We read a lot of scouting reports and hear people comment that a pitcher’s potential is that of a No. 5 starter. Teams spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours crunching data to build a successful five-man rotation, but it’s all in vain. The truth of the matter is that these mythical creatures don’t actually exist.

If we look back to the 2009 season, only two teams had five starters on their pitching staffs that made 24 or more starts: the Chicago Cubs and the Colorado Rockies.

The FanGraphs App was featured today in the New York Times where they call it a “nifty iPhone app”.

FanGraphs ($3) is a nifty iPhone app that crunches almost every conceivable baseball-related statistic, including a team’s probability of winning a game as it proceeds.

In other FanGraphs iPhone app news, it was featured as one of the iTunes Baseball App Essentials.

Every year, a couple of players make the journey from Japan to Major League Baseball. Those who do come on one of many paths. In this post I’ll walk through what those paths are, and which players could be headed down each this season.

Free Agency
The path most traveled is that of free agency. International NPB free agency is difficult to attain, requiring nine years of service time, where a year is defined as 150 days on the active roster of a top level team. Time spent on the injured list usually does not count toward free agency, though sometimes players are credited retroactively for time missed.

Put it all together and you have a system that allows very few players to attain free agency privileges before age 30. The 2009 class was weak, with only Ryota Igarashi commanding an MLB deal, and the 2010 class doesn’t figure to be any better. Nonetheless, there are a couple names to keep an eye on.

• Tatsuhiko Kinjo (OF, Yokoham BayStars) — had an unreal season in 2000, but has been a pretty average contact hitter in recent years. Would be an MLB 4th outfielder.
• Hiroyuki Kobayashi (RHP, Chiba Lotte Marines) — under-appreciated righty is coming off a couple rough seasons and will be moved to the bullpen in 2010.

The Posting System
I’ll take it for granted that most readers of this site have heard of the posting system, which allows NPB teams to auction players who are not free agents to MLB teams. If you haven’t, check out the Wikipedia page on the topic. In the 11-year history of the posting system, only 10 players have been successfully posted, and none since Daisuke Matsuzaka, Akinori Iwamura, and Kei Igawa in 2006. The last attempted use of the posting system was in the 2008-9 offseason, when Seibu twice honored lefty Koji Mitsui’s request to be posted. There were no takers.

Why would an NPB use the posting system? In some cases it has been a courtesy to the player; other times the team is trying to get something in return for an obviously MLB-bound player, just like MLB teams trade impending free agents.

Two star pitchers have made it known that they want to move to MLB sooner rather than later. It is, of course, up to the team to agree to post them.

• Wei-Yin Chen (LHP, Chunichi Dragons) — Chen is a 23-year-old Taiwanese lefty with an electric arm, coming off a breakout season in which he put up a 1.54 ERA over 164 innings. Chunichi doesn’t want to let him go, but he’s putting pressure on the team through the media and has retained agent Alan Nero with an eye toward an MLB move.
• Kyuji Fujikawa (RHP, Hanshin Tigers) — Fujikawa is Japan’s top closer (86 Ks in 57.2 IP in 2009), and has been talking on and off about moving to MLB for years. Hanshin has consistently said “no way,” but he keeps asking, and maybe they’ll cave before he hits free agency.

Released Players
Japanese teams release players every year, just like their MLB counterparts. You wouldn’t expect a player who’s failed to perform well enough to stay employed in Japan to be much of an MLB prospect, but increasingly Japanese players see the US minor leagues as life beyond NPB. A recent notable example is Ryohei Tanaka, who put up better numbers at Double-A in the Orioles organization than he ever did for Chiba Lotte’s farm team.

Amateur Free Agency
For many years, MLB and NPB were bound by an unofficial agreement barring MLB teams from signing draft-eligible amateur Japanese players as free agents. Then Junichi Tazawa came along in 2008 and disrupted the system. High school lefty Yusei Kikuchi might have followed suit in 2009, but NPB put on a full court press, and he gave into social pressures and wound up getting drafted and signed by the Seibu Lions.

Slightly beneath the surface, less celebrated Japanese prospects have been signing with MLB clubs for years, though only two (Mac Suzuki and Kazuhito Tadano) have reached the majors. This last offseason, the Mariners signed high school player Pedro Okuda and the Indians inked college righty Takafumi Nakamura. So we’ll see a range of talent sign as amateur free agents; from 1st round draft-level talent to more raw players with some upside.

My opinion is that it’s a matter of time before we see another top NPB draft prospect challenge the system and sign with an MLB club. It could happen this year, as we’re looking forward to a deep draft class. I won’t speculate on any specific names just yet; that will come once the high school and college seasons begin.

Returnees
In a given year, the 12 NPB teams collectively have about 70 foreign players under contract, the vast majority of whom arrived in Japan via MLB affiliated ball. Turnover tends to be very high, and a good number of those players (30%-50%) won’t be back for another season. Most of the players returning Stateside after playing in Japan wind up on Triple-A rosters, but occasionally a few gems come through. This offseason, Colby Lewis and Scott Atchison both got MLB deals after playing two years in Japan.

While I don’t see a talent of Lewis’s caliber on the horizon, there are a couple of interesting relievers to look out for:

• Brian Falkenborg (RHP, SoftBank Hawks) — Falkenborg fits the fringey MLB reliever with good velocity and middling control profile that NPB teams like. His first year in Japan was outstanding, running a 1.74 ERA and 61:9 K:BB over 51.1 innings pitched.
• Juan Morillo (RHP, Rakuten Golden Eagles) — Morillo has yet to throw his first pitch in Japan, but he has Brian Wilson-esque velocity still has some upside at 26. If he can learn to throw strikes in Japan he’ll get MLB attention.

Tangotiger’s poll from insidethebook.com on which 3 year contracts were the best and worst from a team perspective:

2009: Mets add a veteran lefty Japanese pitcher named Takahashi who is represented by Peter Greenberg.

2010: Mets add a veteran lefty Japanese pitcher named Takahashi who is represented by Peter Greenberg.

Unlike Ken last year though, Hisanori went straight to New York rather than taking a detour through Toronto.

So, what do the Mets have with this Takahashi?

I’ve written that I see Hisanori as an MLB reliever, but he doesn’t agree with me and was adamant about getting a chance to start during his negotiations. Hisanori has mostly been a mid-rotation starter in Japan, usually putting up respectable rate statistics but doing so in rather limited work. Only three times in his ten-year career has he logged more than 160 innings, most recently in 2007 when he threw a career-high 186.2. Last year, Hisanori threw 144 innings over 25 starts, putting up solid 7.88 K/9IP and 3.5 K/BB rates.

Durability seems to be one of the things that most obviously suffers when Japan-trained pitchers transition to MLB. Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hiroki Kuroda, and Kenshin Kawakami all saw their number of innings pitch drop in MLB, in terms of both total innings over the season and innings pitched per start. Hisanori isn’t as good as any of those guys, and given that he will pitch this season at age 35, and that he’ll be adjusting to a new culture, new scouting data, a more demanding travel schedule, a different diet, and a more challenging league, it’s reasonable to expect a regression from him.

On the plus side, Hisanori is lefthanded and throws a good screwball. This is a low-risk move for the Mets — they aren’t committing a 40-man roster spot or a ton of money to him right off the bat, and he was the only free agent starter left on the market without health question marks. Still, the Mets have a long history of acquiring middling Japanese talent, and the smart money is on Ryota Igarashi to buck that trend, rather than this year’s Takahashi.

Title: Data Architect – Baseball Analytics
Location: Cleveland, OH

Description: The Cleveland Indians are currently scouting for a Data Architect to work in our Baseball Operations Department. This individual will report to the Director of Baseball Operations while assisting both the Baseball and Information Systems Departments.

This individual will be a technical resource to the baseball analytics department, taking on increasing responsibility to design, implement, and manage the Baseball Department’s information architecture.

Responsibilities include:

• Creating data models, developing processes for extraction, transformation, cleansing, and loading a variety of internal and external data sources;
• Creating and maintaining business rules and metadata to ensure data consistency, designing and implementing a data warehouse of baseball information.
• Other responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, statistical analysis and baseball research, application and web development, and user interface and data visualization design.

Candidates must possess:
• A Bachelor’s degree (or higher) in Computer Science or a related field, along with demonstrated work experience designing and managing data warehouses, creating OLAP cubes, and using reporting tools.
• Experience with Oracle (preferred) or another major database system including advanced knowledge of SQL and/or MDX is required.
• Experience with any of the following are highly desirable: database administration, ETL and/or BI tools, application development in .NET and/or Java.
• Proficiency in statistical analysis software packages (R, STATA, SAS, SPSS) is desirable, as is familiarity with current baseball research and analytics.

For more information or to apply, visit http://www.indians.com/jobs , Requisition Number 10-0025. Interested candidates must apply online to be considered.

——-

Title: Baseball Analyst
Location: Cleveland, OH

Description: The Cleveland Indians are currently scouting for a Baseball Analyst to work in our Baseball Operations Department. This individual will report to the Manager of Baseball Analytics while assisting both the Baseball and Information Systems Departments.

Responsibilities include:

• Performing advanced statistical analysis on large volumes of baseball-related data and implementing predictive models to aid in departmental decision making.
• Creating reports, charts, tables, graphics, and other tools to deliver information to staff in concise and readable formats;
• Advising and assisting other analysts and staff on proper selection and implementation of techniques in statistical analysis and data mining;
• Monitoring developments in statistical fields to identify new algorithms or methods applicable to baseball problems;
• Evaluating published sabermetric research to ascertain its value and applicability to internal models and processes.
• Other projects may be assigned consistent with departmental needs and candidate skills.

Candidates must possess:
• A Master’s degree (or higher) in Statistics, Operations Research, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field.
• This individual must possess expert knowledge of modern statistical analysis and/or machine learning techniques.
• Significant experience with R, STATA, SPSS, SAS, or similar software is required.
• Strong knowledge of baseball, particularly in sabermetrics is also required.
• Experience with a database system such as Oracle or SQL Server, and proficiency with SQL is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated ability to advise, consult, mentor, or teach others is desirable.
• The ability to communicate complex concepts at an appropriate level to colleagues possessing a wide range of backgrounds is also important.

For more information or to apply, visit http://www.indians.com/jobs , Requisition Number 10-0024. Interested candidates must apply online to be considered.

Okay, time for the final installment of the Q&A series. You know the drill by now.

Kirk says: January 22, 2010 at 7:07 pm

I’m interested in the following:

– how prevelant is sabermetrics in Japanese baseball (in the fans, press, front offices)?

– there have been a lot of looks into how Japanese players and their stats translate over in the MLB, but it seems like a missed opportunity without examining how major or minor league players perform over in Japan. This would especially be useful for players like Julio Franco who went back and forth.

– I would imagine Oh has to be consensus GOAT, but has there been other, say, top 50 players of all time lists?

– how many MLB games are on Japan’s national TV (i.e., no specialty or strictly regional cabel channels) regularly?

1. I’ve talked a little bit about sabermetrics already, but there’s enough interest that I’ll put together an entire post on it at some point.

2. Clay Davenport has done some work in this area.

3. Sadaharu Oh is definitely the greatest of all time (868 home runs!). For a longer list of top players, I will again turn to Jim Albright’s work, which is in English and has a documented methodology behind it. I may have a nit-pick or two with his ordering, but it reads like a who’s who of Japanese baseball history.

4. I can’t say what the current status is based on personal experience. When I was living in Japan between 2000-2003, I only saw playoff and World Series games televised live on national terrestrial TV.

Malemute says: January 22, 2010 at 7:52 pm

Thanks.

What are some of your favorite player nicknames?

Did the Japanese writer who didn’t give Mauer a first place MVP vote this year ever give an explanation as to why he thought Cabrera was better?

Nickames: One of the fatter players, Takeya Nakamura, is known as Okawari-kun, which means “another round.” Michihiro Ogasawara is known as “Guts”, and my all-time favorite is “Gun”, which was Akinori Iwamura’s Yakult Swallows-era nickname.

If that writer ever explained voting against Mauer, I missed it.

Chris says:January 22, 2010 at 8:00 pm

It would be awesome if you put together a database where you could see potential stars in Japan and what year they are eligible to come to the US, or even an article highlighting a few guys over the next couple of years.

I have published lists of impending free agents and posting candidates at npbtracker.com for the last two years, and plan to do so again this year. And you’ll see content along those lines here as well.

Grady says:

January 22, 2010 at 8:02 pm (Edit)

I have a Bum Ho Lee jersey from when he was still with the Eagles. If I were to wear it in South Korea, would I be murdered? How closely does this compare to a rivalry in the MLB (a la Johnny Damon BOS to NYY scenario)?

Probably not. Lee left an absolute doormat of a team to take a huge pay raise in Japan. I don’t think Korean fans will begrudge him for that. That said, the Japanese and Koreans love beating each other. NPB has pretty much swept KBO in the league-vs-league games that have been played, but Korea has fared a little better in national games, winning the gold in the 2008 Olympics and going toe-to-toe with Japan in last year’s WBC. Last year’s WBC final was a huge event in both countries.

Ivan Grushenko says:

January 22, 2010 at 11:08 pm (Edit)

How competitive with MLB would the Japanese leagues (and Korean ones) if they eliminated the 2 foreigner limit? Could the Kyojin for example then field a team as good as the Phillies or even Yankees? Do they have that level of resources/fan support?

Actually, NPB teams are allowed to have up to four foreign players on their active rosters, with three in the game at any one time. There is also no limit to how many foreign players a team is allowed to have under contract, so most teams have a couple of foreign players in their farm systems. And finally, foreign players no longer count against the limit under certain conditions, such as after accumulating enough service time, or living in Japan for a certain number of years before turning pro. Tuffy Rhodes, Alex Ramirez, and Alex Cabrera have all played in Japan long enough to shed their “foreign player” status. The Korean teams are, as you said, restricted to two foreign players.

However, even if the limit were dropped, Japanese and Korean teams still wouldn’t be able to/try to compete with MLB clubs. Japanese teams have plenty of fan support, but there’s no way Alex Rodriguez’s best offer would ever come from Japan. Korean players are in a much lower tax bracket than their Japanese counterparts. The maximum KBO salary a few years ago was about $200k, I believe it’s gone up in the last year or two but salaries still max out in the mid-six figures. Last year Japan had over 100 players making $1m or more.

Alex says: January 27, 2010 at 4:44 pm

Hi Patrick,

I had the opportunity to spent about 2 weeks in Japan over the summer, and I got to see some games on TV. One thing I noticed was that in-game strategy seems to be much more conservative there. Especially in the later innings, if the leadoff man got on, the next few batters would all try to bunt him around the bases and play for that one run as opposed to going for a big inning. Is this a small sample size issue or do most teams play this way?

What you saw was very much reflective of the way most NPB teams play. There have been some recent exceptions, such as Bobby Valentine’s Chiba Lotte Marines and the 2008 Seibu Lions. This is actually a common source of culture clash between the standing NPB brass and Americans who manage NPB teams.

Matt B. says: January 27, 2010 at 8:58 pm (Edit)

What is the general reaction to the modest struggles (mostly) of Dice-K in North America? From what I have heard, he was a near legend over there and looking at his Japan numbers, I see why, but overall (IMO) has been a bit disappointing over here.

Matsuzaka was a very good professional player in Japan, but his legend status really came from his performance in the national Koshien high school baseball tournament. I’ve had more than one Japanese person tell me he looked out of shape in last year’s WBC and MLB season. I watched him a number of times in 2008, when he was actually pretty good, and what I noticed was that he still has good stuff, but he had a tendency to nibble until he had runners on base. I think that if he’s in shape in 2010 and is more aggressive on the mound, he’ll have a good year.

BGriffith says: January 27, 2010 at 11:46 pm

What would you recommend as a good, english websites for Japanese baseball? Basic stats, standings, that kind of thing.

Self-promotion time: right here of course, and my own site, www.npbtracker.com. For stats and standing, start with these two:

• Japanesebaseball.com
• NPB’s Official English site

About once a year I do a post on other English-language Japanese baseball blogs, so look out for that on NPB Tracker.

Over the past few weeks Beyond the Box Score has been conducting their first annual Sabermetric Writing Awards and here at FanGraphs, we’re honored that our work was so well received considering all the other great baseball research and writing this year.

FanGraphs took home the award for Best Online Recourse and took second in the Best Sabermetric Research or Writing Website, beaten out only by our friends at The Hardball Times

For the individual writer awards, our very own Dave Cameron took home awards for Best Commentary Article and Best Sabermetric Primer or Review Article/Series.

Dave Allen won the award Best Applied Research Article/Project for his multiple articles on Run Value by Pitch Type and Location, which can all be found at Baseball Analysts. And in the same category Matt Klaassen finished fourth with his article on the “little things” for 2008. The 2009 version of the article can be found here on FanGraphs.

Award winning aside, the whole nomination process definitely brought a lot of the year’s best baseball research and writing to the forefront and it’s worth checking out all the nominations in each category if you haven’t already.

Okay, time for another installment of the answers series. I did part 1 last week, and the original questions post the week before. I’m planning to do one more installment and then get back to regularly scheduled programming. If you have a question that I haven’t answered so far, you can always reach me at npbtracker@gmail.com. I may use your question in a future post.

Time is of the essence, so let’s get rolling.

ryan says: January 22, 2010 at 1:05 pm

Welcome aboard!

1) Are there any rule differences between American and Asian baseball? Is the DH used?

2) Is there an arbitration process, and how does team control and free agency work?

3) Can you comment on the skill level differences between Japanese and American ball? How would you expect a .300/400/500 hitter to perform coming here from Japan?

Regarding item #2, as others have pointed out, there actually is an arbitration/inter-mediation process for teams an players, but it is rarely used.

Colonel Kurtz says: January 22, 2010 at 1:31 pm

I was wondering the difference of playing levels between Japan-Korea-Taiwan and now China. And if there’s an American equivalent talentwise i.e. Taiwan = Single-A

Also, there was a very good Korean player who was playing in Japan, lefty bat, great swing (maybe a Young or Kim <– yeah, I know). Will he come to the States?

A number of readers asked about the how the levels of play compare to MLB/MiLB ball. I find it somewhat problematic to make a direct comparison, because the intent of professional teams in Japan and Korea is to win games and championships, while MiLB teams focus on developing young players as well as win games. But that said, the main difference to me is depth. There is certainly MLB-caliber talent in Japan and in Korea, but the talent level drops off quickly as you move down teams’ rosters. It’s pretty generally accepted that the level of skill in Japan is somewhere between Triple-A and MLB. I haven’t seen nearly as much of the Korean League, but based on the fact that quite a few foreign players who don’t do well in Japan find their way to Korea, I’ll say the talent level is a step lower.

The Korean player I believe you are referring to is Seung-Yeop Lee, who is a lefthanded power hitter (here’s a video of him facing Yu Darvish in the 2009 Japan Series). Lee had a great pro career in Korea and a fantastic 2006 season in Japan, but has struggled the last two years. He’s made overtures toward MLB in the past, and his contract expires after this season, but his best days appear to be behind him and he’s not much of an MLB prospect at this point.

Sean D says: January 22, 2010 at 1:33 pm

What do you think of Tsuyoshi Nishioka? In the 2006 WBC he seemed like one of the better prospects among Japanese players. I read that he’s been banged up over the last few years. Is he injury prone or is there a chance he overcomes those types of injuries some day? Is he the type of guy that would be interested in playing in MLB? Japanese players have 10 year contracts, so that would make him a free agent in 2013?

He’s a talented player who runs and fields well, and has developed some power and patience at the plate over the last two years. I haven’t paid close attention to his injuries, but my brief research suggests that he’s had some nagging leg, wrist and neck problems, so we’ll see how he does in 2010. It’s worth noting that the playing surface at his home Chiba Marine Stadium is notoriously bad. I could see him making a move to MLB, probably as a utility guy, but haven’t read or heard that he’s specifically interested in making the jump.

Joe R says: January 22, 2010 at 1:44 pm

Are Japanese teams beginning to run and model themselves in the same way that MLB teams have, sabermetrically? I ask this due to the number of monsters from Japan that average-ify state side.

Eric says: January 22, 2010 at 1:46 pmThis is more about the baseball community than the game itself, but is there a sabermetric community over there like there is here? By that I mean are sabermetrics more/less prominent over there, and if they are, is there similar hesitation to accept more advanced statistics like there is in the US? It might be ignorant to think that the world of statistics would differ from here to Japan, but I’m curious as to how player evaluation compares.

There certainly wasn’t the scouting vs sabermetrics argument that we had in the States a few years ago. I don’t great visibility into the inner-workings of NPB teams, but from the outside it doesn’t appear that they are specifically implementing sabermetric systems. One of the big differences between NPB and MLB is that there are many, many fewer player transactions in Japan than there are in MLB. So Billy Beane’s moneyball approach doesn’t really exist at all. When a league’s free agency market is only a couple of guys and there are only a handful of trades per year, there are no market inefficiencies to exploit.

Player salaries are, for the most part, negotiated yearly. I think defense and team performance plays a bit of a bigger role in player evaluation in Japan than it does in the US, but aside from that NPB teams have a lot of the same tendencies MLB clubs have — highly valuing metrics like wins, saves, and batting average.

At a fan/media level, it feels like there is more data available in Japan via traditional means. Newspaper box scores usually show what happened in each at-bat, and it’s normal to see batting average with runners in scoring position and shutouts with no walks allowed listed with all the normal stats MLB fans are used to. There are also a lot of observations in the media that you wouldn’t see in US. One example that sticks out for me was reading about which player reached safely in the most games one season.

Dan says: January 22, 2010 at 2:16 pm

I’m curious about what an expert on Japanese baseball would have to say about Yu Darvish:

1. How does his stuff translate to some of the best in MLB? Is there a similar ML counterpart we can compare him to?

2. When can we expect him to come to the US? if at all?

3. If he does post, what kind of fee will the winning team have to pay?

4. How big a contract can he get?

1. Darvish has a fastball that he threw around 90-94 mph most of the time in 2009, a slider, a curveball, a forkball/splitter, a two-seam fastball, and the occasional change-up. You can get a sense of his repertoire and velocity on my data site. The first five pitches I listed are all well above NPB average, particularly his slider. As for an MLB comp I’d probably go with Tim Lincecum or Jake Peavy, though Darvish is taller than both and skinnier than Peavy.

2. He has adamantly denied any interest in moving to MLB, but I suspect he’ll change his mind. He has four more years of service time left to go before becoming eligible for international free agency. If he were to be posted it would almost certainly be his last year before free agency.

3. That’s pretty impossible to predict. The Japanese media was talking about $30m for Daisuke Matsuzaka, and he wound up going for $51m. The interesting thing about the posting system is that it’s a blind auction, so it forces teams to evaluate players in isolation of the overall market. So it only takes one high bid to drive the price way up, yet the teams can’t knowingly bid against each other.

4. It obviously depends on his health and performance, and the economic climate when he signs. If he had been a free agent this offseason though, I think he would have easily beat out the $30m Aroldis Chapman got.

That’s all for today. I’ll have more next time, then start working these back into regular posts.

For those of you wondering what the twitter topic #BBGSports is all about, Bloomberg is hosting an event at their headquarters in NYC where they’re demoing their latest fantasy and professional baseball data products. Their professional product more or less slices Pitch f/x data in every which way possible. Here are some pictures of the demo:

Data sliced and diced in the strike zone and on the field:

Strike zone data and spray charts for specific players:

Their pitch predictor tool:

Regular stats section, including a section where you can create your own stats: