Japanese MLB players successful ranking in my personal point of view

(5, June, 2022)

コンコン

I want to know historical Japanese Big Leaguers overall.

ペンペン

Same here. A lot of legends such as Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki and more…

アザラシさん

All right. Then you can check out this one…

Contents

・What is this for?
・Ranking Criteria
・Major differences between NPB and MLB
・Data table of Japanese MLB players successful ranking
・Summary~More pitchers found successful than batters

・What is this for?

You can briefly take an overall look at Japanese MLB players; when their professional career starts? When their MLB career starts? and when is their retirement. Each player is ranked based on how successful they are. It is based on my personal point of view with my comment.

・Ranking Criteria

Each player is ranked from S/A/B/C/D, according to comparison of his performance between NPB and MLB.
*NPB means the Japanese Professional Baseball League.

If his performance/statistics drop in MLB, the rank gets lower. For example, Yu Darvish is a great good pitcher in MLB but his performance & statistics get less qualified compared with NPB (e.g. his NPB career ERA is 1.99 while it’s 3.50 in Big League). Therefore, his rank will get lower accordingly in spite of his enough good performance in MLB. Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka are considered similar; they would have broken more records or made better stats if they continued playing in NPB, but in MLB, their stats were just good, not excellent one.

If the performance/statistics are at the same level between NPB and MLB, he is considered successful in my chart. Hiroki Kuroda‘s performance was almost at the same level in both leagues, so he is ranked high. For more examples, MLB stats of So Taguchi and Shigetoshi Hasegawa are not outstanding, but they performed in Big League at the same quality when they played in NPB. And they are ranked high for that.

Junichi Tazawa is very exceptional, playing direcctly in MLB from his very first career, without NPB career.

After all, this ranking tries to show;

・How successful his MLB endeavor is.

・How he fitted/adjusted the MLB environment.

*Aiming to show above rather than how great the player himself is as a baseball player.

This is totally based on my personal point of view and idea, so it may be controversial. Please feel free to post your comment of agree/disagree.

・Major differences between NPB and MLB

In many aspects, circumstances are quite different between NPB and MLB as follows.

・Tough transportation in long distance (NPB only 12 teams within small lands Japan, MLB total 30 teams all over the enormous united states)

・More games to go per season in tight schedule (NPB 143 games/season while MLB games are 162/season)

・Weight/Size of the ball is slightly different (NPB: 141.7g/22.9cm appx., MLB: 148.8g/23.5cm appx.)

・Pitcher’s mound is different (NPB tends to be softer, MLB tends to be harder)

・Pitchers’ arsenal trend difference (More moving fast ballers in MLB)

・Pitching velocity difference (You will rarely find 100 miler in NPB, while MLB has many)

Many Japanese players struggle to adjust differences above, but please keep in mind that all players transferred to MLB performed brilliant and outstanding in Japan NPB.

・Data table of Japanese MLB players successful ranking

You can take a look at my spreadsheet of Japanese MLB players successful ranking here.

*You can browse and scrol above table freely.

View larger table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vScmr89KOxdjpnt16w1OgetQZK7xKyHKc-b8uitQ1X6hByA5FG4_-zlB5mkm1cI6QcQuMDZo1z5wVIV/pubhtml

Data Reference: Wikipedia (Japanese Edition)

・Summary~More pitchers found successful than batters

Finally, here is the summary of the ranking.

Total players evaluated: 48
*33 pitchers, 9 outfielders, 4 infielders, 1 catcher and 1 two-way player.

S rank players number: 9
*6 pitchers, 2 outfielders and 1 two-way player.

A rank players number: 7
*4 pitchers, 1 outfielder, 1 infielder and 1 catcher.

B rank players number: 10
*7 pitchers, 2 outfielder and 1 infielder.

C rank players number: 8
*4 pitchers, 2 infielders and 2 outfielder.

D rank players number: 14
*12 pitchers and 2 outfielders.

<Grand Successful Ratio>
Pitchers above S/A rank: 30.30..% (10 out of 33)
Outfielders above S/A rank: 33.33..% (3 out of 9)
Infielders above S/A rank: 25% (1 out of 4)

As a result, more numbers of pitchers are found successful but the ratio looks similar with hitters. Some players are still active in MLB, so I am looking forward to their future performance that will make changes on the ranking. I will keep updated on this.

Fin.

＜Related articles＞
・If you want to look into Shohei Ohtani’s Japan amazing stats and records, don’t miss it.