Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 921: Bow Before Shohei Otani

Episode Date: July 8, 2016

Ben and Sam talk to Jason Coskrey of The Japan Times about the incredible two-way dominance of Japanese ace/slugger Shohei Otani.

You are everything, and everything is you. You are everything, and everything is you. You are everything, and everything is you. Everything is you. Honey, everything is you. Everything is you. I'm in love with you Hello? So to paraphrase Martin Landau's character from Entourage, what if I told you there was a baseball player who had David Ortiz's OPS, Clayton Kershaw's ERA, Noah Sindergaard's fastball speed and strikeout rate, and had just turned 22 three days ago? Would that be something you'd be interested in? I'm going to assume that it is.

It's definitely something I'm interested in. something you'd be interested in. I'm going to assume that it is. It's definitely something I'm interested in. Yesterday, Vice Sports published a piece called Shohei Otani is the best thing in baseball. It's pretty tough to argue with that premise right now. So we are going to do an episode on the most interesting player playing in Japan right now. And to tell us about him and his season, we are talking to a guest from episode 350 of this podcast. We talked about Masahiro Tanaka. Then we're going to talk about Otani now with Jason Koskri of the Japan Times. Hey, Jason.

Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me. So I guess I'll just start with the stats just for people who haven't been following Otani's season. He's playing for theers in Japan's Pacific League, and thus far He has a 1.9 ERA through 15 Starts, with the highest Strikeout rate in the league, roughly

11 strikeouts per 9 innings And he also has 151 plate appearances And he's hitting 341 plate appearances, and he's hitting 341, 450, 659, which would be enough to, I think, rank second in the league in batting average, second in the league in OPP, and first by far in slugging and OPS if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. So I guess is this season as much of a phenomenon as one would assume that it is based on the stats? Yes, it is. Especially because last year he didn't have a very good season at the plate. Last year he was amazing as a pitcher and he almost won the Sawamura.

He was third basically behind maeda kenta and fujinami from the tigers so yeah but this year he's um he's really refocused himself at the plate he's got a more balanced than he did last year as a hitter and he's got a little bit more muscle this year too and i think that's probably a lot of it is coming through when he's hitting these home runs because a lot of them have been opposite field home runs and his average he's just seen the ball really well I guess so it is quite the phenomenon what he's doing this year it hasn't been seen. So did he show up to camp in the best shape of his life were there were there stories written about how he had done something new over the offseason and he was ready to have a big year

and now he's having it yeah there were he um he showed up a little bit he's not bulky but he showed up with a little bit more muscle and there was stuff written about it he um he'd apparently talked to you Darvish about like putting out adding a little bit more muscle and worked out with Darvish over the off season and he said that Darvish taught him a lot of stuff. I spoke with him earlier this year, me and another reporter, Jim Allen of Kyoto News. And he told us that, you know, he had worked with Darvish. Darvish had told him some things to do and he did show up a little bit heavier. And that's one of the things that Darvish did later in his career in Japan. He started putting on a little

bit more muscle and kind of going against the trend of Japanese training of quality of quantity and going for more for quantity and I think that's probably something that Otani did and he did show up a little bit heavier and a little bit stronger and I think it's starting to bear fruit I don't know if that really affected his pitching earlier in the year because he didn't seem to have a great feel for all of his pitches. Maybe he was getting used to being a little bit stronger, but he's really turned around now. But yeah, that was a bit of a thing when he came in. He was noticeably heavier, I think, because a lot of the reporters at spring training were noticing it. So it's easy to focus on how good he is as a pitcher and how good he is as a hitter.

But really, that's almost beside the point. He's doing both, which is just that doesn't ever, ever happen. Like there's no equivalent in modern American baseball of a pitcher who played outfield on his days off. It was, you know, it's been sort of briefly attempted, but usually going the other way and never for very long and not very successfully. Is this as unusual, putting aside his success, is this as unusual in Japan as it is in the States where simply having a pitcher who plays outfield or DH on his days off is unprecedented? Yes, he's the only one that's doing it. I mean, I think there have been guys before, but just like in the States, it wasn't

particularly in the modern era. There may have been some. I'm not entirely sure. I think there may have been some guys in maybe the 60s or the 70s, a guy who did it. But, yeah, it's pretty unprecedented to do this. When he came up, he came up actually when they drafted him, and his first game was actually as a right fielder because they were bringing him in easily easing him into pitching in the big league so there have been games there was at least one game where he pitched on the farm during the day and then showed up at the stadium that night with the main team as a in the lineup

as a hitter but um yeah it's it's pretty unprecedented and nobody's doing it here either and it's just it's all it's a little lucky that he ended up where he ended up with the fighters who were not the most conventional team in Japan. And so he ended up with the organization and a manager, Hideki Kuriyama, that was willing to let him do this. And that was probably, honestly, part of the reason that they were able to convince him to stay and not go to the majors right out of high school is they probably told him, you know, we'll let you hit some. They don't let him play in the outfield anymore. He hasn't done

that in a few years. I don't think he's done it since his rookie season, but he's DH-ing pretty much whenever he's not pitching. And he's DH-ing a little bit more, I think, than he did last year even. And now they don't even use the DH when he's pitching. They just let him hit, which is something they haven't done until this year. And what are some other unconventional things that his team or his manager have done? It's just more that Kuriyama is, I don't want to say he's a more American style manager because he still bunts all the time like every other Japanese manager will. It's just the fighters are a little bit known for taking risks. Like Darvish, not many people wanted to draft Darvish. It wasn't more of his skill. It's kind of off the field stuff. And they stepped up and did it. a little bit known for taking risks. Like Darvish, not many people wanted to draft Darvish.

It wasn't more of his skills, kind of off the field stuff. And they stepped up and did it. There was a kid, Tomoyuki Sugano, a pitcher who came out and said, I'm only going to play for this one team that my uncle is the manager of. And it was the Yomiuri Giants, the most famous team here. No one drafted me. And of course, the fighters drafted him anyway. And then Otani came out and said, I'm going to the major leagues. one drafted me and of course the fighters drafted him anyway and then Otani came on set you know I'm going to the major leagues nobody drafted me and then there the

fighters are drafting him so they do stuff like that and as far as on the field there's not they're not as unconventional on the field Kuriyama's um he's kind of a weird guy sometimes he's he's a little bit eccentric in a few ways but um so I'm not sure if Otani had gone to another team if they would let him hit and pitch and do the things that he's doing now. I think this might be a product of him going to Nippon Ham. I actually just noticed that the fighters have the league leader in Sacrifice Bunce, Nakashima, who I think we've talked about before on this podcast, just because of his extraordinary number of sacrifice bunts. And Otani has no career sacrifice bunts. Is that in itself unusual that he has not been asked to bunt? Is that because he's so good at hitting or is that just a smaller sample thing?

I think it's probably because he's so good at hitting they're not gonna they're not making a button he's um a guy who can drive and runs nakashima is a bit of a he's a good hitter he's he's more of a contact guy though otani's a guy who's got some power who can knock the ball over the fence and so they're just they're not bunning with him mostly out of strategy not so much as um it's not so much a weird thing that they're not making him bunt uh-huh that's interesting because if you go back a few decades in in major league history when sacrifice bunting was more common you would still sometimes see power hitters and cleanup hitters asked to sack bunt sometimes and so i wasn't sure whether that was still the case in in japan also or definitely still the case here you'll you'll i was at a game a couple

of days ago or last week where we had a the first guy of an inning he first two guys of an inning got on base they bring up the the next hitter he's a he's not a power hitter but he's a pretty good hitter he can hit the ball over the fence and they bunted him to get to the the catcher who was batting 170 in the pitcher behind him so you'll still get guys who aren't who shouldn't be bunting in situations where they probably shouldn't be bunting, squaring up the bunt, because that's what's in the Japanese manager handbook. Otani is, there's a few guys who you never see square around the bunt, and Otani's in

that class now. Last year, as you noted, Otani didn't hit that well. He was kind of a poor hitter, although, you know, still good for a pitcher, but poor for a hitter. Do you have any sense of how close he came to losing his privileges? Like, how necessary was it for him to come into camp this year, killing the ball? Was this experiment almost ended? I don't think it was almost ended.

I haven't heard anything out of the fighters or anyone say that there was a chance of him not being able to keep doing this. And again, I also don't know if they told him like, hey, look, we're going to let you pitch so you'll want to stay here. But I think maybe just last year, he just wasn't as focused. And I don't think Kuriyama was going to, was hesitant to put him back in the lineup. Also because the fighters, they need hitters. They need guys who can hit the ball over the fence.

They need some offense. And he was one of the guys who can do that. So I think maybe if he had come out this year and had another year like that, they probably would have sat him down and said, look, this probably isn't the best idea. We've got guys on the bench who are dedicated hitters and we can probably plug them in there. You're a great pitcher. But to answer your question, I don't think that the experiment was going to be over, but I can't say that with 100% certainty. Because out here, there's this fear of letting pitchers do anything.

Pitchers aren't even allowed to catch pop-ups in the infield, and Madison Bumgarner is not allowed to take glorified BP in front of large TV audiences because everybody's afraid that pitchers are going to get hurt. Is it controversial at all that Otani is allowed to do this? Or I guess probably it isn't now, but was it when he was hitting 202? It wasn't controversial. A lot of players, if you would talk to players and they would all say that he should be concentrating on pitching and there was a big chorus of like media commentators and former players and people of that nature saying that you know this guy should be concentrating more on his pitching

he's a better pitcher he's going to go farther in the picture he needs to drop his hitting and just choose so in that sense there was a lot of there were people saying that he needs to drop hitting but there were those same people were saying that before too and he hit 10 home runs so it's just that when he had such a bad season last year this talk just intensified that he should give up on his hitting and just focus on pitching and I guess now I mean even if he weren't hitting right now it would be pretty hard to say that because he's he's the best pitcher in the league too right now, right? I mean, you couldn't really say that he could be that much better at that aspect either.

Right. I mean, how much farther can he go? I mean, he's only 22. So, I mean, you can't, they can't say anything about where he's at as a pitcher right now. So, right, exactly. You're right. He can't, you know, they can't say that. They can't say that he would be better if he wasn't hitting because look at how good he is now. Yeah. So I'm just trying to imagine what sort of a sensation this must be if it were happening in Major League Baseball. I mean, Madison Bumgarner, as Sam mentioned, is the closest thing we have to this. And he is nowhere near as successful. He DH'd one time and it was a big deal. And Otani is doing that regularly. And, you know, that's a pretty big deal. But Otani is probably an even better pitcher relative to his

peers than Bumgarner is. And he's been the best hitter in the league, too. I guess I can't even imagine what the hype would be like in baseball. I mean, we would be seeing live look-ins. We'd be seeing sellouts. I can't even imagine how big a star that person would be. So what is it like in Japan? This year, him DHing wasn't particularly out of the normal because he'd done it before. That particular aspect of it, there's always curiosity because it's Otani,

but that particular aspect of it had died down a little bit. What was big this year was when the fighters decided, and because they play in the Pacific League and the DH League, is when they decided, look, right before interleague started, we're just going to let him hit instead of using the DH in those games. Because before, he would DH when he wasn't pitching, then he'd take a day off before he pitched. Then when he pitched, the fighters would use the DH in those games because before they would he would DH when he wasn't pitching then he'd take a day off before he pitched then when he pitched the fighters would use the DH in his spot but then recently on May 29th I believe it was right before interleague they just dropped the DH and just started letting him hit and that of course caused a pretty big

sensation and people have been calling him the the two-way player and once he started hitting for himself they started calling him the real two-way player because he's really doing it now. And, I mean, in his last game, he hit leadoff. In a Pacific League game, they waived the DH and they stuck him in the leadoff spot. And he hit a home run on the first pitch of the game. And the leadoff spot in Japanapan is is like a special honor right it's not just you know an important lineup spot but it's sort of designated for the best hitter one of the best hitters on the team in a way that maybe is not quite equivalent in the u.s yeah maybe yeah you put

you generally put one of your your top guys there and your second guy is the sacrificial lamb meant to burn him over. Right. And that was the first time they put Otani in the leadoff spot as a pitcher. And that was a little bit weird because their cleanup hitter had been going through a slump, a really bad slump. And so they benched him and they took the leadoff guy and put him in the cleanup spot. So there was a hole there for someone to hit leadoff.

And so that particular game game which happened to be against the best team in the league the two-time defending Japan series champions on the road Kuriyama stuck Otani in the leadoff spot and it worked out that day he hit a home run so I see that you Darvish had some at bats some plate appearances is the DH not universal yeah it's it's like in the it's like in the big leagues uh here the pacific league has the dh and this the central league doesn't and so during interleague games in central league parks the dh rule is not in effect so pitchers have to hit i see vice versa except there was one year during interleague where they they did it they said they did it for the fans and so they switched

the dh rule so in central league parks there was a dh and then pacific league parks there was no dh and so pitch pitchers had to hit because they wanted i guess they wanted the fans to see their own pitchers having to hit i guess but they switched the dh rules but yeah it's just like in the u.s i'm north america there's one league with the dh one league without a dh and is the gap between pitchers hitting and regular position players hitting roughly the same or are pitchers in Japan better or worse than American pitchers? I would say pitchers in Japan are probably, well, on average, they're probably slightly better because Kenshin Kawakami was a really good hitter here. Daisuke Matsuzako was a decent hitter here.

They're probably better just because their fundamentals are probably better because they i imagine japanese pitchers work at it a little bit more not that they work on it that much so their japanese pitchers are probably a little bit better but there's no there's no real expectation though that they will try to be passable at this it's sort of just a forgotten you know a skill that they let stagnate once they become pitchers yeah I mean there are plenty of guys who walk up there and they look as if all they want to do is go back to the dugout but there are guys who are decent hitters here they're not home run hitters like Otani but there are plenty of pitchers here who can put the ball in play

but there's not there's no real like you said there's no real expectation that the pitchers are big threat in the lineup and his plate discipline appears to have improved significantly he you know he walked eight times and struck out 43 times last season and this year has walked almost as often as he struck out is that a sign of respect for his improved power are Are guys pitching around him? Or has he become a more disciplined, selective hitter? He's become a more disciplined, selective hitter. He was flailing a lot last year. The year before when he hit 10 home runs, there was a lot of respect for him.

But a lot of those home runs were balls where he's so athletic and he's got decent bat speed, so he was getting the ball in the zone and knocking it out. This year, I think he's more seeing the pitches, more selecting better, and I think he's just more disciplined at the plate this year. Pitchers are respecting him a lot more, though, because he's shown that he's not just a guy who can hit home runs he can also hit for average and do other things well too so he's being pitched a little differently than he was before because he's he's better all around and discipline has been a part of that so is there much skepticism about his offensive performance thus far is there any sense that you know maybe it's a small sample or it's a fluke or something or you know if people

were asked to just list the the best hitters in the league would otani just be on that you know not just for what he's done thus far but for what people expect him to do for the rest of the season or or the next couple seasons well right now i think it's what's being said is it's not really being said that you know it's a small sample although it is a bit of a small sample it's what's being said is it's not really being said that you know it's a small sample although it is a bit of a small sample it's just like about half a season so he is being mentioned as among the the top hitters this year but just because of what he's done this year looking at what he did before in 2014 that that gives him even more of um I guess street cred kind of as a hitter because he showed that he's got some power.

He always hit a lot of doubles, and now he just added decently consistent home run hitting to that. So he's being mentioned as among some of the top hitters just because there's no way to not list him there because he's doing so well this year. Is he an interesting guy apart from his baseball skills? Is he charismatic or a good quote? He's really, he seems really shy. His teammates all say that he's friendly and things like that. When he's in front of the media,

a lot of times, if you're in like kind of like the media scrum with Otani, if you're in the back, you're not going to hear what he's saying because he speaks really softly. Whoever asks the question, he looks that person in the eye and he speaks really softly and that's it. So he seems like a very shy guy. For instance, I guess when Darvish was here, you spoke to Darvish and Darvish would give you, he wouldn't really look at you, but his voice just kind of carried more. Darvish, you spoke to Darvish and Darvish would give you, he wouldn't really look at you, but his voice just kind of carried more. Darvish spoke, I don't want to say it was a bit more

confidence because I think Otani's a confident guy too. And Otani actually likes to talk to the media from what I've heard from the team. He's just, he strikes you as really quiet in his public persona and really kind of a shy guy. I don't want to say he's shy because I don't think he is. He's just, he's got a really soft voice and he speaks really quietly, really excitedly. So it's hard to get a real feel for him. So would, would he be on the short list of, you know, most famous people in Japan, just most famous, you know, Japanese celebrities, period? He'd be on the, he'd be on the short list sports wise yes each year figure skaters are really big in japan and each year is still up there on the list and he's

probably even more so up there on the list now but as far as baseball players go otani's right there with like hiroki kuroda and some other guys so he's he's up there and he's he's known every time he does something like we had the game where he had 31 pitches that were at least 99 miles an hour. That was all over the news. And he hit 163, 101 in pH. That was all over the news. So he's everywhere, and every time he does something,

he hits or pitches, you get the sports pages the next day, and the back pages are pretty much Otani otani otani i might be totally wrong about this but i suspect if he came to the states they would not let him hit anymore uh that he would uh at best get to sign with an nl team and um you know and and maybe bat for himself in the six like that might be the extent of how willing uh major league teams would be willing to go with this. I might be wrong, but assuming that's true, he is theoretically much more valuable to a Japanese roster than an American league roster because he's hitting in between starts. He also is theoretically much more famous because he's doing this and he's having a much better time because he gets to basically be two baseball careers at once. Is there any chance that because of these factors,

careers at once. Is there any chance that because of these factors, he won't come to the United States on the normal schedule that players do? Honestly, I think maybe. There's possibly a chance. I'm not entirely. It depends on what Otani's thinking. I do. And I've heard from other people, especially there's another foreign reporter here named jim allen who works for kyoto news and we were talking about this thing a while back and you know he noted that you know there are people you know otani loves to hit and it's one of the things he really really enjoys to do and it's one that it's one the fighters allow him to hit so you know that could factor into it depending on if he goes into negotiations with MLB teams. Say he gets posted and he goes in negotiations and they all say, like you say, we're not going to let you hit. You're too valuable. We're going to put too much money in you.

Maybe there's a chance he said, well, I'm happy in Japan. I'm getting hit all the time and hit almost not every day, but almost every other day when I'm not pitching. I suppose there could be a small possibility of that. You know, it just depends really on how the major league pull on him was really strong when he came out of high school and he was going to go. It depends on how much that has changed in the interim and how much he truly enjoys being able to play in Japan and be able to hit as much as he's hitting and the fighters being allowed to let him do that.

So it's a really good question because it speaks more to his personality and how much does he really love to hit and love what he's doing. And would a major league team be willing to let him do that? And so we're going to find out about that roughly when exactly, right? Because he's under contract, what, through 2019? And so he'll be playing in Sapporo for a while, although at some point you'd think that they'd want to get what they can for him if he is set on going to the U.S.

But now that the posting fees are capped at $20 million, they can't auction him off for as much as you know darvish got or matsuzaka got and so there's less incentive for them to let him go early although i guess still some incentive yeah there's there's much less incentive because of the posting system which i it's great for the players and it's good that it's great for the players i can't i still find it hard to believe japanese teams agreed to it. I think part of it was I think teams didn't want to be seen as getting in Tanaka's way because that's when it was coming up.

But for the fighters in Otani, there's really two things. There's when would they want to auction him off. But there's also the case of what did they have to do to get him to stay in the first place? also the case of what did they have to do to get him to stay in the first place and if they did make him some sort of agreement in his contract or anything to say that when I'm ready to go let me go you know if if they did make some sort of agreement like that in his original deal and he says he's ready to go who knows that could be this year that could be next year that could be never so it depends on that if if assuming he doesn't have some sort of deal where he gets to go whenever he wants i would imagine because it's only 20

million the fighters will hang on to him until right before he's set to go to he's set to become a free agent kind of like with darvish maybe a year or two before and then you see you start seeing that kind of thing wrap up if he's still putting up these types of numbers, which barring injury or anything, he probably will be because he's so young. He's just going to keep getting better and better. Yeah, and just purely as a pitching prospect, I mean, he stacks up to anyone really who's made the trip, right? I mean, Darvish pitched for the same team,

and it was a little bit of a different offensive environment then, but just comparing his last couple seasons to what Otani is doing right now, it seems like, you know, stats-wise and probably stuff-wise, he compares fairly favorably even to Darvish, right? I mean, just purely as a pitching prospect, and he's been scouted for years, of course, but, you know, he would be as interesting to MLB teams as just about anyone who's been available in the past, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing with Darvish, when he was, Darvish probably knew he wanted to go, but the year before he went, I think I mentioned it earlier he he started changing up his his weight training routine to get maybe get a little bit bulk get a little bit

a little bit more power to his pitches and you know when he came back the last year before he went over he Darvish was just amazing because he had a little bit more velocity and he had a little bit more feel for his stuff and that that kind of thing too and Otani's done that early way earlier in his career than Darvish did and maybe that's the effect of you know you Darvish doing it and giving this kid some advice on you know you should you know think about doing this kind of stuff follow my example because you know Otani comes up he's wearing Darvish's number number 11 with the fighters so he's fighters. So he does stack up well. And I do wonder if being able to be around you, Darvish gave Otani a little bit of an advantage that Darvish didn't have because there wasn't that same type of player on theably to Darvish. He's probably far ahead of where Darvish was at the same age. And so it'd be really interesting to see how far that he's been wearing down from this routine thus far I don't know whether it's any easier for him to do this because there's more time between starts for Japanese pitchers than for major league pitchers but so far at least there's really no indication

that he couldn't keep doing this successfully no not not right now he's yeah like you said he's he's doing really well as a pitcher and the kuriyama has broached the subject of you know they said they were only gonna he was only gonna be hitting for himself a few it was supposed to be kind of an experiment maybe and so there's a chance he may not keep doing that that aspect of it so he may get an extra day off every Every team always gets Monday, the Monday off. And Otani usually gets off the day before he starts and the day after he starts. But the fighters may dial back on letting him hit a little bit. So he'll be getting a little bit more rest on that aspect too, because they'll lighten the load a little bit.

But right now he's not showing any particular signs of strain. He's pitching better than he was pitching in the beginning of the season. And he's pitching better at the beginning of the season. He wasn't hitting for himself. So he's actually taken on more work recently. And he's done a lot better than he was doing earlier in the year. And the fighters are third place in the Pacific League right now. They're 45 and 31. And I'm trying to imagine

what a player like this would be worth if it were over a full big league season. You know, would this be like a 15 wins above replacement season, something like that? I mean, is the roster other than Otani thin? Like, is he kind of carrying the team or is it a pretty good team in addition to Otani? The fighters as a roster, they don't have the greatest offense in the world, but they've got some good players. Brandon Laird is hitting, he's doing really well for them this year. He's got 23 home runs after a horrible season last year. Average-wise, a horrible season last year. He had a bunch of home runs.

Shona Kata is a guy who um some major league scouts have been sniffing around to a big power hitter but he's been going he's he was the cleanup hitter I mentioned that was going through the big slump that necessitated Otani getting moved up to number one so the fighters they have players they have a lot of young players they're not they don't have a particularly robust offense. So that might also be another reason that they've got Otani's bat in there because he's just so good as a hitter, as a power hitter. He gives them a much-needed guy who can knock in some runs with a guy named Daikanyo Nakata and also Brandon Laird. They've got Kinsuke Tanaka, who had a brief stint in the big leagues a few years ago.

So they don't have the greatest offense in the world. And pitching-wise, Otani is pretty much, he's carrying the team, but they've got another young kid named Arihara, who's been really good for them this year. His ERA is right now a little bit lower than Otani's. And they've got Luis Mendoza, who's average. He's having an average year. He's been a decent pitcher here. He's had some up and down starts.

But as far as the pitching staff, after you get past Mendoza, there's not a ton there. So Otani is carrying them on the pitching staff. And he's one of the reasons that they're staying afloat, at least offensively. Okay. And so we have seen him briefly face major league competition in exhibition games, and I assume that we'll see him next spring in the WBC. Yeah. I can't imagine there's going to be a WBC team that he's not on unless he's not here, which also would be a bigger shock.

Right. here which is which also would be a bigger shock so right it's just a matter of is he gonna um is the manager Hiroki Kokubo is he gonna have Otani he's of course he's gonna have him pitching there's the question I guess everyone will ask is is Otani gonna DH for you or is he gonna Otani gonna pinch hit for you yeah okay well I mean one of the more fascinating seasons that we've ever come across. Is there anything we haven't covered? Any other heroic feats that he has achieved or anything else about his arsenal or any Otani fun facts that we should know about? He broke the speed record last night. Right.

Yeah, with one-on-one. That's the highest by any pitcher here. The record had been held by Mark Kroon, who pitched here for a long time with the Oklahoma Bay Stars and the Yomiuri Giants. kilometers per hour 101 is what that is and now he's pretty much every before he would hit 160 every now and then and it'd be big news and now he's hitting 160 almost routinely i won't quite say it's routine yet but he's hitting 160 to the point that it's not particularly a thing anymore and that's really weird because there's no other pitchers in japan foreign or japanese who are hitting 160 at all. Even relievers. Pretty much even relievers.

You got guys who are 159, 158, 157, but nobody's hitting 160, and Ohtani is doing it as if it's almost nothing now. How do they measure pitch speed in Japan? Do they have pitch effects or do they use radar guns? They use radar guns and pitch effects. They use pitch effects, but that's a proprietary thing so no one gets to see it ah other than the team so what we see are the radar guns that are on the stadium so a lot of some of those are hit and miss it depends there I have had pictures tell me there are some guns that they don't believe

there's some guns that they do believe and that kind of thing but you know it's otani's hitting 161 162 i mean they're not that far off where he's like throwing 150 something in this in this registering as 162 so and how tall is he he's um 193 centimeters which is about six four six three six four, so just sort of tall. Yeah. Clayton Kershaw height. All right. Well, he's amazing. I appreciate you coming on to give us the backstory and fill in some of the details here.

You can read Jason in the Japan Times. You can find him on Twitter at jkoskrey, C-O-S-K-R-E-Y. Jason, thank you again. Thank you for having me again thank you that was great thanks yeah that was really interesting i i want to talk about him all the time yeah it's amazing to just to see him and it's amazing when you get to go in person and there's just this there's this buzz in the stadium when he pitches that hasn't been there since. There's the same buzz when Darvish was here, and there's the same buzz when Tanaka was here. It's pretty much the exact same thing.

What is your best guess for how good a hitter he would be if he were hitting in the major leagues right now? Who would he be like? For one, I don't think he'd be doing what he's doing now, but I think he could. I think he'd be a guy who would who probably hit a lot of doubles i don't know if he hit a mini home run as he hit as he hits here but i think he can handle fast pitches he can handle you know a little bit of velocity so uh comparison i can't do do you think he would if he couldn't pitch for some reason would he start in a major league lineup yes oh wow wow he's that good of a hitter.

Wow. Oh, man. I'm getting giddy just thinking of him. I'm getting preemptively mad at the team that eventually signs him and won't let him do this anymore. I mean, if he's that good, then they'd be crazy not to. Someone will, right? Crazy not to. Someone will, right? And someone will, someone, some team who's willing to play him as a hitter will have the advantage in signing him because A, he'll want to go there

and B, he'll be worth more to them. And out of 30 teams, there's got to be one that would see him as a hitter. The Cubs have money and the Cubs have Joe Maddon and the Cubs are in the NL. Yeah, it's actually easier though for him to go to a AL team because I don't think anybody's going to want him to play the field. And there's no, like... Fighters don't let him play the field either. They used to let him play the field.

They haven't let him play the field in about two years now. So they cut that out also. So he needs a DH. He needs a DH team. Was that because of how he was as an outfielder, or was it just to reduce the strain on him? I mean, was he a competent outfielder? The funny thing about it, Otani is a really good outfielder or was it just to reduce the strain on him i mean was he a competent outfielder the funny thing about it otani is a really good outfielder played him in right field when he when he came up because like i said they were easing him into pitching so they were he was

playing in right field and he just has a cannon for an arm he's a that makes sense no he read balls off the bat really well it's i mean it's so funny he's and he was a really good outfielder and if he kept doing that he probably would have become a like a great outfielder that's so he can do that too they just don't let him do that and they're not that crazy i guess they don't let him play the outfield anymore all right well we tried to end this podcast a few minutes ago but obviously we we had no questions we always you know We always get the question of if you had an entire team of one guy, who would it be? Who would be the best? And would it be Mike Trout or would it be Clayton Kershaw or would it be Bryce Harper?

Would it be a pitcher or a hitter? And the only thing, I mean, I think that it's clear that the answer is Otani. The only thing is the left-handedness, right? Because he's never caught and you got the whole left side of the infield that he's at a disadvantage. But, I mean, clearly the answer is now Otani. He's never caught, so that would help.

Oh, he throws. Wait, he throws right, though. He bats left, but he throws right. Yeah, a lot of guys. There are quite a few guys in Japan who do that. Oh, so no. Yeah, so he's clearly the answer. There's no doubt about it. All right. Well, we will let you go for real this time. Thanks.

Okay, so that is really it for today. No more false endings. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Five listeners who have already pledged their support are Timothy Smart, Kevin Dynan, Richard Churchill, Colin H. Smith, and Steve Cassell. Thank you. You can buy our book, The Only Rule Is It Has To Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. Check out our website, theonlyruleisithastowork.com for more information on the book. And if you've read it and liked it, please leave us a review on Amazon and Goodreads. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can it and liked it, please leave us a review on Amazon and Goodreads. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

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