Marinerds, etc.

I've been really remiss in my Big 6 posting, but the final week was kind of traumatic for me for various reasons. As I mentioned before, Keio had to sweep both games of Keisousen/Soukeisen, which they did, and then win another forced playoff game -- the first Waseda-Keio playoff game in 50 years -- on November 3rd to take the title away from Waseda.

As you can probably guess, especially since I mentioned that Waseda was playing in the Jingu Taikai, that didn't happen. Daisuke Takeuchi had a pretty tough 1st inning and Waseda took a quick 3-0 lead, which extended to 7-0; Yuki Saitoh pitched SEVEN INNINGS OF NO-HIT BALL before imploding in the 8th and Keio scored 5 runs to bring it to 7-5. Ohishi finished out the game for Waseda, and so IMO, rather than trying to win it, Etoh-kantoku put in lefty Takuya Masaki to pitch the 9th inning with Ryuta Iba as catcher. Masaki and Iba were a battery at Keio high school, YEARS ago, so it was a "last moment" for them. I'm not sure Masaki ever pitched in college, he always played 1st base when I saw him.

So Waseda won 10-5 and won the Fall 2010 Championship. The reporters and photographers had a total party with this one, of course, and so many cameramen were set up that normal people couldn't even SEE the doage where they tossed Saitoh and everyone up in the air.

There was a Fall 2010 Closing Ceremony after that where all the teams came out and lined up, they presented Best Nines and trophies for ERA and batting champ. I sat right behind home plate for that part. I should have gone outside to say a final goodbye to some players from the other colleges, and wanted to say a congrats to Kagami, but instead I ended up at the Keio retirement ceremony, held inside Jingu. At least I got to say goodbye to my favorite Keio boys afterwards (except Daisuke, who was nowhere to be found). Still, it was a really long emotional day for a lot of people; lots of players were crying, and even I was crying a few times, since it was ostensibly my last Big 6 game for a very long time, and I'm going to miss everyone a lot.

Anyway, on that note, let me post some season-summarizing stuff:

Best Nine
Pos  Name                 College  Yr.  Votes  Times   High School

P    Koji Fukutani        Keio      2    12      1     Yokosuka
C    Masahiro Nagasaki    Keio      4    15      3     Koshi
1B   Sho Nishi            Meiji     4    17      1     Toho
2B   Koji Udaka           Waseda    4    15      1     Imabari Nishi
SS   Hitoshi Fuchigami    Keio      4    20      1     Keio
3B   Kanji Kawai          Hosei     1    20      1     Chukyodai Chukyo
OF   Hayata Itoh          Keio      3    17      2     Chukyodai Chukyo
OF   Shohei Habu          Waseda    3    19      2     Koryo
OF   Toshiki Yamada       Waseda    4    16      2     Waseda Jitsugyo

Full votes is 22. Oddly, nobody got full votes. It really was kind of a difficult season to call, in many ways, especially with the craziness at the end. What is odd is that usually the position players for Best Nine are the best batters at each position, but that didn't quite happen this time, because if it had, Soichiro Tanaka should have had an OF Best Nine. (And in all honesty he should have had one anyway -- my picks would have been Shohei Habu, Soichiro Tanaka, and Hayata Itoh, both for their batting AND fielding.)

I hate to say this about Masahiro Nagasaki, since I'm a huge fan of his -- he is a pretty good all-around catcher, but his arm is pretty weak. He handles pitchers well, he fields fouls really well, and he certainly bats better than most other catchers (though Hosei's Takuya Hiromoto was the best catcher both in AVG and OPS this semester). But a lot of the other catchers have stronger arms and are better at actually holding runners. (Nagasaki told me he's quitting baseball after college, so I guess it's irrelevant now anyway.) I foresee a battle between Daisuke Ichimaru (Waseda) and Kenji Kawabe (Meiji) for the Best Nines next year.

I think Hosei's Hiroshi Taki was probably robbed of a Best Nine due to starting the season at SS and playing the last few series at 1B. Meiji's 1B Sho Nishi got the Best Nine due to his huge batting average, which was COMPLETELY due to going 6-for-6 with two walks against Todai during their first series. Nishi was 9-for-13 (.692) in the first two series, and then 5-for-28 (.178) in the last 3 series. Without the Todai games, Nishi batted a pedestrian .228 for the season. However, Taki actually saw his average DROP in a two-game series against Todai where Yoshihiro Maeda was going all out for his final two games EVER, hoping for just ONE win against his 23 losses, and really threw the best games I'd ever seen him pitch in his Todai career. Taki batted .350 in games NOT involving Todai. Take that as you will. (Or more like, give him the Best Nine, dammit!)

I'm happy to see Fukutani get the Best Nine, because he is awesome. He's tall (182cm), smart (was a top student in HS and aced the Keio entrance exam), humble and sweet ("You sure you want me to ruin this nice photo by writing my name on it?"), and can throw 95mph. It's clear that he barely got a majority of the Best Nine votes (12 of 22) and I am guessing a lot of the others went to Yusuke Nomura, with perhaps a few going to Kisho Kagami as well. These people tend to vote based on wins and ERA alone, which would give you those 3 guys tying for the league lead of 5 wins:

          W   L   ERA       IP   ER
Nomura    5   2   1.30     55.1   8
Fukutani  5   1   1.32     61.1   9
Kagami    5   3   2.31     62.1  16

So I'm guessing that Kagami was out based on his "high" ERA, despite how he essentially carried Hosei on his back -- he had more innings pitched than anyone in Big 6. On the other hand, Kagami gave up more home runs (4) than any other pitcher in Big 6 except for his teammate Kazuki Mishima. Whoops.

Fukutani probably got a few more votes than Nomura because Keio did better than Meiji, and Fukutani pitched in some REALLY key situations and did well, including basically getting a win AND a save in the 2-game Keio-Waseda series. If Fukutani had managed one more scoreless inning, he would have had the league ERA title, actually (it's that close -- 9 runs on 62.1 innings slightly edges out 8 runs in 55.1 innings).

But, if you look at Nomura vs. Fukutani by stats that "matter", it becomes a slightly different story...

            IP    H  HR  BBH  WHIP   BF    K/BF  BB/BF   H/BF
Fukutani   61.1  43   0  19   1.01  237   18.1%  8.02%  18.1%
Nomura     55.1  48   0   8   1.01  216   25.0%  3.70%  22.2%

There are only two guys in Big 6 with enough IP to qualify who beat Nomura's strikeout percentage. One is Tatsuya Ohishi, who ALWAYS posts the best K/BF rate in the league. The other is Yuya Fukui, who usually quietly has some great strikeout rates AND some lousy walk rates. And both of those guys were drafted last month.

Nomura easily has the best BB/BF percentage in the league. The next best is Kagami's 4.88%. Nomura simply does not walk batters or give up home runs to them. By the defense-independent breed of statistics, Nomura is just the best in the league, and has been for most of his college career.

On the other hand, Nomura got a lovely trophy for the ERA title anyway, so hey, give this to Fukutani. He deserves something for being awesome too, just like Daisuke did in the spring.

Batting and ERA champs

Koryo class of 2007 in the house!

Batting champion: Shohei Habu, Waseda, .386/.472/.523
ERA champion: Yusuke Nomura, Meiji, 5-2, 1.30

These guys, who were high school teammates that came two innings from winning Koshien together in 2007, are only going to get better next year. Watch out for them. I nicknamed Shohei Habu "Habunnai", a pun on the Japanese word "abunnai" which means dangerous, because when you cheer against Waseda, he's a guy you don't look forward to seeing at the plate.

Other "Relevant" Stats
I realize that 11-13 games and 50ish plate appearances are not a huge sample size, but well, that's what you get in a season here.

Top 10 Batters by OPS:

(W3) Shohei Habu         .386/.472/.523    .994 
(K3) Hayata Itoh         .315/.406/.556    .962 
(R4) Soichiro Tanaka     .327/.448/.473    .920 
(M4) Sho Nishi           .341/.438/.463    .901 
(H3) Yusuke Hasegawa     .278/.395/.500    .895 
(W4) Toshiki Yamada      .371/.436/.457    .893 
(R4) Yuki Maeda          .268/.380/.488    .868 
(H1) Kanji Kawai         .350/.356/.500    .856 
(H2) Hiroshi Taki        .319/.418/.426    .844 
(W4) Koji Udaka          .343/.372/.457    .829 
(K4) Hitoshi Fuchigami   .362/.415/.414    .829 

Astute readers may notice there are 11 names in this list because both Udaka and Fuchigami were tied for 10th.

This time there were no crazy guys with an OPS over 1.000, sadly, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Keio's Hayata Itoh and Rikkio's Yuki Maeda tied for the league lead for homeruns with 3 apiece. Itoh also leads the league in RBIs with 11.

Rikkio's Soichiro Tanaka and Koichiro Matsumoto tied for the league lead for walks with 12 apiece.

(Interestingly, Meiji's Katsuya Kawashima was next in walks with 10, but didn't have enough PA to qualify for the batting title lists; he walked those 10 times in 28 PA. His line for the semester is a BIZARRE .167/.464/.222; I wonder how he'll do if they give him the leadoff spot regularly next year.)

Hosei's incumbent captain Masashi Nanba is the stolen base leader with 7.

Team batting:

                                      HR   SB    E
Keio        .264/.317/.390   .707     10   13    8
Waseda      .268/.328/.341   .669      5    7    6
Hosei       .262/.315/.351   .666      5   16    6
Meiji       .255/.325/.323   .648      3   14    9
Rikkio      .241/.307/.329   .636      8   13   12
Tokyo       .169/.231/.187   .418      0    4   17

League avg  .243/.304/.320   .624    5.2  11.2  9.7

Nothing weird in the patterns this semester. What's kind of sad is how truly awful Todai was at batting -- they were 55-for-326 as a team, with a whopping SIX extra-base hits. SIX. All doubles.

Team pitching:

               ERA   WHIP    K/9   BB/9
Keio          1.96   1.13   6.70   3.05
Hosei         2.44   1.12   7.48   2.36
Waseda        2.69   1.13   8.16   3.87
Rikkio        3.12   1.32   5.86   4.12
Meiji         3.19   1.21   7.63   2.96
Todai         6.41   1.95   2.97   5.74

Hosei's pitching looks really great on paper, especially since Kazuki Mishima got his walks down a lot this semester. If only he and Kagami hadn't given up so many home runs...

Naturally, Waseda has the highest strikeout ratio, being as they've got a lot of power pitchers and 97% of their innings went to the Big Three of Saitoh, Ohishi, and Fukui anyway. (Not a joke. 103 of the 107 innings pitched by Waseda staff were by those three.)

BTW, one more run in the realm of Small Sample Size Theater:

              RS   RA      G   W/L/T      Pythag W-L
Waseda        45   33     12   8-4          8-4    .638%
Keio          63   33     14   8-4-2       11-3    .766%
Hosei         57   33     13   8-4-1        9-4    .731%
Meiji         48   45     13   7-6          7-6    .529%
Rikkio        52   54     15   4-8-3        7-8    .483%
Tokyo         13   80     11   1-10         0-11   .034%

I thought this was weird because the top three teams all allowed exactly 33 runs. What's up with that? No, but seriously, it was also curious that the Pythagorean win/loss tagged a lot of teams pretty closely minus ties, except Keio; though to be fair, Hosei was the benefactor of a 23-3 weekend vs. Todai, and Keio had a 19-0 weekend against Todai; no other team had a double digit game against them, oddly.

The lesson to be learned? Slamming Todai gets you nowhere! Losing to them is the key to success! Making history by almost forcing a first-ever 6-game series due to ties and then actually forcing a 1-game playoff later on will never win you a championship, Keio!

Just kidding.

Anyway, since every team EXCEPT Waseda has decided their next captain...

2011 Team Captains!

Keio: Hayata Itoh OF, Chukyodai Chukyo HS
Meiji: Ikuhiro Takeda IF, Hotoku Gakuen HS
Hosei: Masashi Nanba IF, Chukyodai Chukyo HS
Rikkio: Keisuke Okazaki IF, PL Gakuen HS
Todai: Shuhei Iwasaki IF, Kaijo HS

What's kind of cool is that I've actually met all of these guys at least once, and even have photos with or autographs from most of them. I guarantee I have not met whoever Waseda chooses (what do you want to bet it'll be Ayuki Matsumoto?)

Also, no pitchers. I'm of the opinion that the best team captains are often middle infielders or catchers. Pitchers have more than enough to worry about without the additional responsibilities of being a team captain, honestly.

And on an outgoing note, I kept forgetting to share this, so here is as good a place as any. Seiya Ohyagi, the outgoing Hosei captain, wrote a long and touching blog entry right before Soukeisen saying how he's known the Waseda 3rd-base coach Shoji "Bob" Nozaki since they were in middle school, and for one reason or another they never got to play baseball together again after that time, but had stayed in touch through HS and college rivalries, and he was sad to learn that Nozaki had given up playing and was coaching and rookie-managing instead, but felt that his old friend still looked "cool" out there anyway, and wanted to cheer for him at Soukeisen. And at the end of the post he put a photo of himself holding a "Seiya loves Nozaki" drawing. Very cute.

So a day or two later, on the never-updated Waseda blog, Nozaki wrote a response, basically saying the same thing -- that all of these years of their supposed rivalry didn't change that they were still Best Baseball Buddies Forever.

It was just very sweet and very Seiya. I think I'm kind of being unfair to Nanba in that there's no way he can live up to the way I saw Ohyagi out there on the field and before and after games as a leader and a representative of the team.

And another one of my favorite captains, Keio's Tatsushi Yumoto, also just wrote a farewell post on the Keio blog. The last time I saw Yumoto was on his birthday... which was that final playoff game on November 3rd, that Keio lost to lose the championship. Poor guy.

On a final note, the fall issue of 大学野球 is out TODAY! and has a ton of interesting stuff in it, including the usual list of which companies players are heading to next year. I'll try to put that up sometime when I have a chance.

Now that the season is over:

Best Nine

Pos  Name                 College  Yr.  Votes  Times   High School

P    Daisuke Takeuchi     Keio      2    25      1     Chukyodai Chukyo
C    Masahiro Nagasaki    Keio      4    25      2     Koshi
1B   Yoh Sasaki           Hosei     4    24      1     Sakushin Gakuin
2B   Yuya Watanabe        Waseda    3    11      1     Seiko Gakuin
SS   Koichiro Matsumoto   Rikkio    2    11      1     Yokohama
3B   Takayuki Matsuo      Keio      4    19      1     Tosa
OF   Hayata Itoh          Keio      3    24      1     Chukyodai Chukyo
OF   Soichiro Tanaka      Rikkio    4    21      1     Saga Nishi
OF   Kento Yajima         Meiji     4    11      1     Kiryu Daiichi

I'll get to the position players in a second. They're mostly the best hitter at each position.

But first, can I point out how very much Daisuke Takeuchi deserves this Best Nine?

And moreso, I am going to put in a plea to you all -- if you have been reading my Big 6 blog posts, and have a second, and can kinda read Japanese, please go to the Big 6 MVP Voting Page, which is open until June 4th, and select the one that says "慶大　投手　竹内大助" and vote for Daisuke Takeuchi for Big 6 MVP. Seriously, Yuki Saitoh has been leading the voting in this all along because he's the best-known name in the league and has so many more fans than anyone else, but Takeuchi actually carried his team on his back this semester.

I'm not even talking about his no-hitter vs. Tokyo, or that he personally was 2-0 in the 3-game series against Waseda that earned Keio the league championship. Or that pretty much every weekend, he started two games. Sometimes he even started two consecutive DAYS. Or even that no other pitcher in the league has more than 3 wins to their name and he has 6. I'm talking about:

           G   W   L   BF  IP   H  BBH   K  HR   ERA  WHIP   K/9  BB/9
Takeuchi   9   6   2  248  62  43   23  44   1  1.31  1.06  6.39  3.34
Saitoh     6   2   3  154  41  26   10  29   1  1.54  0.88  6.37  2.20

Takeuchi pitched over 21 innings more than Saitoh, which is like 3 games' worth. And aside from a tendency to walk 1 more batter per 9 innings on average, in the end, despite not throwing quite as hard as Saitoh, he was as effective, if not more, in preventing runners from reaching base -- Waseda's fielders made 9 errors in 11 games this year, where Keio's made 4 errors in 13 games, AND two of those errors were in the first game of Soukeisen... and yet Takeuchi's ERA is lower than Saitoh's.

Seriously. Daisuke for MVP. He deserves it.

As for the rest of the Best 9, I'm fine with most of them. Masahiro Nagasaki is both a fine catcher and a fine batter. Yoh Sasaki is about all you can ask for from a first baseman -- a big target to throw to, and a pretty good hitter. Hayata Itoh is one of the best pure hitters in the league, IMO, and well-deserving of a Best Nine already. Soichiro Tanaka was his team's captain, led the league in home runs (and was 2nd in OPS at 1.042), and Rikkio managed to creep to 4th place.

As for the rest... Yuya Watanabe only got this because he was the batting champion. I'm betting Keisuke Okazaki got an awful lot of those votes that Watanabe didn't. And, oddly... while Keio's Takayuki Matsuo is decent and perfectly deserving of the Best Nine this semester as a well-rounded player, Rikkio's Ryuichi Maeda outhit the rest of the league's 3rd basemen, period. (And to be fair, Keio's Ren Yamasaki is going to be a fantastic full-time 3rd baseman next year after Matsuo graduates.)

I'm kinda curious why Kento Yajima got more OF votes than Shohei Habu, but I don't feel THAT strongly on the subject.

Batting and ERA Champs

Batting: Yuya Watanabe, Waseda

Well, it's no real surprise Watanabe got the batting title -- he seriously was hitting like .458 going into Week 5 or 6. His final line was .381/.422/.429, which should give you an idea of what kind of batter he was. The ridiculous thing is that he didn't lead the league in anything except average. Koichiro Matsumoto had the same number of hits, 16, just with more at-bats, and more XBH. I'll go more into this in a second.

(Wanna know who the league OBP champion was? Meiji's Shogo Shashiki, at .450. Even though he wasn't hitting much, he can sure still take a walk.)

I looked for interviews with something from Watanabe himself, but haven't been able to find much. Waseda is not notable for bothering to make themselves more accessible.

ERA: Kazuki Mishima, Hosei

I feel a little funny about this one -- on the one hand I am a pretty big Mishima fan, he has the same birthday as me and is a really great kid. And he's like 5'9" or so and can throw 95mph. It's nuts.

But on the other hand, Mishima was mainly a reliever for most of the semester; he made two starts, so it feels a little bit lame for a guy to get the title when most of the others who qualified are mainly starters. On the other hand, if Tatsuya Ohishi hadn't had a meltdown at Soukeisen Fall 2009, he would have also gotten the ERA title pretty much completely as a reliever, and would have deserved it. (The requirement is 2 innings per game that the team played.)

The Hosei blog on Nikkan Sports has a brief interview with Mishima:

－最優秀防御率のタイトルを獲得した率直な感想は
野球人生初のタイトルなので、素直にうれしいです。

- How do you feel about getting the ERA title?
It's the first title I've gotten in my baseball life, so honestly I'm very happy.

－監督には何か言われましたか
監督さんも知らなかったみたいで、試合後「お前防御率タイトルとったらしいな」と嬉しそうにしていました。

- What did the manager say to you about it?
It seems the manager didn't know about it either. After the game he said "Looks like you got the ERA title, huh?" but he seemed pretty happy about it.

－秋に向けて
ギリギリというか細かいインターバルで小さいイニングで投げてきたので、まだ駄目だと思っています。秋は先発して勝ちにこだわって優勝に貢献したいです。

- Thoughts on the fall semester?
My outings this season were mostly really short, only an inning or two at a time usually, so... I still feel kind of useless. In the fall, I'd like to win games as a starting pitcher and help the team to a championship.

He also contributed to an entry on the Hosei blog on the official team site, with a photo of him holding the ERA trophy. But he mostly said the same stuff -- "I'm really happy, but our team placed 5th and so I want to help us kick ass and take names next semester. Please come cheer for us."

Oh, while I'm at it, Rikkio put up interviews with Soichiro Tanaka and http://www.rikkyo.ne.jp/sgrp/yakyubu/intro/10harusp-matumoto.html">Koichiro Matsumoto about their Best Nine awards.

Other "Relevant" Stats
I realize that 11-13 games and 50ish plate appearances are not a huge sample size, but well, that's what you get in a season here.

Top 10 Batters by OPS:

(R2) Ryuichi Maeda          .355/.444/.645     1.090
(R4) Soichiro Tanaka        .293/.383/.659     1.042
(R3) Keisuke Okazaki        .350/.426/.575     1.001
(H4) Yoh Sasaki             .366/.429/.488      .916
(K4) Masahiro Nagasaki      .333/.400/.513      .913
(K3) Hayata Itoh            .286/.357/.531      .888
(W3) Shohei Habu            .310/.408/.452      .861
(W3) Yuya Watanabe          .381/.422/.429      .851
(M4) Shogo Shashiki         .267/.450/.400      .850

Hayata Itoh led the league in RBI with 12, and Tanaka led the league in HR with 4. Maeda's insane OPS is mostly due to the fact that in 36 PA, he walked 5 times, got 11 hits, and SEVEN OUT OF THOSE 11 HITS were for extra bases.

Team batting:

                                       HR    SB     E       2B    BB
Rikkio         .277/.326/.430  .756    11    17    10       13    34
Meiji          .267/.346/.365  .711     4    13     9       14    50 
Keio           .253/.310/.377  .687     7     6     4       20    44
Waseda         .236/.313/.306  .619     2    16     9       13    47
Hosei          .221/.287/.293  .580     2    11     6       13    41
Tokyo          .174/.228/.220  .448     0     2    10       12    24
 
League avg:    .240/.304/.336  .640    4.3  10.8    8      14.2   40

I include the doubles and walks only because I thought it was interesting that Tokyo University is actually not that far below the average on them. (But they only had 1 XBH besides those.) Meiji walked a TON. I blame Shashiki.

Team Pitching:

               ERA   WHIP    K/9   BB/9
Waseda        1.74   0.90   9.00   2.57
Meiji         1.82   0.88   7.89   1.72
Hosei         1.93   1.09   6.70   2.57
Keio          2.33   1.20   6.59   3.88
Rikkio        3.96   1.58   7.00   4.24
Tokyo         7.73   2.18   2.12   7.52

League avg:   3.15   1.29   6.63   3.70

Individual records are a little weird to do things by. Something interesting, actually, is to look at the BB/BF percentage: Yusuke Nomura walks 4.22% of the batters he faces, and Kisho Kagami walks 4.79% of the batters he faces. A truly frightening stat is that Tatsuya Ohishi strikes out 37.63% of the batters he faces.

Top 5 by WHIP:

(W4) Fukui         0.87
(W4) Saitoh        0.88
(M3) Nomura        0.88
(M4) Nishijima     0.96
(H4) Kagami        1.00
(W4) Ohishi        1.00

Daisuke Takeuchi is right behind at 1.06, and Mishima at 1.13 -- he has an annoyingly high BB/BF, but he also has a very low H/BF.

I dunno, I'm probably obsessing over this a bit too much. It's just that the semester is over, so I can play with numbers now.

BTW, Hosei beat Tokyo today in the Rookie tournament, 10 to 1, and Rikkio beat Waseda, 5 to 0. Takaaki Yokoyama from Seiko Gakuin pitched for Waseda and lost. I was a fan of his when he was in high school, but I'm not sure I'll ever actually see him pitch in college at this rate.

Keio Victory Craziness

Oh, one last thing! I've been watching some Youtube videos of the Keio victory celebrations. They paraded from Jingu to Mita campus after the victory, and celebrated all along the way. Fun stuff!

Here's some footage taken from within the marching itself:

Parading towards Mita Campus, Part 1
Parading towards Mita Campus, Part 2
Parading towards Mita Campus, Part 3
Parading towards Mita Campus, Part 4

The people sing the Keio fight song and a lot of "Waseda taose", and it gets darker out and I think the crowd gets a bit rowdier as it goes along.

Here's from the ouendan performance at the end of the route:

Ouendan performance 1
Ouendan celebration 2

Yeah, this is way overdue, but I bought the Shube College Ball fall 2009 review issue this weekend and was reading through it, and they had a section where they listed what the graduating seniors would be doing next year (those that have decided so far), so I thought I'd type that in along with this other stuff.

First, Best Nine...

Pos  Name                 College  Yr.  Votes  Times   High School

P    Tatsuya Ohishi       Waseda    3     9      1     Fukuoka Univ Ohhori
C    Masahiro Nagasaki    Keio      3     8      1     Koshi
1B   Kazuya Onodera       Keio      4    21      2     Maebashi
2B   Fumiya Araki         Meiji     3    13      2     Nichidai #3
SS   Hiroki Matsunaga     Waseda    3    17      1     Koryo
3B   Shota Waizumi        Hosei     4    17      2     Yokohama
OF   Shohei Habu          Waseda    2    21      1     Koryo
OF   Yosuke Yamamoto      Keio      4    20      1     Okazaki
OF   Daisuke Ikarashi     Rikkio    4     7      1     Niigata Meikun

Full votes was 21, and Shohei Habu and Kazuya Onodera, as the top two batters, were the only ones to glean that. To be fair, for the most part the Best 9 list is just taking the best hitters at each position, except for catcher, where Atsushi Tanaka actually did a fairly respectable job for a Todai catcher, batting .310/.444/.414 Anyone wanna take a guess who the last regular Todai batter was to reach the .300 mark and when? (By regular I mean, enough PAs to qualify for the batting leaders, so Yuichi Suzuki's .300 in Spring 2007 doesn't count) Answer: a kid named Kei Ogita, back in Spring 2006. His .308 doesn't look so impressive compared to the rest of the league, anyway. Keiji Ohbiki hit .500 that semester!

The fact that Nagasaki got barely 1/3 of the votes tells me that I am not the only person thinking maybe Tanaka or someone else might have deserved it more. Shota Sugiyama did a hell of a job for a freshman, for example, and Ryota Yasuda was solid for Meiji.

I should also mention that I am, of course, overjoyed that Tatsuya Ohishi finally got a Best Nine -- he will be forever living in Saitoh's shadow, being a classmate at Waseda, but at least people realize that he saved a ton of games for Waseda this year and was, aside from his start at Soukeisen, was really, really good this semester.

By the way, if you can read Japanese, I advise looking at the historical Best 9 list sometime. I got totally lost in it. Something really crazy: take a guess who had the most Best Nine titles in their Big 6 college career? I will give you a hint: it is NOT Shigeo Nagashima.

Big 6 Fall 2009 Titles:
Batting average champ: Kazuya Onodera, Keio (21-for-46, .457/.509/.652, 12 RBI)
ERA champ: Kazuki Nishijima, Meiji (1.13 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 8.43 K/9, 1.68 BB/9, 32 IP)

2010 Captains:
Meiji: Yuki Yamauchi
Keio: Tatsushi Yumoto
Waseda: Yuki Saitoh
Hosei: Seiya Ohyagi
Rikkio: Soichiro Tanaka
Tokyo: Yoshihiro Maeda

(I was actually totally just going to go ahead and predict Tanaka, actually, but figured there was always a chance they'd maybe pick Nihira or someone else. All of these captain choices make sense except Saitoh.)

And here is the big list of where the hell everyone is going next year (of those who will actually be playing baseball -- I didn't type in the companies for everyone else):

Graduating Seniors Continuing Baseball

Meiji
P  Ogata Tomokazu        *Keiyo Gas
P  Narita Hayato         JR Hokkaido
C  Yasuda Ryota          Mitsubishi Nagoya
IF Chida Takayuki        Yamaha
OF Kobayashi Takuma      JR Hokkaido
OF Komichi Junpei        Tokyo Gas
OF Tada Hayato           Nihon Seimei

Keio
P  Komuro Junpei         Mitsubishi Nagoya
P  Nakabayashi Nobuaki   JFE Higashinihon
IF Onodera Kazuya        Meiji Yasuda Seimei
IF Urushibata Tetsuya    Toshiba

Hosei
P  Ueno Yushi            Toshiba
P  Futagami Kazuhito     Hanshin Tigers
P  Fujita Suguru         Panasonic
P  Takeuchi Hisashi      Hiroshima Carp
P  Nishi Kohei           Toho Gas
P  Nakagami Takayoshi    *Gamagori Shinkin Bank
C  Ishikawa Shuhei       JR Higashinihon
IF Matsumoto Masatoshi   Nihon Express
IF Waizumi Shota         Toshiba
OF Kamegai Shingo        Toyota
OF Kajiya Yudai          Kazusa Magic
OF Kita Atsushi          *Fukuoka Bank

Waseda
P  Kusuda Yusuke         Toho Gas
P  Takahashi Hideki      Kazusa Magic
P  Matsushita Kenta      Seibu Lions
IF Ohmae Yusuke          JR Higashinihon
OF Kojima Hiroki         Toyota

Rikkio
P  Tomura Kenji          Rakuten Golden Eagles
OF Ikarashi Daisuke      Mitsubishi Yokohama

Tokyo
(Nobody)

Italics are pro teams, and the * before a team denotes a softball team instead of hard ball, although it isn't softball like we think of it in the US -- rubber ball might be a better way to put it.

It will be interesting to follow these guys in the next year or two and see what happens to them in the industrial leagues! I'll certainly be keeping an eye on my favorite guys... this'll give me more of a reason to watch Toyota, and also JR Higashinihon (Tsuzuji from Toyo and Yumoto 56 from Senshu are also going there). Toshiba too! Exciting!

I have a post about the U-26 vs. College game in my drafts pile, but have been sick the last few days.

I hadn't posted the awards for the year yet, and the nice thing is that since I was a slacker, now I can put them all in one post together! Hooray.

Best Nines

     Central League                         Pacific League
(1)  Dicky Gonzalez        (G)    P     (2)  Yu Darvish          (F)
(4)  Shinnosuke Abe        (G)    C     (1)  Hidenori Tanoue     (H)
(1)  Tony Blanco           (D)    1B    (1)  Shinji Takahashi    (F)
(2)  Akihiro Higashide     (C)    2B    (3)  Kensuke Tanaka      (F)
(7)* Michihiro Ogasawara   (G)    3B    (2)  Takeya Nakamura     (L)
(1)  Hayato Sakamoto       (G)    SS    (2)  Hiroyuki Nakajima   (L)
(4)  Norichika Aoki        (S)    OF    (1)  Teppei Tsuchiya     (E)
(2)* Seiichi Uchikawa      (B)    OF    (5)* Atsunori Inaba      (F)
(5)  Alex Ramirez          (G)    OF    (1)  Yoshio Itoi         (F)
                                  DH    (3)* Takeshi Yamasaki    (E)

Ogasawara has 2 Best Nines at 3B in the Central League, 2 at 3B in the Pacific League, and 3 at 1B in the Pacific League.
Uchikawa has a Best Nine at 1B in addition to this one at OF.
Inaba has a Best Nine at OF in the Central League, and now 4 in the Pacific.
Yamasaki has a Best Nine at OF in the Central League, this is his second DH Best Nine.

I'm totally fine with most of these choices. Nice to see people recognize the contributions by some of these guys, especially Blanco and Tanoue. My ONLY real argument here is going to be that Kazuhiro Wada might have deserved an OF Best Nine a bit more than the three guys who actually got it:

Name              Votes    AVG   OBP   SLG   HR  RBI      G   PO   A   E   DP  FP
Alex Ramirez       202    .322  .347  .544   31  103    133  147   2   6   0  .961
Seiichi Uchikawa   124    .318  .369  .491   17   66    130  210   1   3   1  .986
Norichika Aoki     121    .303  .400  .444   16   66    141  300   9   3   2  .990
Kazuhiro Wada      110    .302  .382  .532   29   87    144  216  12   2   3  .991

Seriously, how the hell did Wada not end up with a Best Nine or Golden Glove this season? He is basically a right-handed Atsunori Inaba with a tiny tiny bit less range, but for a 37-year-old outfielder he is still pretty dang awesome both with the bat and in the field. Ben-chan, you was ROBBED.

Golden Gloves

     Central League                         Pacific League
(1)  Dicky Gonzalez        (G)    P     (1)  Hideki Wakui        (L)
(4)  Motonobu Tanishige    (D)    C     (1)  Shinya Tsuruoka     (F)
(2)  Kenta Kurihara        (C)    1B    (1)  Shinji Takahashi    (F)
(6)  Masahiro Araki        (D)    2B    (4)  Kensuke Tanaka      (F)
(7)* Shinya Miyamoto       (S)    3B    (1)  Eiichi Koyano       (F)
(6)  Hirokazu Ibata        (D)    SS    (3)* Makoto Kaneko       (F)
(4)  Norichika Aoki        (S)    OF    (1)  Yoshio Itoi         (F)
(1)  Tetsuya Matsumoto     (G)    OF    (4)  Atsunori Inaba      (F)
(1)  Yoshiyuki Kamei       (G)    OF    (2)  Tomotaka Sakaguchi  (B)

Miyamoto has 6 Golden Gloves at SS, this is his first at 3B.
Kaneko has 2 Golden Gloves at 2B, this is his first at SS. (WTF! Really?!?)

So the Two-Headed Double Play Monster Arakibata wins its 6th consecutive Golden Glove, which is fine with me as those two are seriously the best keystone combo in the game here. My only question about the Central League choices is, WHAT THE HELL IS KAMEI DOING ON THAT LIST!? Seriously. Matsumoto is awesome, even I have to admit that, but Kamei? I see that the next two choices were Akamatsu and Fukuchi, either of whom would be more deserving of the award. Kamei spent half of his time at 1B anyway! Come on, give Kazuhiro Wada that Golden Glove instead of Kamei, for crying out loud.

I am not complaining about the PL choices because they're all Fighters :)
No, seriously, though, everyone who got a GG on the Fighters IS pretty solid defensively. It's kind of what our team is known for -- especially this season with the way we've been holding Sho Nakata at ni-gun because he can't even adequately play first base defensively.

Other awards/leaders:

     Central League                         Pacific League
(2)  Alex Ramirez          (G)    MVP    (2)  Yu Darvish             (F)
     Tetsuya Matsumoto     (G)    ROY         Tadashi Settsu         (H)

(1)  Wei-Yin Chen 1.54     (D)    ERA    (1)  Yu Darvish 1.73        (F)
(1)  Kazuki Yoshimi 16     (D)    WIN    (2)  Hideaki Wakui 16       (L)
(1)  Shohei Tateyama 16    (S)
(1)  Dicky Gonzalez .750   (G)    WP%    (1)  Yu Darvish .750        (F)
                                         (1)  Toshiya Sugiuchi .750  (H)
(2)  Colby Lewis 186       (C)     K     (2)  Toshiya Sugiuchi 204   (H)
(3)  Hitoki Iwase 41       (D)    SAV    (1)  Hisashi Takeda 34      (F)
(1)  Tetsuya Yamaguchi 44  (G)    HLD    (1)  Tadashi Settsu 39      (H)

(1)  Alex Ramirez .322     (G)    AVG    (1)  Teppei Tsuchiya .327   (E)
(1)  Tony Blanco 39        (D)    HR     (2)  Takeya Nakamura 48     (L)
(1)  Tony Blanco 110       (D)    RBI    (1)  Takeya Nakamura 122    (L)
(2)  Kazuki Fukuchi 42     (S)    SB     (3)  Yasuyuki Kataoka 51    (L)
(2)  Norichika Aoki .400   (S)    OBP    (2)  Hiroyuki Nakajima .398 (L)
(3)  Alex Ramirez 186      (G)     H     (1)  Hiroyuki Nakajima 173  (L)

Special Awards
Championship Manager: Tatsunori Hara (CL / G), Masataka Nashida (PL / F)
Speed Up Awards: Daisuke Miura (Baystars pitcher)
CL Special Award: Kazuyoshi Tatsunami (Dragons, for his 22-year career)
PL Distinguished Achievement Award: Katsuya Nomura (Eagles manager)
CL Umpire Award: Kazuaki Nakoh
PL Umpire Award: Masami Yoshikawa

Matsutaro Shoriki Award: Tatsunori Hara (Giants manager, 2nd time)
Sawamura Award: Hideaki Wakui (Seibu Lions)

Ni-gun Awards/Leaders

Eastern League                       Western League
Hitoshi Fujie 1.97     (R)    ERA     Daisuke Yamai 2.38     (D)
Hiroshi Kisanuki 9     (G)    WIN     Daisuke Yamai 7        (D)
Ryoji Katsuki 9        (M)            Shoji Nagamine 7       (D)
Hitoshi Fujie 9        (R)            Ikketsu Sho 7          (T)
Hitoshi Fujie .750     (R)    WP%     Daisuke Yamai 1.000     (D)
Hiroshi Kisanuki 94    (G)     K      Shingo Tatsumi 80       (H)
Kentaro Hashimoto 13   (M)    SAV     Hiroki Kondoh 13        (D)

Juan Muniz .342        (M)    AVG     Aarom Baldiris .358     (T)
Sho Nakata 30          (F)    HR      Takahiro Okada 21       (B)
Sho Nakata 95          (F)    RBI     Takahiro Okada 59       (B)
Masayoshi Miwa 36      (S)    SB      Takaaki Matsumoto 23    (C)
Masayoshi Miwa .397    (S)    OBP     Ryota Arai .426         (D)
Yuki Takamori 112      (R)     H      Aarom Baldiris 93       (T)

                           Team MVPs
Wilfin Obispo          (G)            Yudai Kawai             (D)
Ryoji Katsuki          (M)            Aarom Baldiris          (T)
Yuta Naitoh            (R)            Takahiro Okada          (B)
Hiromitsu Takagi       (S)            Akira Nakamura          (H)
Sho Nakata             (F)            Tsubasa Aizawa          (C)
Ryo Sakata             (L)
Jobu Morita            (E)

(R), by the way, is the one-letter abbreviation for the Shonan Sea Rex, for lack of a better one.

Special Awards:
Yoshiyuki Noguchi, Yakult: For hitting a cycle on 6/25 against the Fighters
Sho Nakata, Fighters: For the record of 30 homeruns in a minor-league season

Eastern League umpire: Kazuki Kudoh
Western League umpire: Ryotaro Sakai

(Scroll down to see the 2008 Draft post, I'm still adding to it)

The lists are out. The CL infield is all Dragons, which should mostly not come as a surprise to anyone who has watched Arakibata The Two-headed DP Machine, and the PL is dominated by Fighters again, which also goes without saying.

Announced here (in Japanese):

     Central League                         Pacific League
(1)  Masanori Ishikawa   (YS)    P     (2)  Yu Darvish          (NHF)
(2)  Shinnosuke Abe      (YG)    C     (1)  Toru Hosokawa       (SL)
(1)  Takahiro Arai       (HT)    1B    (1)  Alex Cabrera        (OB)
(1)  Kenta Kurihara      (HC)    1B
(5)  Masahiro Araki      (CD)    2B    (3)  Kensuke Tanaka      (NHF)
(7)* Norihiro Nakamura   (CD)    3B    (4)  Toshiaki Imae       (CLM)
(5)  Hirokazu Ibata      (CD)    SS    (1)  Hiroyuki Nakajima   (SL)
(3)  Norichika Aoki      (YS)    OF    (3)  Hichori Morimoto    (NHF)
(6)  Norihiro Akahoshi   (HT)    OF    (3)  Atsunori Inaba      (NHF)
(1)  Takahiro Suzuki     (YG)    OF    (1)  Tomotaka Sakaguchi  (OB)

The number in parentheses is how many golden gloves they've won.

(*This was Norihiro's second GG in the Central League after getting 5 of them in the Pacific League. Also, seriously, Arai and Kurihara tied for CL 1B with 50 votes each so they both got the award... I wonder how often that's happened?)

My only question this year is, Alex Cabrera? WHAT? I will note that he only beat Kazuya Fukuura by two votes, but honestly I'm not sure Fukuura deserves it either. I don't really know WHO deserves it come to think of it, though. Bleh.

This is also going to pain me to say it, but I'm glad someone finally noticed that Takahiro Suzuki is pretty kickass at defense. I know I hate him on principle for being a Giants player, but he's really good in the field.

2007 Pacific League Awards (Japanese):

MVP: Yu Darvish (Fighters, 15-5, 1.82, 210 K) photo
ROY: Masahiro Tanaka (Eagles, 11-7, 3.82, 196 K) photo

Neither of these comes as any huge surprise. Darvish won by a comfortable margin over the second-place person, teammate Atsunori Inaba. And there was absolutely no contest for Ma-kun getting the PL ROY award -- he was pretty much destined to get it from the moment the Eagles won the lottery for his services in the draft last year. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but he really kicked ass this year (and he just turned 19 three weeks ago!)

PL Best Nine:
P Yu Darvish, Fighters
C Tomoya Satozaki, Marines
1B Alex Cabrera, Lions
2B Kensuke Tanaka, Fighters
3B Greg LaRocca, Buffaloes
SS Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Marines
OF Atsunori Inaba, Fighters
OF Hichori Morimoto, Fighters
OF Naoyuki Ohmura, Hawks
DH Takeshi Yamasaki, Eagles

A few things to note here: one, EVERY TEAM IS REPRESENTED. That's really nice. Second, this is actually Takeshi's second Best Nine award, except last time was in 1996 and he was an outfielder for the Chunichi Dragons.

2007 Central League Awards (Japanese):

MVP: Michihiro Ogasawara (Fighters Giants, .313/.363/.539, 31 HR, 88 RBI) photo
ROY: Keiji Uezono (Tigers, 8-5, 2.42, 83 K / 85.2 IP) photo

ARRRRRRGGGHH. This is like insult to injury in some ways. First he defects from the Fighters to the Giants, then he wins another MVP award. Ogasawara's clean-shaven doppleganger is only the second player in Japanese baseball history to win MVP awards in both leagues (the first was pitcher Yutaka Enatsu, who won his first one with the Carp and second with the Fighters).

It bugs me though, I'd rather have seen Yoshinobu Takahashi get the MVP award, but he actually finished third in the voting, sandwiched between teammates Uehara and the other Takahashi.

I don't have any comment on the ROY voting. I didn't think there was a clear-cut winner in the CL this year, but Uezono's a decent pick; if it had gone to runner-up Norihito Kaneto I wouldn't have particularly whined about it either.

CL Best Nine:
P Hisanori Takahashi, Giants
C Shinnosuke Abe, Giants
1B Tyrone Woods, Dragons
2B Hiroyasu Tanaka, Swallows
3B Michihiro Ogasawara, Giants
SS Hirokazu Ibata, Dragons
OF Norichika Aoki, Swallows
OF Alex Ramirez, Swallows
OF Yoshinobu Takahashi, Giants

HIROYASU TANAKA???

Heh, I'm totally kidding, I have no real problem with that. Araki came pretty close, but I think a majority of voters appreciated that Hiroyasu is a better hitting second baseman by far. I think the best part is that the Swallows had three players in the Best Nine, yet they finished Dead Last. At least they had a kickass draft this year (Yoshinori Satoh in the HS portion, and Mikinori Katoh in the college part? That's about as good as it gets, although they're going to need a LOT of help next year, that's for sure.)

But if you look at the list of teams the Best Nine came from, it's from the 1st place team, the 2nd place team that won the Japan Series, and the last place team. That's sort of odd, I think.

The lists are out. The CL is dominated by Dragons, which should come as no surprise to anyone, and the PL is completely Fighters and Marines, which would seem more wrong if I could actually come up with good arguments for other players to have won the awards, but I can't.

Announced here (in Japanese):

     Central League                         Pacific League
(3)  Kenshin Kawakami    (CD)    P     (1)  Yu Darvish          (NHF)
(3)  Motonobu Tanishige  (CD)    C     (2)  Tomoya Satozaki     (CLM)
(3)  Andy Sheets         (HT)    1B    (3)  Kazuya Fukuura      (CLM)
(4)  Masahiro Araki      (CD)    2B    (2)  Kensuke Tanaka      (NHF)
(6)* Norihiro Nakamura   (CD)    3B    (3)  Toshiaki Imae       (CLM)
(4)  Hirokazu Ibata      (CD)    SS    (2)* Tsuyoshi Nishioka   (CLM)
(2)  Norichika Aoki      (YS)    OF    (2)  Hichori Morimoto    (NHF)
(7)  Yoshinobu Takahashi (YG)    OF    (2)  Atsunori Inaba      (NHF)
(2)  Tatsuhiko Kinjoh    (YBS)   OF    (2)  Saburo Ohmura       (CLM)

The number in parentheses is how many golden gloves they've won.

(*This was Norihiro's first GG in the Central League after getting 5 of them in the Pacific League, and Nishioka got a GG in 2005 as a second baseman, so this is his first one as a shortstop. I haven't detailed the players' consecutive GG streaks.)

I really have to protest two choices in the CL. One is Andy Sheets for first base. Does that mean that none of these baseball writers took notice of a kid down in Yokohama named Yuuki Yoshimura, who was actually a FANTASTIC first baseman? I know I'm really high on Yoshimura, but seriously, he was great this year. Another fantastic candidate would have been Hiroshima's Kenta Kurihara. And if not either of those super-qualified kids, then why not, dare I say it, Yomiuri's Seung-Yeop Lee? (There, I said it.) I'm sorry, but, ANDY SHEETS? Is this the contest for WORST first baseman in the league?

The other one, sadly, is Norihiro Nakamura. I really don't think he's that great a defensive third baseman anymore, but I guess GGs aren't REALLY based on defense. The guy who probably should have gotten it was the Hiroshima Carp's third baseman Takahiro Arai, who was all over the news tonight for filing for free agency and crying because it was so painful to leave the team he grew up watching. (Psst! Come to Chunichi! Then they can have a full set of Arai brothers AND Donoue brothers! Of course, there'd be a logjam at third base, but so what?)

Oh, hm. I just saw the GG voting and at least it appeared that Sheets only BARELY won, 52 votes to Lee's 49 and Kurihara's 43. Though the second-place vote-getter for CL 3B was OCD, not Arai, sadly.

...exactly who it should be: Yu Darvish, of course.

I already said everything I had to say on the matter a few weeks ago. I still vaguely believe that if Naruse had won the final game of the PL playoffs instead of Darvish, there's a chance he'd have gotten the award instead. But after Darvish's playoff MVP award and his record-tying 13 strikeouts in Game 1 of the Series, there's no question in anyone's mind about whether he deserves it.

The articles don't seem to mention it, but Darvish is actually the first Sawamura award winner in the history of the Fighters/Flyers franchise.

I was going to write more about the NPB Industrial/College draft, but got sidetracked. If I don't see a translated list of the draftees anywhere else by tonight, I'll put one together here, at the very least.

So instead, here's what I've been reading today:

There were Jeremy Reed trade rumors abounding in a USSM comment thread yesterday. They haven't turned into anything yet, though.

Pat Lagreid informed me that manager Mike Hargrove is going to be a guest on the Hot Stove League hour on Mariners Radio tonight at 7pm on KOMO 1000, so if you want to hear what Grover's got to say about the offseason so far, tune in and have a listen.

Mariner Minors has a good report up on the Mariners' recent 40-man roster management, about which players are being protected from the Rule 5 draft, which players aren't, and which players have departed (notably, TJ Bohn was claimed by the Braves off waivers and Jeff Harris was signed by Cleveland (I still haven't seen an article confirming it but our Harris informer at LL mentioned it as well)). There's a press release up about the roster moves.

In the realm of "headlines you could amusingly misread", today there was one reading Sox Have Matsuzaka For Dinner. It probably doesn't help that the picture of him in the article makes him look really chubby!

MVPs have been announced for both leagues now. Ryan Howard won the NL Award, a day after turning 27 on Sunday. The Phillies unfurled a banner celebrating it out at CBP, but even better, he stopped by an elementary school in Philly and helped them paint a mural they were making to honor him. They sang happy birthday to him and gave him cake. Sounds like he'll have one busy offseason, making appearances all over the place.

This marks the second MVP in two weeks for Howard, as he was awarded the Japan-MLB All-Star Games MVP as well, captivating the crowds over there with his charming smile and powerful bat.

At least this year, unlike last year, there isn't some stupid football player starting a ton of controversy and keeping Howard from getting his due recognition in Philly; last year when he won the Rookie of the Year, there was barely any coverage of it.

You could make an argument that Albert Pujols deserved the NL MVP more; you could make an argument that Derek Jeter deserved the AL MVP more too, but the winner in that league was Justin Morneau, making a nice Twin set of awards with Johan Santana's Cy Young.

Justin Morneau was also awarded the accolade of "Boyfriend of the Year" by the sasstistical analysts at Bat-Girl. Whether or not he considered this to be a higher honor is unknown, as Morneau could not be reached for comment.

On another note of Cardinals being snubbed, my baseball calendar lists Ken Griffey Jr. for today's player birthday. That's just ridiculous, given that it's Stan Musial's birthday AND the ballpark of the month is Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

I haven't come up with a catchy tune idea for an MVP song parody yet this year, unfortunately.

2006 Pacific League Awards (Japanese):

MVP: Michihiro Ogasawara (Fighters, .313/.397/.573, 32 HR, 100 RBI)
ROY: Tomoya Yagi (Fighters, 12-8, 2.48)

Pretty much everybody predicted Yagi as the PL ROY, I think. He lived up to every expectation anyone could have possibly had of the Soka University graduate, becoming part of a powerful young one-two punch with Yu Darvish that will anchor the Fighters for years to come. Yagi was an almost unanimous ROY candidate (175/180 votes).

I predicted Ogasawara as the HR king before the season started, but even in mid-September I was still figuring he'd only get MVP if the Fighters won the league. Oddly, I thought it'd be between him and Alex Cabrera though, and instead he only edged out Kazumi Saitoh by 20 points in the voting, while Cabrera barely got any at all.

PL Best Nine:
P: Kazumi Saitoh, Hawks
C: Tomoya Satozaki, Marines
1B: Michihiro Ogasawara, Fighters
2B: Kensuke Tanaka, Fighters
3B: Jose Fernandez, Eagles
SS: Munenori Kawasaki, Hawks
OF: Atsunori Inaba, Fighters
OF: Nobuhiko Matsunaka, Hawks
OF: Kazuhiro Wada, Lions
DH: Fernando Seguignol, Fighters

2006 Central League Awards (Japanese):

MVP: Kosuke Fukudome, Dragons (.351/.438/.653, 31 HR, 104 RBI)
ROY: Eishin Soyogi, Carp (.289/.332/.422)

I was fairly sure Fukudome would get the award, even though one could make a pretty good argument for Tyrone Woods (.310/.402/.635, 47 HR, 144 RBI), who finished third in the balloting, with Kenshin Kawakami placing second. Woods is not the worst defensive first baseman that has ever lived, but Fukudome's one of the top outfielders in Japan.

Soyogi's not a bad choice for ROY at all, though I actually would have voted for the guy who placed second, Yuuki Yoshimura of the Bay Stars (.311/.336/.573, 26 HR). Neither one really took the league by storm like Norichika Aoki did last year, but both were respectably good players on relatively bad teams.

CL Best Nine:
P: Kenshin Kawakami, Dragons
C: Akihiro Yano, Tigers
1B: Tyrone Woods, Dragons
2B: Masahiro Araki, Dragons
3B: Akinori Iwamura, Swallows
SS: Hirokazu Ibata, Dragons
OF: Kosuke Fukudome, Dragons
OF: Tomoaki Kanemoto, Tigers
OF: Norichika Aoki, Swallows

Yeah, these lists do look fairly similar to the Gold Gloves, don't they...

Pictures: MVP/ROYs, Fukudome and Ogasawara, Soyogi and Yagi
WBC Medal/Ribbon ceremony. Wada and Matsuzaka.

(I also saw that Brandon Webb won the NL Cy Young over on this side of the ocean. AL Cy will be announced Thursday.)

(Yes, I am very specifically not talking about Matsuzaka and the Red Sox, for now. I vaguely debated making a post listing exactly what $51 million is worth in terms of things like tacos, playstations, automobiles, and small countries in Africa, but have other things I need to work on. There's plenty of hibachi coverage on mlb.com right now anyway.)

The lists are out, and I'm sure nobody's surprised that they're dominated by Fighters and Dragons players.

Announced here (in Japanese):

    Central League                       Pacific League
(2) Kenshin Kawakami   (CD)    P     (7) Daisuke Matsuzaka   (SL)
(2) Motonobu Tanishige (CD)    C     (1) Tomoya Satozaki     (CLM)
(2) Andy Sheets        (HT)    1B    (6) Michihiro Ogasawara (NHF)
(3) Masahiro Araki     (CD)    2B    (1) Kensuke Tanaka      (NHF)
(6) Akinori Iwamura    (YS)    3B    (2) Toshiaki Imae       (CLM)
(3) Hirokazu Ibata     (CD)    SS    (2) Munenori Kawasaki   (FSH)
(4) Kosuke Fukudome    (CD)    OF    (1) Hichori Morimoto    (NHF)
(1) Norichika Aoki     (YS)    OF    (10) Tsuyoshi Shinjo    (NHF)  
(5) Norihiro Akahoshi  (HT)    OF    (1) Atsunori Inaba      (NHF)

The number in parentheses is how many golden gloves they've won.

(As it is, this is Shinjo's third GG in the Pacific League but he got 7 in the Central League when he played for the Tigers; this is Ogasawara's 5th GG at first base, he has one at third base as well. I haven't detailed the players' consecutive GG streaks.)

I know that I might have been a little bit biased about the Fighters' defense when evaluating it last month, but I don't think any of these picks are particularly bad. Funny part is that the player I think is strongest defensively of the Fighters -- today's birthday boy, Makoto Kaneko -- is the one who didn't get a golden glove. Go figure. I wonder if the Fighters Golden Glove Outfield has anything to do with them spending all that time wearing their gloves on their heads.

...exactly who it should be: Kazumi Saitoh, of course.

With Toshiya Sugiuchi winning it last year, that makes it two consecutive years for Hawks pitchers and three out of four if you count 2003 when Saitoh tied with Kei Igawa for the award.

(The Sawamura award is essentially the Japanese version of the Cy Young, named after the legendary pitcher Eiji Sawamura who died in combat in World War 2.)

Realistically, there was no reasonable way it should have gone to anyone else and I was delighted to hear it was a unanimous choice. (So was Saitoh, it appears.) I think the only other pitchers who were anywhere near fulfilling the standards for the award were Chunichi's Kenshin Kawakami and Seibu's You-Know-Who (if Kei Igawa hadn't been so inconsistent early on, he might have been in the running too), and Saitoh was just plain better than both of them, with his unreal 1.75 ERA in 201 IP, 205 strikeouts, and 18 wins, good enough for the PL pitching triple crown as well.

In addition to the picture of a delighted Saitoh at the Hawks workout camp currently going on, I also saw that Kenji Johjima came by to visit his old teammates.

In other random news of pitchers, Jamie Moyer signed a 2-year extension with the Phillies for $10.5 million. Now, I like Jamie and all, and I think he'll be a great influence on guys like Cole Hamels. I'd like to think he'll actually still be effective through his age 45 season just because that'd be just plain COOL. But if not, isn't that an awful lot to be paying for a pitching coach veteran influence?

And completely randomly, I found a page with all the NPB draft picks back to 1965 and I've been looking through them with morbid fascination. You have to wonder what sort of lousy luck the Fighters had to not only lose out to Seibu on the 1998 draft lottery for You-Know-Who but to end up with Kazunari Sanematsu as a #1 pick instead. (Really... I don't hate Sanematsu, I swear, but the best thing he ever did for the Fighters was bringing us Hideki Okajima in a trade this spring.)

I'm planning to stay up liveblogging the Japan Series again tonight. It's neat that both the World Series and the Japan Series are tied at 1-1, I think.

GG's were announced today, so I figured I might as well compile all the awards here in English.

Pacific League Awards
Central League Awards

Golden Gloves

Japanese Golden Gloves Awarded

This article made me laugh out loud -- if you can't read Japanese, the headline says "Lotte's strong infield monopolizes; Yomiuri Giants get zero"

(there is an article on Japanball about it here but it doesn't have the lists per se, nor does it even mention everyone)

    Central League                       Pacific League
(1) Hiroki Kuroda      (HC)    P     (6) Daisuke Matsuzaka  (SL)
(2) Akihiro Yano       (HT)    C     (7) Kenji Johjima      (FSH)
(1) Andy Sheets        (HT)    1B    (2) Kazuya Fukuura     (CLM)
(2) Masahiro Araki     (CD)    2B    (1) Tsuyoshi Nishioka  (CLM)
(5) Akinori Iwamura    (YS)    3B    (1) Toshiaki Imae      (CLM)
(2) Hirokazu Ibata     (CD)    SS    (4) Makoto Kosaka      (CLM)
(3) Kosuke Fukudome    (CD)    OF    (9) Tsuyoshi Shinjo    (NHF)
(4) Norihiro Akahoshi  (HT)    OF    (1) Saburo Ohmura      (CLM)  
(1) Tatsuhiko Kinjou   (YBS)   OF    (3) Naoyuki Ohmura     (FSH)

The number in parentheses is the total number of times the player has won a golden glove; the teams are the letters in parens and I've put the positions in the middle, just as in the article. I didn't bother copying over the number of votes they got.

I think the most bizarre part here is that they list Saburo as "Saburo" in katakana, but they actually give Shinjo's full name in kanji. Infact, it's been so long since I actually saw his name in kanji that I did a double-take like "An outfielder on the Fighters... Shin-something... OH, GEEZ."

Anyway, the Japanese media is even stupider and more biased towards "popular players" than the American media in voting for these, but I'm relatively happy with their choices. Just a shame Imae had to take precedence over Ogasawara at third, really.

Best Nine

The really bizarre thing here is that Nishioka made the Best Nine as a shortstop but got a golden glove as a second baseman. Huh?

    Central League                       Pacific League
(1) Hiroki Kuroda      (HC)    P     (1) Toshiya Sugiuchi   (FSH)
(2) Akihiro Yano       (HT)    C     (6) Kenji Johjima      (FSH)
(1) Takahiro Arai      (HC)    1B    (1) Julio Zuleta       (FSH)
(2) Masahiro Araki     (CD)    2B    (1) Yuuichi Hori       (CLM)
(*) Makoto Imaoka      (HT)    3B    (1) Toshiaki Imae      (CLM)
(3) Hirokazu Ibata     (CD)    SS    (1) Tsuyoshi Nishioka  (CLM)
(5) Tomoaki Kanemoto   (HT)    OF    (*) Kazuhiro Wada      (SL)
(1) Norichika Aoki     (YS)    OF    (1) Katsuhiko Miyaji   (FSH)  
(2) Norihiro Akahoshi  (HT)    OF    (1) Matt Franco        (CLM)
                               DH    (*) Nobuhiko Matsunaka (FSH)

* -- Imaoka won twice as a second baseman but this is his first at 3B, Wada won as a DH once but this is his third consecutive in the outfield, and Matsunaka won three times as a 1B but this is his first as a DH.

Central League and Pacific League MVP

Tomoaki Kanemoto named CL MVP, Toshiya Sugiuchi named PL MVP

(not directly translated -- it says something more like "old dude Kanemoto wins CL MVP, and PL is Sugiuchi". Maybe I should start calling the 37-year-old Kanemoto "Old Man Tiger" instead of Shimoyanagi)

Despite how much Kanemoto sucked it up in the Japan Series -- and now that it's over, I can honestly feel sorry for him -- he did put together a pretty solid year which pretty much led the Tigers to the pennant, batting .327/.429/.615 with 40 HR and 125 RBI.

Sugiuchi's a pretty good choice for PL MVP -- I was pretty sure it'd go to either him or to Nobuhiko Matsunaka and his 46 homers, and it was a pretty close race between the two of them. I'll talk more about him in a second, anyway.

Sawamura Award

The Sawamura Award is the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young award, named for Eiji Sawamura, a legendary Japanese pitcher who died in World War II. They award it to the best starting pitcher in the NPB every year.

This year it was given unanimously to aforementioned PL MVP Toshiya Sugiuchi, who was 18-4 with a 2.11 ERA with 218 strikeouts. He led the Pacific League in wins (Nishiguchi was next with 17), ERA (Shunsuke Watanabe was next with 2.17), and was second in strikeouts (to Daisuke Matsuzaka's 226).

All in all there was some very strong pitching in the PL this year, really -- 6 starters logged ERAs under 3, whereas only one starter in the CL, Yokohama's Miura, logged an ERA under 3. Why is this weird? The Pacific League uses a DH, and the Central League does not. You would expect the lower ERAs to be in the CL, where they get a couple of free outs every now and then, not the PL -- as was the case in MLB this year, where of the 9 starters to log ERAs below 3, 2 were in the DH-using AL, and 7 were in the NL.

Shoriki Award

Listed under Special Awards is the Masutaro Shoriki award, which is given to people who make the largest contributions to Japanese baseball. Unsurprisingly, Bobby Valentine won it this year.

Rookie of the Year

The Central League ROY award went to Yakult Swallows leadoff hitter Norichika Aoki, who became the second player in Japanese baseball history to record 200 hits in a season (Ichiro was the first, of course), and Marines right-hander Yasutomu Kubo, who was 10-3 with a 3.40 ERA, with 26 walks and 84 strikeouts in 121 innings pitched. Strangely, there weren't even any people remotely close for second place in either voting.