Sports
March 24
"How do you say ‘baseball'?"
That's the World Baseball Classic's (WBC) slogan, plastered around Dodger Stadium in a variety of languages. The message is great. Baseball is baseball around the world, and everyone, from communist Cuba to the Netherlands, enjoys it. But baseball isn't played the same way all over the world.
In Japan, they say "yakyuu" and in terms of execution, that means something a little different from "baseball." Something must be going right with yakyuu though, since the Japanese have just repeated as WBC champions.
Japanese style baseball is the ur-Smallball, a style that has Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire salivating. Run prevention is the name of the game. Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) teams (the Japanese major leagues) score a combined run per game fewer than their American counterparts. The cultural emphasis on run prevention carried over to the WBC, where the Japanese team featured the second-best pitching staff (by ERA) of the tournament in 2009, and the third-best in 2006.
Japan's staff in 2009 was led by Hisashi Iwakuma, Daisuke Matsuzaka and 22-year old phenom Yu Darvish. Matsuzaka was named tournament MVP in both 2006 and 2009, and in both tournaments combined, he has posted a 6-0 record in six starts, with a combined 1.95 ERA and 23 strikeouts in 27.2 innings. Darvish, in his first tournament in 2009, struck out 20 batters in 13 innings, setting a WBC record for strikeouts.
The pitching, although an important source of strength for the Japanese teams, is not that unusual. In MLB, there is the old saying that pitching wins championships, and there is no question that pitching is appropriately valued by American baseball players and management. It is their style of hitting that sets the Japanese apart, from both an individual and a strategic standpoint.
You'll never see a Japanese player with a stance like David Ortiz. In his prime, Ortiz crowded the plate, bent at the knees and waist, and used his stride and unwinding of his upper body to generate massive power. Even Japanese power hitters do not hit like that. Most Japanese hitters have a stance like Ichiro Suzuki, where a quick twisting motion of the upper body is used to generate line-drive power, and the open stance allows the player to spoil pitches to all areas of the strike zone. Additionally, during the follow-through of the swing, players like 2009 shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima are already lifting their back foot to take the second step down the first base line. Japan's team isolated power in 2009 was a paltry .094, worse than any of the other advancers out of pool play with the exception of the Netherlands, who couldn't hit their way out of a paper bag.
The Japanese hitting style emphasizes bat control, speed and slapping the ball to all fields. As a team, the Japanese posted a .299 team batting average in 2009 and a .311 average in 2006. The team rarely strikes out, just 5.4 times per nine innings in combined WBC play, and a tenth of team strikeouts come from Michihiro Ogasawara's 10 strikeouts in 9 games in this year's Classic. A typical Japanese at bat brought in the game-winning runs in the 10th inning of the 2009 classic. Ichiro had an eight-pitch at bat, fouling off a number of pitches including one nearly in the dirt, before finally slapping a change-up back up the middle for the game-winning RBI.
Strategically, Japanese baseball is alien to American fans, especially the sabermetrically inclined. Broadly speaking, the emphasis is on low-power teams to score a run at a time using base running, sacrifices and timely singles. The Japanese love putting runners in motion, leading both tournaments in steals. Part of this strategy is born from the style of hitting. With great contact hitters and good team speed, putting on the hit-and-run makes sense in a variety of situations. If an MLB team had the kind of personnel that the Japanese WBC teams have featured, managers might be more inclined to use motion on the basepaths.
The more bizarre style of play concerns bunting. In NBP games, it is not rare to see bunting in the first inning, and the Japanese didn't reinvent the wheel for the WBC, either, leading both the 2006 and 2009 WBC in sacrifice bunts. The strategic implementation of the bunt is possibly slightly more sound if runs are at a premium, which in NBP play is true. Most devoted students of sabermetrics, however, know that bunts are usually a self-defeating endeavor and lower the team's run expectancy.
Case in point: In 2009 pool play, with Iwakuma on the mound spinning a gem, the Japanese were losing to the Koreans 1-0 in the seventh inning. Ichiro opened the frame by slapping a single through the infield. Hiroyuki Nakajima followed, and manager Tatsunori Hara ordered him to bunt Ichiro to second.
This would be considered a horrible decision by most American fans for a variety of reasons. Ichiro is very fast, and he could probably steal second all by himself without any nonsense on Nakajima's part. If you want a fast guy on second, let him steal and don't bother with the bunt. Nakajima is one of the best hitters on the Japanese team and is far and away the best at getting on base. Over the course of the 2009 Classic, he posted a ridiculous .364/.516/.545 line, and Hara decided to take the bat out of his hands. Ichiro did not score in that inning and Japan ended up losing 1-0. It was a poor strategic decision on Hara's part and would be inexplicable in an MLB game.
The key difference is primarily cultural. Japanese culture emphasizes harmony, teamwork and sublimating individuality for the greater good. Bunting is possibly the ultimate expression of these cultural values. The efficiency aspect matters less than the fact that the Japanese team plays the game the right way. Japanese fans would not think twice about that bunt in the seventh inning or even a bunt in the first. Bunting is an extremely important part of Japanese baseball. 2006's leading slugger, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, slugged .613 and had two home runs in 31 at bats. He also had five sacrifice bunts.
The Japanese team is establishing quite the dynasty with the bunt-happy small-ball style. They managed to beat a slugging Cuban team in 2006 and a Korean team in 2009 that was led by a fantastic pitching staff. Anyone who saw the capacity crowds in 2006 and 2009 can tell you that international baseball is alive, well and growing faster than ever. But when talking about Japan, don't call it baseball. It's yakyuu, it's different and it has worked pretty well so far.
