as they modify their mounds, they're going more to a closer to a major league style mound, although the soil will tend to be softer. So that's probably the big thing. Ball is a little different, and that it makes it harder to throw a two-seam fastball

because the ball is tackier and doesn't run as much, so they don't get the movement. Even if you know how to throw it, Hiroki Kuroda had to change a lot of things to even get something that looked like a modified version of the two-seamer he threw in America. So there is a convergence. I think players, more and more guys, are throwing two-seam fastballs here, but it's a... what's the word I'm looking for? There's not a lot of... it's not a very efficient use of your time to practice when the pitch is fighting you. So still the bread and butter here is fastball, slider, curveball, split. Changes are becoming fairly common. I guess that's probably the closest thing

to a convergence with MLB is the frequency with which you see change-ups because that used to be pretty rare with kikuchi you had said before that he was brought this up before but you you mentioned that he was modifying his pitches and in an article that you wrote just last week that was published just last week you talked about how kikuchi spent a lot of the year uh consulting with with analysts to work on his mechanics and and he would pour over trackman data to just monitor if not just his pitch movement but also his release point his mechanical consistency with analysts to work on his mechanics, and he would pore over trackman data to just monitor not just his pitch movement, but also his release point, his mechanical consistency. That's something that I'm certain makes him all the more appealing to a major league organization because teams now are just so data-driven over here.

But is his analytical approach still relatively uncommon in Japan, or is there just the existence of an analytical movement in and structure there that just doesn't get so much press over here no it's the former I think when he mentioned track man when I was standing there at the dugout in Chiba last summer you know he could have pulled a banjo out of his back pocket and hit me over the head that would have probably not been any more surprised. But, you know, it's because, you know, the thing in Japan is that, you know, guys, you know,

you throw and you throw and you throw until your arm hurts. You throw until you get it right. You do everything until you get it right. It's practice, practice, practice, practice. It's none of that fancy. I mean, they use data. They use data as a data in Japan is less a corrective tool and more of a prediction. You know, what are the opposing batters looking for? What is the opposing pitcher going to throw me? But as far as using data to modify your form, the people who sell analytic tools in Japan tell me basically they develop them here for Japanese teams and they sell them to major league teams. They've had very little success selling them to Japanese teams. Japanese teams are like, no, we know what we're doing. And then when you talk to Dr. Jinji eventually, you'll hear some interesting stories about that relationship between theory and practice, which is like, you know what you're talking about, but so what? some work in this area and I'll be speaking to them soon. I hope player comps can be reductive.

They can also be somewhat helpful for people who maybe haven't seen a player other than just a few highlights. Is there anyone you would compare Kikuchi to, whether it's another Japanese pitcher who has come to the majors or just another major league pitcher? That's a tough one in the majors. I don't watch enough MLB to know the wide variety. In terms of Japanese pitchers who's gone over, we've had just a handful of lefties, and I don't want to cast pejoratives, so I'll stay away from a couple of those comparisons. But I think Saito Takashi is instructive, although he was older and he had already had serious elbow issues. But when he went to the States, he was fairly aggressive. He adopted that real aggressive manner in the States that had not worked for him really well

in Japan. And I think he was a right-hander, but pretty much a limited repertoire fastball slider. He picked up the two-seamer over there. And of course he was a reliever too at that stage of his career, but that was largely due to his past injury history. So he's the closest I can think of. He's not Yu Darvish with 100 pitches, or Daisuke Matsuzaka or or masahiro tanaka

although he has a he has a potential to be masahiro tanaka because he's basically coming as a guy with two weapons who is always looking for that next thing you know he's always looking to change his delivery adjust something somewhere find something and it wouldn't surprise me if he goes, for example, if his changeup becomes a big pitch for him, or his curveball becomes a big pitch for him. I don't know. But he's in that process, he might become a different pitcher, like Tanaka became a guy who more or less relegated his foreseeing fastball to the junk heap for a couple of years. When word came out that we knew that Kikuchi had a January 2nd deadline to agree to a contract with a major league team, was there anything about the terms of the contract or the fact that he signed with the rebuilding Seattle Mariners that took you by surprise, or was this among the most

predictable outcomes? Wow. I guess the only predictable outcome was because he's a Boris client. And I understand there's a whole dynamic about Japanese going abroad, which is, you know, they basically don't want to admit they're actually going until everybody in America already knows they're going. They don't like to publicize it. And I understand he's been with Boris for actually quite a long time. The only thing I can think of is that it went down to the wire. That was the only predictable part of this. I guess people will say a West Coast team, and I think that's possible. But the contract was interesting. Again, it's a little bit of Maeda. I guess the surprise for me is, despite everything, I still half expected somebody to say something about, oh, we saw something on the shoulder, but more because of the way the market is. And I'm curious about what the larger implications of that are.

Has that affected fandom at all? Japanese fans know that often there is kind of a countdown with some of the top players, that they will be coming over here. Is there a difference in the way that players are perceived based on whether they do come over or not, or whether they have a skill set that might transfer or they don't? Has there been any effect on the quality of competition and the level of talent in the league? Any big, broad takeaways from this massive change that you've witnessed? Interesting, because everybody expected it to be, I mean, Bobby Valentine at probably 10 years ago before he returned with the Lotte Marines, he said that Japanese baseball

was going to become the next Negro Leagues. That hasn't happened. The opposite has happened. That with every player who's gone to the major leagues and done relatively well, there's like four guys who are trying to be better than he was in Japan. There's a number of reasons why there isn't an exodus of amateur talent. And it's partially economic, because the conditions in U.S. minor league baseball are pretty medieval compared. In Japan, you'll get,

if you're on a 70-man roster, you're getting paid about $25,000 a year minimum with room and board. And that's a minimum. Most of the guys make $60,000 coming out of high school. It's really not a rocket scientist decision to stay in Japan. But MLB is trying its best to change that by changing the posting rules. I think Shohei Otani was MLB's worst nightmare. A kid, you know, Japan's top amateur prospect, playing in Japan for four or five years until he was a quality player who was not under MLB control, who could then become a free agent. I think that was one of the things they were really working against and the CBA was

having. I know they say it was all about Cubans, but MLB's former chief counsel told me, basically, these kids, if they want to play in MLB, they should come straight out of high school. They shouldn't go to NPV. What we're getting is more and more kids who want to be in MLB, who want to play in MLB, they should come straight out of high school. They shouldn't go to NPV. What we're getting is more and more kids who want to be in MLB, who want to be good enough to play in MLB, but who play in NPV. And the next guy I guess we're going to see is a first baseman left fielder named Kotaro Kiyomiya. And he's representative of a new group of players who's really big and strong, who have bodies like they'll fit right in in MLB. Otani was like that.

Of course, he was really tall, but we're going to get these kids who lift and who do really, really good weight training at a young age, which is a radical departure in Japan. And there was one pitcher who signed with the Diamondbacks this past year, right? Shunpei Yoshikawa, who was a top prospect and was expected to be a top draft pick, and he just bypassed MPB and signed with Arizona. Was that seen as an indicator of future developments, or was that just an outlier sort of situation? developments, or was that just an outlier sort of situation? That's too early to tell. We've had a few of those. I know Junichi Tozawa set that mark. I think there's still, in Japan, the Olympics hold a lot of weight with potential players. Of course, we've got the Tokyo Olympics coming in two years, and there may be some amateurs who thought, if I go to the majors, I can't play in the Olympics, or I can't play. Also, that anybody who does what Junichi Tozawa did is being banned from the national team, so they can't play in the WBC. So those are issues,

but I think you have to understand free agency is fairly new in Japan. It started just before Hideo Nomo came to America. And they wouldn't, they would not have, they would never have instituted free agency if they had known it was going to be an escape route for guys to go to the majors. They instituted it because they knew, they knew from the bottom of their hearts, just like MLB people knew from the bottom of their hearts, that no Japanese player was good enough to play in the majors. So with that, they instituted free agency. But when free agency started, nobody wanted to move. Everybody thought, you know, the players, my fans are going to hate me, my teammates are going to hate me. And they realized that wasn't true. The fans, you know,

they move on to another team. Their old fans still follow them. They go to the major leagues. Their old fans still support them. They wish them well. That's how Japanese baseball is. It's much less. It's very tribal, but compared to MLB, it's, you know, it's a village. Of course, when, if you go back to 2000 to 2001, when Ichiro first came over and then played for the Mariners, it was just a media circus that followed him everywhere. But that existed in the Nomo days. It existed in the Ichiro days. It existed when Daisuke Matsuzaka came over for his first season.

But now when you have so many Japanese baseball players who are in the major leagues and who are talented, who are successful, how does the media coverage back in Japan get partitioned between the players who are in the majors? Like, does Hirano get his dedicated amount of time? There are a lot of players that Kikuchi will be competing with for attention now, even though he's going to be new to the major leagues. How strong is the buzz, the sensation, back in Japan? Well, I think what happens is that with a starting pitcher,

we know when they're going to start. The relievers get kind of the short shrift of that. Whatever they do is after the fact. There's virtually no news about Koji Uehara when he was hot stuff with Boston. There was pretty much nothing about him between games or between series. Now we get little news of the pitchers talk two days after stuff with Boston. There was pretty much nothing about him between games or between series. Now, we get a little news of the pitchers talk two days after or three days after they start and ahead of the next start. And we get a little bit of that. Otani, it's not a nonstop media circus

for everybody. First of all, there's a limited number of Japanese reporters in America that can send all these teams. And you get guys who are switching from one team to another based on who's pitching, and they've got to call freelancers. It's quite a logistics nightmare. But no, it's pretty much who's the new guy. Our poor guy with the Angels this past year, it was a really long season for him. He was pumping out two, three, four stories a day every time Otani did anything, and then only two stories a day when he did nothing. sensation here. I think it could have been even bigger had he been healthy all year. But I think at least we were of the opinion that he was a success and that he fulfilled the hype and the

potential. And yes, he got hurt, but he demonstrated exactly why we were so excited about him prior to that point. And even after that point, because he kept playing. How was that scene there? Was it seen as him making good on his promise? Was it seen as something of a letdown because he did playing. How was that scene there? Was it seen as him making good on his promise? Was it seen as something of a letdown because he did get hurt? Well, actually, nobody remembers his name now in Japan. He's old news. No, he was pretty much exactly the same. There was still quite a lot of surprise here, as well as he did. I think everybody, of course, here had their fingers crossed. Can he do what we hope him to do? It was a real thrill. I remember I did hear one of your shows in which you said nobody was impressed by his first year and thought he could be a hitter. But I have to raise my hand. I was the one guy who said, and I looked at really something obscure. I looked at, here's an 18-year-old kid in Japan who hit, I think he had more than 10 extra base

hits as an 18-year-old. Now, it may not sound like much, but Japanese pitching is really tough for 18-year-olds to handle because of the quality of the command. And the number of 18-year-olds in Japanese baseball history who've had, let's say, a dozen extra base hits as an 18-year-old is about six. And four of those guys belong in the Hall of Fame. And I thought, there might be something to this. And he managed himself. He was experimenting, and he struck out a lot, and he was blown away a lot. But there were a lot of things right about that season. And I think with the lesson from Shohei Otani year one in Japan was that this is a guy who's going to fail and not get down on himself, which is, I guess, in retrospect, the lesson from Shohei Otani MLB spring training year one.

in retrospect, the lesson from Shohei Otani MLB spring training year one. So I wanted to ask you about one player who is not being posted, and we don't know if we will see him in the majors, but he has become my new favorite Japanese player to peruse his baseball reference page and admire his stats. And that's Yuki Inagata, who I believe you tweeted sometime recently. He has led his league in both slugging percentage and on base percentage for four straight years. He is a 30-year-old center fielder for the Hawks, and I know that some major leaguers who played an exhibition series against him have been highly complimentary of his skills. So it seems like there's a good chance that he may be the best baseball player in the world who is not in the majors.

So can you tell us about him and whether there is any prospect of him coming over? Yeah, Yuki Yanagita is a really interesting case. He's a guy who, if he weren't playing for the SoftBank Hawks who don't post their players, he would definitely be in the majors by now. He can really play. post their players, he would definitely be in the majors by now. He can really play. I guess a couple of little things I did mention about the four straight years of OBP and slugging average, and two of those years he also led his league in batting average. That's for the old guys out there. He's just a heck of a player, and he basically turns in an MVP caliber season every year. He wants to play in the States. I guess the news about him or the story behind him is,

I know one MLB scout said they were following him in college and were kind of hoping that nobody would be as interested as they were in him. He didn't go to a big powerhouse school. He went to Hiroshima Commercial University. One of the things the softbank hawks in Fukuoka do is they send a lot of their guys to Puerto Rico in the Winter Leagues. He spent about two months in Puerto Rico, which is also unusual. And what happened was he had a chance meeting with Ivan Rodriguez, who was his teammate. And Ivan Rodriguez worked on his timing. He helped him with his leg,

straighten his leg kick out and taught him. And he said, basically, I had all the tools, but he taught me how to use them. He has a real affinity for MLB. He's wanted to play in MLB. affinity for MLB. He's wanted to play in MLB and pretty much 2021. As soon as the 2020 season is over, he's going to be a free agent and he's gone, although he'll be 32. I believe it came up early. You've been writing English language baseball coverage in Japan since, what was it, 1994? Is that the correct year? 1994 was the year my first sabermetric guide to Japanese baseball came out. It came out in limited quantities. I was mainly curious just for your own career. When you went over, did you have any expectation that this was going to be what you'd be doing for the next 25 plus years that you would be writing English language baseball coverage in Japan,

but that you would just do it for so, so long? No, I didn't. I came over because I didn't have a job coming out of university when I was 24. And so I came here, I'd studied Japanese language and history. And I thought, okay, I'm going to go to Japan, improve my Japanese, and learn a little bit about Japanese history, then come back to the States and go to grad school and try to make a job slogging through junior colleges or universities there. The writing thing came out as just a byproduct of me having too much free time on my hands. The last thing I wanted to ask you, and this is something that you had retweeted quite recently. This is an article written by Jason Coskey, but the article is titled, Yukato Helps Shine

Light on Women's Baseball in Japan. And we talked about the Women's Baseball World Cup a few months ago, and Japan has taken to dominating the competition because they have an actual organized structure to allow women to play baseball. And I was curious mainly, what is the national reception to women's baseball? How much attention does it get? How many fans come out? How well supported is it? Not terribly well. It's supported well enough that sponsors throw money at it. It's on a par with independent minor leagues in Japan where the players practice a few hours every day during the week.

They play weekends and holidays, and they get 1,000 people to the games or so on. I can't really speak too much about it, but I know having heard from American baseball players and Americans who are involved in women's baseball in the United States, and Americans who are involved in women's baseball in the United States that they are so envious of the setup where these women your own podcast, Japan Baseball Weekly, which you do with John Gibson. So everyone can look that up. If you want to be better informed about NPB, you can also follow Jim on Twitter at JballAllen. Jim, thank you very much for coming on. Well, thank you. Thank you, Ben. And thank you, Jeff. It's been a pleasure and an honor. Well, the Yankees signed Troy Tulewitzki, as reported by our pal Jeff Passan, Thank you, Ben. And thank you, Jeff. It's been a pleasure and an honor. Effectively Wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to keep the podcast going. Paul Dinella, Bobby Pape, Katie Kelly, Rory Prunella, and Greg Miskelly. Thanks to all of you.

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