Nishioka's Struggles No Surprise

I'm going to quickly revisit something I wrote several months ago, shortly after the Twins' hasty exit from the playoffs last year. The entire piece can be found here. Here's the quote: 

"[...] re-upping with Hardy eats up a large portion of the off-season money the Twins have to spend, but as I've tried to lay out here, Hardy is the most important one to re-sign given his positional significance coupled with the potential difficulties of replacing him."

I wrote that on October 25th, 2010 and by now all of us are painfully familiar with what happened shortly thereafter. The Twins watched Orlando Hudson walk via free-agency. They traded Hardy to the Orioles for two less-than-mediocre relief "prospects", and they put all of their eggs into the Tsuyoshi Nishioka basket, paying the $5M posting fee to negotiate with the Japanese shortstop and ultimately signing him to a 3-year, $9M contract. Leading up to Spring Training, there was a lot of talk about how Yoshi would transition to Major League Baseball. Many of us bloggers actually managed to convince ourselves that a Nishioka-Casilla middle-infield battery would be pretty decent, at least defensively. Oh how I wish we had been right.

In February, I penned another piece that was inspired by something Phil Mackey had written about the number of Japanese players who had come over the the U.S. and had successful MLB careers. After reading that list I did some research, the results of which you can read here. At the risk of quoting myself too many times in my own piece, here was my conclusion. 

"I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but the track record is undeniable. Aside from Ichiro, who possessed superior hitting and fielding skills prior to coming to the U.S., and Hideki Matsui, who was as great of a power hitter as Japan has ever seen, the overall crop of Japanese players has been disappointing. What's really scary to me is that some of these guys were .300+ hitters in Japan (K. Matsui, Iguchi, Iwamura) and couldn't crack .275 over here...Nishioka was only a .293 hitter in Japan (.287 career average before an unusually good 2010 seasons). Nishioka also didn't have much power in Japan (career .426 SLG%), though he is only 25, so he could develop that as he goes along. I hope it works out for young Nishi, but history suggests the road will be a tough one."

I also wrote (last self-quote, I promise):

"[...] aside from Ichiro, none of the players I covered won a Gold Glove in the U.S. despite the fact that a few of them won the award multiple times in Japan."

I know that Nishioka has only played in 19 Major League games for the Twins. I know this (sample-size alert!!). I also know that the bulk of those games have been after an extended absence due to a broken leg and that perhaps he is simply quite rusty from the long layoff. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for awhile. That said, history is not in Nishioka's favor and at some point, one runs out of excuses. What started out as an interesting departure from the norm for the Twins could prove to be one of their more ill-advised personnel decisions of the last decade. As Gleeman pointed out in his column today, JJ Hardy is hitting .307/.369/.547 with 11HRs and only 1 error in 50 games this season for the Orioles, while Nishioka has committed 6 errors in 19 total games (between 2B & SS) while hitting .197/.254/.242.

Nishioka deserves more time before being labeled a 'bust', probably the entirety of a season...but my hopes for him have never been high and he's done nothing so far to change my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love his attitude, I love that he really seems to care about what the fans think of him and I love his work ethic. That said, I fear that the Twins are blinded by the investment they've made in the 26-year-old to the point where they are probably unwilling to do the one thing that would help Nishioka out more than anything: send him down to Triple-A for awhile. A minor league assignment would take the pressure off of him and give him a chance to further-grasp the unique aspects of baseball on this side of the Pacific. If the Twins are going to make a move like that, the time would be now. If you wait any longer, you're too far into his contract. If you're Bill Smith and you decide that this season is a bust, why not try to develop him a little bit, re-tool the team in the off-season, and come back next year with guns blazing? It just makes sense.

Random Twins Stuff

Well, I made it. My wife and I bought our first house and closed at the end of April and then spent every evening of the next three weeks sanding, taping, painting, and moving. It was exhausting, but now it's all done and I can get back to the things I love to do, like writing about the Twins. I was able to very passively follow the Twins while this was all going on and I was just as happy to have the distraction since the team was playing so poorly. Happily as I've transitioned back in normal life, the Twins have started playing better. Thank you for bearing with this blog and thanks to Matt for picking up some of the slack. In news unrelated to the Twins, our very own Matt Larson was recently on Jeopardy! and not only was he on Jeopardy!, he managed to win his first round by $1. Congratulations Matt!

I'm not one to even bother reporting "site news" normally, but this is a little different. TheBatShatters recently joined the Baseball Bloggers Alliance which is a grouping of 298 (currently) baseball blogs. It's a pretty cool group, and you can expect to see a post or two now and again related to the BBA. If you want to check out their webpage, you can find it here. Well-known Twins blogger Seth Stohs (SethSpeaks) is the president of the Twins chapter of the BBA.

Odd and kinda scary news out of Twins camp this afternoon. It appears that Denard Span is suffering from some sort of vertigo or something that will keep him from playing for at least the next few days. ESPN1500 is reporting that D-Span is headed back to the Twin Cities to meet with doctors to try to figure out what is going on. What's odd is that it's likely not a concussion as D-Span was checked out for that recently following a collision at home plate during the series with KC. Unfortunately it's just another in a long line of injuries for the Twins who will now have to figure out a way of getting around the loss of their lead-off man for at least a couple of games.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka has begun a rehab assignment with the Fort Myers Miracle this week and it's been reported that he has been doing a lot of work with Paul Molitor on avoiding collisions at 2nd base. I wish I could find it, but I saw a pretty cool video on how they're trying to teach Nishioka the art of the jump throw. Basically they're tossing a beach ball at him while he makes throws to first, pretty clever idea if you ask me. Teammate and Twins superstar Joe Mauer has also started a rehab assignment of sorts with the Miracle and while he's not eligible to come off the DL until June 12th, it looks like things are headed in a positive direction (finally!) for Joe and I would expect to see him back with the Major League ballclub within a couple of weeks.

After the final two games of the series with the Indians, the Twins will start a 10-game homestand against the Rangers, White Sox and Padres and, in fact, 19 out of their next 25 games following the Indians series will be at Target Field. For a road-weary team this has got to be good news and it is giving me hope that maybe this team can go on a little run. Coming into play they are 11.5 games out, but with a couple of more wins tonight and tomorrow night they could cut that lead down to 9.5 and then you consider that there are still about 100 games left of the season and well...ok, let's not get carried away. Go Twins!

Home Sweet Home (and trying to stay positive)

The Twins limp home after a 2-4 eastcoast road-trip and while there is plenty to be down about, at least our boys are coming home. I've been reading around some of the Twins blogs and, understandably, the hot topic of the day is Nishioka's unfortunate injury in yesterday's game. I want to change the subject though because honestly, it happened, he's out, and we have to move on.

In trying to focus on positive things, I've come up with a couple of observations:


1.) The Twins bullpen was fantastic in the Yankee series. The bullpen as a whole pitched 8 scoreless innings against a very potent Yankee lineup and they were key in the Twins' victory in game 2 of the series.

2.) Though Baker and Duensing struggled in the early innings against the Yankees, both of them settled down and gave the team 6+ innings.

It may seem like I'm grasping at straws there, and I am a little, but those two things are certainly positive developments, especially considering how many of us have expressed our concerns with the bullpen. Another thing to keep in mind is the disparity in schedules between the Twins and White Sox so far. While the Twins had a very difficult road-trip against teams that were a combined 36 games over .500 last season, the White Sox had the Indians and Royals. Now they draw the Rays and their Triple-A offense while the Twins draw the Oakland Athletics who have one of the deeper and more talented starting rotations in the American League. The schedule will even itself out eventually, I'm just saying...

I think the thing I am most positive about is the fact that Justin Morneau looks like he's officially healthy. He's started the majority of the games so far and his bat is looking better and better. Yes the Twins lost 4 out of 6 games on the road-trip, but they also didn't score more than 5 runs in any of those games and their only homeruns came from Denard Span and Danny Valencia. The bats are gonna come around folks and this offense is going to be good, we just have to be patient.

I had to have Matt talk me off the ledge yesterday, so lest you think I simply have my rose-colored glasses on, I don't. I'm aware of the legitimate concerns this team has going forward, especially in the middle-infield. That said, we have to keep in mind how young this season is. I think we're going to start seeing some better outings from our starters in the next couple of weeks and I think having a couple of series' at home will be good medicine for this team. And hey, Nishioka's not going to miss the whole season, he'll be back by mid-May, early-June and we can get back to over-analyzing his defense and hitting abilities. Till then we've got Luke Hughes and Matt Tolbert to kick around.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka vs. History

Phil Mackey from ESPN1500 in Minneapolis had a "Live from Florida" piece on the ESPN1500 website this morning in which he mentions:

"10: The number of Japanese-born hitters with at least 900 career major-league plate appearances: Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Dave Roberts, Kazuo Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, Akinori Iwamura, Kenji Johjima, Kosuke Fukudome, So Taguchi and Tsuyoshi Shinjo."

That gave me an immediate posting idea so here's a quick look at the ones with at least 1000ABs (which happens to be all of them except Shinjo), comparing their numbers in Japan vs. what they've ended up doing this side of the Pacific in an effort to gauge what we can expect from our new player, Tsuyoshi Nishioka.

1. Ichiro (OF) - 10 Seasons, 1,588G, 6,779ABs

'Nuff said already here, he's been the most consistent pure hitters for the past 10 years.  He has a .331 MLB lifetime avg. in those 10 seasons, he's compiled 10 straight 200+ hit seasons (ML-Record) and he's been a perennial All-Star. Within this group of 10 players, Ichiro has had, by far, the most success.

Ichiro was even more successful in 9 Japanese League seasons, with a lifetime average of .353, 1,278 hits, 118 HRs and almost 200 SBs. Ichiro won 7 Gold Glove awards in Japan and he's won 10 here in the States so clearly his fielding talents have translated well.

2. Hideki Matsui (OF, DH) - 8 Seasons, 1,061G, 3,830ABs

Matsui has been the 2nd most successful player to transition from the Japanese League to MLB, compiling a .290/.369/.479 line in 8 Major League seasons while hitting 161HRs and winning a World Series with the Yankees in 2009. Aside from 2 injury plagued seasons in 2006 and 2008, he's managed to maintain his status as a 'regular' though he is only really useful as a DH now (he's played only 41 games as an outfielder in the past 2 seasons).

Like Ichiro, Matsui was even more of a success in Japan, playing 10 seasons there with a lifetime BA of .305 and a .582 SLG%. In 2002, Matsui hit 50 HRs for the Yomiuri Giants which established a Japanese League record. He's shown power over here, but not quite to that level, averaging about 23-25 HRs per full-season in the Majors.

3. Dave Roberts - (DQ'ed)

Roberts, while Japanese-born, doesn't really qualify for our discussion here because he never played in the Japanese Leagues.

4. Kazuo "Kaz" Matsui (2B) - 7 MLB Seasons, 630G, 2,302ABs

I'll be honest, this is the type of player I expect Nishioka to most closely resemble. Kaz hasn't been a terrible Major League player, but he's been plagued by injuries and despite his 4 Japanese Gold Gloves, he's never won the award in the Majors. His .267/.321/.380 career line in the Majors is certainly nothing impressive, and a far cry from his .309 career batting average in Japan. More on his fielding,...since 2004 when he came to the Majors, he owns a 5.8 UZR which ranks 23rd in the Majors amongst 2nd basemen with at least 1,400 innings over that period. People like Nick Punto, Craig Counsell, and Mike Fontenot have had a better UZR over that same period of time.

Not surprisingly, Matsui seized on an opportunity to return to Japan during the off-season and will be playing for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles this season.

5. Tadahito Iguchi (2B) - 4 MLB Seasons, 493G, 1,841ABs

Yet another 2B out of the Japanese League, Iguchi was signed as a free-agent by the White Sox in 2005 and  pretty much played full-time 2B for two seasons. With a .780 and .774OPS in those two seasons, he was certainly competent at the plate, and also featured a little speed, stealing 26 bases between 2005 and 2006. The White Sox plans changed the following season and Iguchi was traded to the Phillies. Nothing really went his way after that and he was unable to find consistent playing time anywhere. He ended up leaving MLB and went back to Japan in 2009. For only having played 4 Major League seasons, he managed to gather quite a hardware collection, being part of the 2005 World Champion White Sox team and the 2008 World Champion Phillies team.

Iguchi garnered American interest because of two seasons he had in Japan, in 2003 and 2004. In each season he hit well over .300 and drove in a total of 198 runs while hitting 51HRs and stealing 60 bases. That level of success didn't translate very well, however, and I think the White Sox quickly realized they had another average middle-infielder on their hands, both offensively and defensively.

6. Akinori Iwamura (2B) - 4 MLB Seasons, 408G, 1,545ABs

The Rays purchased Iwamura's contract from Japan in December 2006 and he was immediately installed as a regular 2nd baseman. His rookie season wasn't terrible as he managed a .285/.359/.411 hitting line while playing pretty good defense at 2nd (only 7 errors in over 1,000 innings). In his 2nd season, he did play a full-time 2nd base role, but didn't fare as well as his OPS dropped from .770 to .729. In 2009, he was once again the regular 2nd basemen, but tore his ACL in May and missed 3 months of the season. After the 2009 season, the Rays traded him to the Pirates and in 2010 the Pirates released him, he signed with the Athletics and then the Athletics released him. In November, he returned to the Japanese League and will play for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (with Kaz Matsui).

One other interesting note about Iwamura is that he's won 6 Gold Glove awards in Japan and won zero in the U.S.

7. Kenji Johjima (C) - 4 MLB Seasons, 462G, 1,609ABs

After a state-side rookie season that saw Johjima finish 4th in AL ROY voting, his career went downhill fast and in 2009, he went back to Japan to play with the Hanshin Tigers. In 12 Japanese League season, his hitting line was .300/.359/.516 but he couldn't translate that success to MLB hitting only .268/.310/.411 in parts of 4 seasons.

8. Kosuke Fukudome (OF) - 3 MLB Seasons, 426G, 1,358ABs

Fukudome is definitely one of the more hyped position players to come out of the Japanese Leagues in the last few years and though he hasn't been as disappointing as the last few I've covered, he definitely hasn't performed nearly as well here as he did in Japan. In Japan Kosuke became a star with the Chunichi Dragons, winning 4 Gold Gloves and carrying a lifetime .305/.397/.543 line. He was also a national hero of sorts playing for the Japanese team in the 1996 and 2004 Summer Olympics as well as the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic teams (both of which won the Gold).

Fukudome's skills have translated in some ways to the Majors. He has maintained his ability to get on base and has shown a very patient eye at the plate. Where he has struggled, however, is with his consistency. His career .259 average leaves a lot to be desired, particularly because he plays an offensive position. He's prone to hot and cold streaks at the plate and his defense is only average. If something encouraging can be said of Fukudome, it's that he has improved at the plate in every season, at least from an OPS standpoint and last year, he completed his first .800+ OPS season.

9. So Taguchi (OF) - 8 MLB Seasons, 672G, 1369ABs

I won't spend much time here, the bottom-line is that Taguchi is back in Japan, and really, he didn't even start his MLB career until age 32, so it might have been doomed from the start. Like Tadahito Iguchi, he managed to gather two World Series titles in his brief MLB career, winning with the Cardinals in 2006 and the Phillies in 2008. He left MLB at the end of the 2009 season and resigned with a Japanese team in 2010.

What lessons can we take away from this analysis? First and foremost is the lesson that NO Japanese player that has come to the U.S. and played any significant amount of time has been able to duplicate in MLB the type of success they had in Japan. Ichiro was a .353 hitter in Japan, he's a .331 hitter here, still great, but not as good...and Ichiro is the BEST-case scenario. Something more realistic is what we saw with Kaz Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi and Akinori Iwamura...all good hitters in Japan, like Nishioka was, but none could duplicate those results in the States. Another interesting note is that aside from Ichiro, none of the players I covered won a Gold Glove in the U.S. despite the fact that a few of them won the award multiple times in Japan.

I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but the track record is undeniable. Aside from Ichiro, who possessed superior hitting and fielding skills prior to coming to the U.S., and Hideki Matsui, who was as great of a power hitter as Japan has ever seen, the overall crop of Japanese players has been disappointing. What's really scary to me is that some of these guys were .300+ hitters in Japan (K. Matsui, Iguchi, Iwamura) and couldn't crack .275 over here...Nishioka was only a .293 hitter in Japan (.287 career average before an unusually good 2010 seasons). Nishioka also didn't have much power in Japan (career .426 SLG%), though he is only 25, so he could develop that as he goes along.

I hope it works out for young Nishi, but history suggests the road will be a tough one.

Who is Tsuyoshi Nishioka?

Oh man, I can just imagine Gordo and Gladden trying to pronounce this guy's name...or Blyleven. Anyway, I saw this little tidbit this morning and thought to myself, "what? who is this guy?" So I did a little digging:

*Source






I wouldn't have the slightest clue how success in the Japanese professional baseball league translates to the U.S. Major Leagues, so it's difficult to draw conclusions from this stat sheet, but I suppose there are a couple of things we can note. 


a) He's speedy. It's concerning that since swiping 41 bags as a 20-year-old, he hasn't really come close since, but in 144 games last season he stole 22 bases which is decent.
b) He gets on base. They don't give his strikeout and walk numbers here, but a .364 OBP is pretty good and last season, his best year in professional baseball, he put up Mauer type numbers with a .423 OBP. He'd likely made a decent lead-off hitter in the Majors. I did find some more numbers here and it looks like Nishioka has a good eye, drawing walks at a good rate compared to strikeouts.
c) He's injury-prone. He's never missed a majority of a season -- he's managed to at least play 115 games in every season since becoming a full-time player -- but he's missed time in almost every season of his career for various things (wrist, knee, head, hammy, etc).

Christensen admittedly labeled the Twins chances of landing Nishioka as "slim," and Nishioka himself has said that he prefers the West Coast. I have to wonder why the Twins are even bothering. For one, they have to pay just to negotiate with Nishioka, and if you add the negotiating fee to the cost of signing him, I don't really see how you're getting that much more value than just bringing Hardy back on via arbitration. Nishioka gives you a bit more middle-infield speed, but I can't imagine he is much better than Hardy fielding-wise and it's yet to be seen how much better he would be at the plate since there's no guarantee he would be able to duplicate his Japanese success in the Majors.

I've noticed that between Iwakuma and now Nishioka, the Twins seem to have developed a sudden fascination with Japanese players. I'm not sure what the reason for this is, most of the players that have come over from Japan have not done very well (notable exceptions include Ichiro, Hideo Nomo for a few years, Matsuzaka perhaps, and a small handful of others). I guess we'll see what happens, should know by next week.