Daily Graphing – Kenji Jojima

There's been a lot of talk recently about the Mariners potentially signing the Japanese catcher Kenji Jojima. I was able to track down some of his statistics.

Year	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	SB
1995	12	2	2	0	0	1	0
1996	58	5	14	2	4	9	1
1997	432	49	133	24	15	68	6
1998	395	53	99	19	16	58	5
1999	493	65	151	33	17	77	6
2000	303	38	94	22	9	50	10
2001	534	63	138	18	25	95	9
2002	416	60	122	18	25	74	8
2003	551	101	182	39	34	119	9
2004	426	91	144	25	36	91	6
2005	411	70	127	22	24	57	3

I wasn't able to obtain his fielding statistics, but he won 7 straight gold gloves at the catcher position. Not too shabby.

Taking a look at his slugging percentage (SLG) graph, you can see he is well above the MLB average using his Japanese statistics. This probably isn't the fairest comparison, but I think it still gives you a good idea of where he stands.

In addition to hitting for power, he can also hit for average. I wish I was able to obtain his walk and strikeout totals for 2005, but in 2003-2004 he showed an excellent walk to strikeout ratio (BB/K) of 1.07. There's bound to be some drop off as he learns to adjust to new pitching, but it appears that Kenji Jojima should be capable of being one of the better offensive catchers in the Major Leagues.