For MLB fans, it’s an exciting time of year again as the off-season deck of player cards reshuffles itself, and the list of eligible free agents from Japan comes hot off the presses, with MLB teams are ready to snatch a new crop of Japanese players up as free agents. Let’s see who’s on the list this year: Hiroshima Carp ace Kuroda Hiroki, long time Japanese hero Takahashi Yoshinobu of the Giants, and Fukudome Kosuke. As EWC chronicled in an earlier post Kobayashi Masahide has already found a new home in MLB.
Across the Pacific, the new crop of free agent signings is bad news for NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball), as the NPB continues to get mined for its talent. In some cases, teams in Nippon Pro Yakyu (baseball)?are signed as vassal appendages to MLB teams via scouting agreements and financial arrangements such as the recent deal between the Red Sox and the Chiba Lotte Marines.
In a recent post on his Blog, Bobby Valentine bemoaned the loss of talent in Nippon Pro Yakyu, and the deleterious effect this defection of talent is having on Japanese baseball. Meanwhile, in Taiwan and Korea, the CPBL and KBO trudged through another season of dismal attendance, sagging finances, and low quality baseball.
Here is the question I pose to Bobby and others involved in Asian baseball:
Why have three mediocre separate leagues and a bunch of meaningless international exhibitions when you can combine the three major pro Asian leagues into a single league?
For a while now, I’ve been babbling to anyone that will listen and hopefully people in the CPBL, KBO, and the NBP will at some point be in that audience is that those three leagues should combine into a single Asian major league, a pan-Asian majors. There are so many reasons for creating this, and so few not to.
Anyone who watched the 2006WBC had to agree that it was probably the most exciting, passion filled baseball they’d seen in a long time. I remember one ESPN announcer, during several other major sporting events being broadcast, blithely remarking “No one’s paying much attention to this in the newsroom, we’re all glued to the WBC.” And with good reason. It was fun to watch and fraught with nationalist tension (remember the Koreans planting the flag on the mound? Ichiro dismissing Taiwan as 35 years behind them?).
The skinny: international baseball is exciting and draws fans. The World Baseball Classic was an unmitigated success, producing some of the most passionate baseball the world has seen in a couple of decades.
The creation of a pan-Asian majors is an obvious move for so many reasons: Attendance would increase manifold in the empty stands in Korea and Taiwan would fill as the Hanshin Tigers came to play in Tien Mu Stadium. Fans pour into the Sapporo dome to see if the Korean teams can hang with a Japanese team. The talent pool increases and grows larger. Bigger name international free agents come to play in Asia, and the level of competition rises across Asia. International competition via pro teams allows national rivalries to play out on a bigger stage. The league would doubtlessly generate interest in the baseball mad U.S., who could be exposed to a whole new crop of talent.
Marketing possibilities are endless across Asia, even into bigger global markets. Bigger cable TV revenues and larger international sponsorship. Japanese franchises could be saved from the brink of financial ruin without having to mortgage off their good players to stay afloat.
Pragmatics: You Wouldn’t Have?to Change That Much.
Pragmatically, a pan-Asian league wouldn’t be hard to accomplish if the will were there, and more importantly, you could preserve the Japanese league without making any major alterations or changes in schedule. Right now Japan has 12 teams, Taiwan six, and Korea eight. Put these teams together, and you have a 26 team major league. Sounds pretty feasible, and all you have to work out is air travel and a few other details. The league could be divided into AL and NL-like split, Taiwan/Korea forming one division and Japan forming the other one.
Like MLB, there would only be limited inter-league play between the two leagues during the regular season, mostly for exhibition and promotional purposes, but most of their games would stay within the divisions. This would alleviate the problem of the Japanese teams feeling like they can’t condescend to play regular season games against the Korean and Taiwanese teams. Taiwan and Korea would have to make more schedule adjustments, but both are on the brink of financial ruin and have nothing to lose, and would probably welcome the change anyways.
For the playoffs, Japan would more or less keep operating as it has, but in the end the championship of the league will be decided by the winner between the Taiwan-Korea division and the Japanese division. Instead of the meaningless Konami Cup and Asia series, which are more exhibition-like in nature and not all that interesting except to a small group of initiates, you would have a legitimate world series of Asia.
And it would just plain be a lot more fun and interesting to watch than 3 mediocre leagues with marginal talent.
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Drawbacks
There are a ton of possible drawbacks and obstacles to this not working however. Here are some of them:
1. Nationalism: Japan won’t condescend to play together with these leagues and feel that they are the major leagues in Asia. Central League teams can hardly be bothered to play against Pacific League teams, so getting them to play in leagues they believe are at a AA level beneath them won’t be easy. However, with the financial problems besieging the majority of NPB teams, it would be in their interest to make some adjustments.
2. Structural problems in the organization of the Japanese league: The Yomiuri Giants circus of aging dinosaurs who won’t see the problem alone already would make this a tough thing because they wield so much power and would have no desire to do this. But, as one MLB scout said when I ran the idea by him, “[expletive], go tell the Giants and any other teams in Japan that think they’re above it to go play by themselves if they won’t cooperate in it. Don’t invite them. Hanshin can play, Orix can play, anyone who wants to. Let them sit at home if they don’t wanna join it, and eventually they’ll see it works and want to join.”
3. Taiwan’s gambling problem in baseball: If Taiwan can’t stop the gambling problem, teams aren’t going to want to join in them with business ventures. Watching these teams play games that could be exciting to stadiums of 18 people including their families largely because of the damage that gambling is doing to the reputation of the
league is hard sometimes. Perhaps enhanced international competition and increased international oversight would help this.
______________
If Japanese baseball and those involved in Asia are serious about their game and want to stop the mass defection of players to Asia, this plan seems like perhaps the only way to make this happen.
Michael Westbay of Japanesebaseball.com wrote a similar piece in Mudville Magazine, but his proposal leaves the Central League out of it altogether. At least in the beginning. Thanks to Mr. Westbay for contributing to this piece.
28 responses so far ↓
1 IronChef // Nov 22, 2007 at 12:46 am
You forgot drawback 4:
1) The inevitable shooting war that’ll be sure to occur allegations about umpire conflict of interests are “leaked” to the Yomiuri corporation.
3. Taiwan’s gambling problem in baseball: If Taiwan can’t stop the gambling problem, teams aren’t going to want to join in them with business ventures. Watching these teams play games that could be exciting to stadiums of 18 people including their families—largely because of the damage that gambling is doing to the reputation of the
league is hard sometimes. Perhaps enhanced international competition and increased international oversight would help this.
Or you could just pay the players more. And hire enough security so family members aren’t threatened.
2 John Brooks // Nov 22, 2007 at 3:38 am
The main problem with this is that NPB owners are stuck in their OB(Old Boy) mentality. The major problem comes from that the corporations who run the teams. They are unaware of how to improve the game. I’m afraid that the majority of them don’t even have a clue how to make this work. The only owner in my opinion who would even have a idea how to make this work is Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. Yomiuri’s Tsuneo Watanabe could care less, and as we know he’s the voice of NPB.
NPB is unaware of how to do is attract more players to the league. If they added more minor leagues they be able to draft more players. As of right now there’s one minor league team per each team. If there were more minor leagues, there be a better chance to find players who could help a NPB team down the road.
3 jackson // Nov 22, 2007 at 3:56 am
One MLB scout indicated to me recently that there are few MLB scouts on the ground in Japan that are scouting amateur players, because the competition is too fierce already among Japanese scouts.
It seems bizarre to me that an MLB team would only focus on signing already establlshed expensive talent –when they could scout at the amateur level and find players to develop through their minor league system.
can you shed some light on this Mr. Brooks?
4 John Brooks // Nov 22, 2007 at 6:33 am
Many NPB teams blow away the standard signing bonus of $800,000. One great example was the scandal earlier this year involving Takumi Nasuno of the Yokohama BayStars and the whole Yasuhiro Ichiba debacle in 2004. The main problem is that NPB teams blow away MLB teams in salary under the kibowaku system(which they agreed to ban after the whole Yuta Kimura incident this year). Same thing with Matsuzaka, many MLB teams were ready to offer him $3M plus to sign, but that was blown away by a 50 million yen signing bonus by Seibu. What does this mean you ask? It means many NPB teams go way over the alloted signing bonus to lure amateur players into playing for them.
Second, many amateur players aren’t willing to go play in small cities such as Midland, where’s there thousands of miles away from there family. As pointed out by Nobusha Ito in this USA Today article:
The Minnesota Twins and New York Mets were interested in Sho Nakata, but neither of them were unable to get him to sign with a MLB team. Also why would Nakata sign with a MLB team, when he could possibly not be in the majors right away, but could play with Nippon Ham right away?
So in conclusion, MLB teams do try to sign top amateur talent, but getting them to sign is a different story given the reasons I listed above.
5 John Brooks // Nov 22, 2007 at 6:36 am
One more thing I like to mention, is that Seibu was rumored to offered Matsuzaka $15 million to sign, not the 50 million yen signing bonus I mentioned, which isn’t much. Sorry for the misunderstanding. The $15 million rumored offer easily blew away anything any MLB team was willing to give Matsuzaka.
6 A.S. // Nov 23, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I think a realistic way to go about this would be to expand the Konami Cup into a real…best-of-seven championship. I don’t think it has to be an exhibition. Continue to increase the booty, play games in all four countries…make it a real Asian championship. I would have liked to see SK and Chunichi play a seven game series.
Then, down the road, somehow set up some interleague play between Taiwan and Korea. They have a great rivalry brewing already. As Jackson says the Japanese won’t condescend at first, but as Korea and Taiwan continue to increase their level of play and raise their profiles in MLB, the proof will be in the pudding and Japan may have to join, just as the Americans have been forced to send better amateur teams to play in events like the recent World Cup.
7 Deanna // Nov 25, 2007 at 1:58 am
Yoshinobu declared a while back that he’s a Giant through and through and has no intention of leaving them. I don’t think he even bothered filing for FA status.
On the other issue, Brooks-san hit it on the head with the “why go languish in the minors in America for a while, dealing with language barriers and other things, when a kid out of highschool could be playing in the bigs immediately in Japan?”
Also, as far as scouting the amateur games… are most MLB scouts fluent in Japanese and/or do they get translators with them everywhere they go? I personally love going to college games and other non-pro games here in Japan, but I can actually read and understand everything going on, and keep pretty accurate scorecards. There’s really not very much out there in English about the amateur/college/etc leagues in Japan, though, and many of them don’t even publish stats at all. Given that some scouts couldn’t even keep Kuroda and Kawakami straight…
As far as the idea of the international league… I honestly think the language barrier would also be a problem. Unless Japanese papers seriously started covering the other Asian leagues, I’m guessing that nobody in Japan would know or care about any of the other countries’ teams for the most part. There probably wouldn’t be much of a balance of home and away fans, if the Konami Cup attendance was any indicator. And so players would be enduring crazy travel schedules and foreign countries (and likely customs/immigration nightmares as well) for no particular real benefit.
(I don’t particularly feel like watching a KBO-NPB game on a regular basis either, to be honest, especially if it means they’re going to have that ridiculous Engrish announcer around all the time. Blargh.)
8 A.S. // Nov 25, 2007 at 10:18 pm
The reasons guys languish in the minors in America for a while, dealing with language barriers and other things, is because the highest level of baseball is played in America. I’m not saying I necessarily like that or support it, but it’s a fact. Some guys from Japan will feed into this competitiveness and others won’t. Some will feel an obligation to serve and remain faithful to their country and race and others won’t. Personally I rarely feel the urge to prove I am the very best at something, but I think a lot of athletes do. And I think a lot of fans want to see athletes competing in such a way. If Japanese people want to see Japanese people competing in Japan, then the league should remain the way it is. Same with Korea and Taiwan. Lord knows they all listen to and make enough shitty rock and roll to have already proved that point over and again.
The language barrier might be a problem, but that has more to do with nationalism and even xenophobia than it does baseball or lack of a common language. They all send teams to the Olympics and take that seriously enough. They all put everything they had into the WBC. When you watch those events from Japan are they broadcast in English? Of course not. I don’t know why you think they would be in a pan-Asian league.
A lot of these are issues all these countries will have to face politically as they all become more equal economically. From that standpoint they might do themselves a favor to have some common ground–like a baseball league.
The rest of your argument Deanna, seems to be built on your own preference and desire to be in Japan, speaking Japanese and so on. That’s fine, but it’s not very relevant to whether there should be a pan-Asian league or not. You’re part of a very small minority. I congratulate you on being able to keep score in Japanese, however.
9 Deanna // Nov 26, 2007 at 2:15 am
Oh, I well understand WHY people languish in the minors. I’m just saying there’s a really good reason for kids to stay in Japan rather than going the other route. They could either spend 8 years being a superstar in their home country, surrounded by family and fans, and then go sign for millions of dollars when they’re 30, or they could possibly spend many years playing in the minor leagues living in the middle of nowhere, dealing with the cultural barriers, eating lousy food, getting paid crap, being in the crappy minor league parks, with the hope of maaaaaybe getting to the MLB? If they’re lucky, they end up like Mitsuru Sakamoto and at least can write a book about it later… but honestly, how many of the random Japanese guys who played in the minors in the last couple of years does anyone really even remember? Most of them weren’t able to get into the NPB after failing to get higher than A or AA ball in America.
“I don’t know why you think they would be broadcast in English…”
You misunderstand me. I’m not talking about games broadcast on TV or the radio or whatever, I’m talking about the announcers AT the game. Have you attended an international game in Japan? They have these Engrish announcers in addition to the Japanese ones. They do it for the Nichi-Bei MLB-NPB games, they do it for the Konami Cup, and it’s atrocious.
And er… they take it seriously enough? I don’t know for sure, but it seemed like most Japanese people had no clue who anyone was on the other teams at the Konami Cup, or even at the WBC. Yes, they take it pretty seriously to cheer for Japan (as you said, it’s nationalism), but I don’t think they really care that much about the players or teams in other leagues. Let’s put it this way: I knew that the Wyverns were from Incheon, but nobody else I talked to at the Konami Cup knew that.
Even when it comes to MLB affairs, people don’t really seem to care about who anyone is outside of the Japanese players. I talk to Japanese people about baseball pretty much every day, and have had conversations where someone says they are a Mariners fan, that they love Ichiro and Johjima, and if I ask what they think of Felix Hernandez, they say “Who’s that?”
What group exactly do you think I’m a minority among? Among people living in Japan, or among English-speaking people talking about baseball on the internet? Yeah, I’m a minority in the latter since I actually love Japanese baseball for what it is and not for some feeder league to the MLB. I would highly doubt that I’m a minority in the way people think over here, though. I bet if you asked most Japanese baseball fans about the idea of a pan-Asian league, they’d say something like “What? I’m not going all the way to Korea to cheer for my team!”
Anyway, I don’t think it’d work simply for the play level which you mentioned. Taiwan simply isn’t as good as Korea or Japan right now, and Korea is still a bit below Japan as well, and playing official season games against such an unbalanced field could raise some fairness issues (like “how come the Hanshin Tigers got to play against the crappy KIA Tigers and we got stuck playing against the Wyverns and Bears?”) I also don’t think that it’d actually help the teams with financial issues at all, and the ones that don’t have issues — such as the Hanshin Tigers — would have no incentive to go along with such a plan anyway. And their argument to the other teams would be, “Are you going to give up the gate receipts from another 5-6 games per year with the Tigers and Giants in order to play to tiny crowds in Korea?”
Anyway, I think you didn’t quite read what I was saying — can you answer my question about scouts? You want to know why people don’t scout amateur games in Japan, and my answer is that it’s too difficult if you don’t speak Japanese.
10 jackson // Nov 26, 2007 at 2:48 am
Allright, the last 3 posts have been very interesting, so i’m gonna jump in here:
Deanna:>>>”On the other issue, Brooks-san hit it on the head with the “why go languish in the minors in America for a while, dealing with language barriers and other things, when a kid out of highschool could be playing in the bigs immediately in Japan?”
J: Because 1. MLB is the biggest stage and the biggest proving ground for baseball players and the level of competition is the highest in the world, making it worth the sacrifice if it pays off and 2. The salaries for MLB players and the lifestyles they lead are far higher than in the Japanese league. Higher risk, higher reward. Unless players simply like Japan better (if I were Yu Darvish and there were throngs of young women screaming at airports every time I landed in one I probably wouldn’t want to leave either) or have some other motives, my feeling is that all athletes have a drive to test themselves against the highest level of competition in the world.
>>>Also, as far as scouting the amateur games… are most MLB scouts fluent in Japanese and/or do they get translators with them everywhere they go? I personally love going to college games and other non-pro games here in Japan, but I can actually read and understand everything going on, and keep pretty accurate scorecards. There’s really not very much out there in English about the amateur/college/etc leagues in Japan, though, and many of them don’t even publish stats at all. Given that some scouts couldn’t even keep Kuroda and Kawakami straight…
J: Well, out here in Taiwan, there are a lot of scouts that don’t speak that much chinese and they still do fine. And I would say Japan is a lot more ‘gaijin friendly’ than Taiwan is in terms of access to info, transportation, the # of foreigners, etc. With language tools available on line and with the limited English most Japanese do speak, there’s nothing preventing scouts from getting the information they need. When the payoff is inking a free agent amateur player to a deal that could later be worth millions to a major league team, you’d think that people would figure out enough japanese to get around and say things like “first baseman” and “swing path”. It’s not rocket science, as much as certain Japanophiles want to dress what they do up in this cloak of mysteriousness. Any MLB scouting dept. at this point that doesn’t know about Kuroda or Kawakami at this point would be farcical. If they exist, any of us in this room should have director of pac. rim scouting jobs.
D>>>>:As far as the idea of the international league… I honestly think the language barrier would also be a problem.
J: It wasn’t a problem in the World Baseball Classic. It’s not a problem in the champions league in soccer. football. whatever.
>>>>D: Unless Japanese papers seriously started covering the other Asian leagues, I’m guessing that nobody in Japan would know or care about any of the other countries’ teams for the most part.
J: They would if top japanese players were playing there! If, let’s say, the Brother elephants lured Ogasawara away to play 1B for them, people would start paying attention. Part of the league would have to be lifting restrictions on player movement so that the competitive balance can be maintained. I know in NPB, where they let the kids pick what teams they want to go to and one team has a monopoly on everything, this is a hard idea to fathom, but gee whiz what if Kuroda was pitching for a Korean team. People would start paying attention quickly.
>>>>D: There probably wouldn’t be much of a balance of home and away fans, if the Konami Cup attendance was any indicator. And so players would be enduring crazy travel schedules and foreign countries (and likely customs/immigration nightmares as well) for no particular real benefit.
J: Huh? My guess is that Tainan stadium would be packed with people to go see the Hanshin Tigers if they came there. And not only that, but if you read the article, it says that there would be very limited interleague play. the Japanese league would more or less exists as is, its just that the schedules for the 3 leagues would be streamlined, and you could keep stats for all the leagues simultaneously, and the teams from the Japanese league and the K/T league would meet in the playoffs. Almost all traveling would be done by the K/T teams, not the Japanese teams.
and there are huge benefits: a better league. higher quality of play. increased free agent talent. more sponsorship. among other things.
>>>D: And er… they take it seriously enough? I don’t know for sure, but it seemed like most Japanese people had no clue who anyone was on the other teams at the Konami Cup, or even at the WBC. Yes, they take it pretty seriously to cheer for Japan (as you said, it’s nationalism), but I don’t think they really care that much about the players or teams in other leagues. Let’s put it this way: I knew that the Wyverns were from Incheon, but nobody else I talked to at the Konami Cup knew that.
J: Yes, thats because there’s no Japanese players on the Incheon roster. Imagine if several JP talented players were in Incheon. People would know that. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but people cheered for Nakata pretty hard when he played soccer in Italy right? then they learned where Perugia was. I think if the rosters became integrated people would care. And again, maybe the Rakuten Eagles don’t want to give up gate receipts from 5 extra games with hanshin, but that’s the same focus on the short term rather than fixing the long term issue. 25 years down the line, when the KBO team has 3 Japanese stars, a few Taiwanese stars, and more foreign free agents then there will be more money to go around.
>>>D: Anyway, I think you didn’t quite read what I was saying — can you answer my question about scouts? You want to know why people don’t scout amateur games in Japan, and my answer is that it’s too difficult if you don’t speak Japanese.
J: I simply can’t buy this argument. there’s no way. If that’s the case, then I’m picking up my bags and moving to Japan immediately because I speak enough Japanese to communicate and if I’m the only one there from MLB because no other scouts can speak the language then I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. It’s just counter intuitive. You’re talking about the chance to sign a top quality 3B into your minor league system in the 2nd most powerful baseball country in the world and you don’t go there because you can’t understand the language? The scouts I’ve met out here in Taiwan would cut someone’s throat for the right to negotiate with a player they like out here, so it has to be more than just the language issue.
11 Deanna // Nov 26, 2007 at 4:55 am
I’m really not making up the thing on Kuroda/Kawakami. An exact quote from a Prospect Insider email — written by a guy who regularly writes scouting articles for a Seattle paper — was “Seattle had at least one scout in Japan watching Chunichi Dragons right-hander Hiroki Kuroda in the Japanese Championship Series.”
Exactly what part of the amateur system do you mean, anyway — the high schools, the college leagues, the industrial leagues, the independent leagues, the club leagues, what? It’d take an awful lot of people to scout all of that. I mean, do teams want to basically double their scouting forces in order to cover Japan as well? That’s essentially what it’d take to really do it right… and I bet there’d be some significant resistance to it by some of the leagues.
If it’s so easy, anyway — how about if you get me this year’s stats and a scouting report on Yoshihiro Okazaki?
And, for the record, I just don’t think it’s all about “competing on the biggest stage”, and it’s definitely not all about money for some people. Not everyone wants to take a higher risk and get a higher reward. I’ve been hearing this argument from people for 7 years since Ichiro came over, and it’s simply not true. There are plenty of players who have no desire to deal with the crap that comes with jumping to the MLB. (And I’d bet there are some who don’t want to think about coming back to Japan if they fail.) If I were an 18-year-old kid and I could be a superstar in my own country or a nobody in another country with a sliver of hope of being a superstar someday, I’d choose being a superstar in my own country. I’m pretty much using Masahiro Tanaka and Sho Nakata as my poster children here. If your logic applies to every human on earth, then why are those two staying in Japan?
Also, er, wait a minute. So you think the Korean teams would lure away the Japanese stars — how exactly? By offering them more money? But you said that the whole reason for this pan-asian league thingy is because the teams are all in financial straits of some sort, so how are they supposed to afford this? (In Ogasawara’s specific case, that isn’t happening by any means because of his family, anyway.) The only times I know of Japanese players going to play in Korea or Taiwan, it’s usually because they’re too old or too bad to play in Japan. You know, kind of like the Americans who come to play in Japan.
The Eagles don’t play 5 games with Hanshin to begin with, but that’s another story. Also, NPB got rid of the kibouwaku thing where kids could pick what teams they were going to.
Again, you ignore the point of competitive balance. Your article suggests that this “interleague” either involves
1) promotional and exhibition games
2) real live official games
In the case of 1), then this doesn’t sound like a true pan-asian league, it’s basically what they have now, with more exhibition games. But in the case of 2), you have to do something to maintain competitive balance — imagine if the Dragons win the pennant over the Giants by 4 games, and the Giants cry foul because the Dragons got to play 4 more games against the weaker Taiwan league and the Giants had to play against a stronger Korea team and so on? But if every team plays every other team, then again, it’s going to take too long and probably anger the owners and fans of the Japanese teams too much.
Also, you can’t use the Hanshin Tigers — one of the two most popular teams in the country — as your benchmark for “people will come to see them”. That’s like saying “Hiroshima Stadium would certainly be packed if the Yankees played there!” Would the attendance at a, say, KIA Tigers vs. Orix Buffaloes game be worth it for either team? People don’t even come to see the Buffaloes when they’re in Tokyo, so why would they come see them in Gwangju?
You can argue all you want about this, but it’s pretty much simply not going to happen for quite a while, if ever. You know how Japan works — change is slow, and there have already been more than enough changes in the way baseball works here lately for people to adjust to. Hell, a survey in this week’s Shukan Baseball had over 50% of the fans asked saying the CL playoffs was a bad idea and they should have never changed it.
12 DJ // Nov 26, 2007 at 6:49 am
Concur.
13 A.S. // Nov 26, 2007 at 7:34 am
Um, Deanna, I think “some scouts” is quite a bit different from an email newsletter update. I doubt very many scouts in Japan would make that mistake. I thought I should call attention to that since it’s its the basis for a large part of your scouts in Japan argument.
Hmm, and no one said the logic of “competing on the biggest stage” argument applied to all players. In fact, I said it didn’t. And in fact Jackson says he doesn’t blame Darvish for staying in Japan.
And instead of, er, nitpicking the fact that Hanshin doesn’t play the Eagles anyway, why don’t we turn the argument around a bit and say, what if Japanese baseball continues in the way its going now? Do you think the way to make a better Japanese baseball league is to stop players from going to the U.S.? And for what? So they can continue to have a floundering Triple-A level league? So Japanophiles from America can still enjoy hearing game annoucers speaking Japanese?
Baseball is becomming a global game because the rest of the world is becoming global. You might get a kick out of Japanese baseball, but business-wise it stinks. It’s not going in the right direction and while you’re giving a lot of (shaky) reasons that it shouldn’t change, you haven’t included one feasible idea to maintain it. The exhibition games would be a bridge to a real Asian league. And, er, if the Giants cry because the Dragons win the pennant by 4 games and played weaker teams, so what? That happens in sports every year. Did the Mariners cry this year because they didn’t get to play the Pirates?
We can argue all we want about this, but you know when it’s going to happen? It’s going to happen when Japanese teams start folding, it’s going to happen when the Hyundai Unicorns (KBO) have a company that was supposed to buy the team back out and the league has to finance it. It’s going to happen sooner than you think and you’re going to have a four or five team Central League in Japan that all the nationalists will get off on, fooling themselves that it’s high caliber baseball for the sole reason that it’s Japanese, and you’re going to have the two or three others that haven’t folded joining an Asian baseball league. And you know what? The Giants will win that crappy league every year.
14 jackson // Nov 26, 2007 at 10:32 am
>>D: If it’s so easy, anyway — how about if you get me this year’s stats and a scouting report on Yoshihiro Okazaki?
J: I don’t think I said it was easy. But I think it’s possible.
D: If I were an 18-year-old kid and I could be a superstar in my own country or a nobody in another country with a sliver of hope of being a superstar someday, I’d choose being a superstar in my own country. I’m pretty much using Masahiro Tanaka and Sho Nakata as my poster children here. If your logic applies to every human on earth, then why are those two staying in Japan?
J: Those are two examples. But my guess is that with increased scouting efforts more players would want to take a crack at the majors. Maybe I’m wrong.
D: Also, er, wait a minute. So you think the Korean teams would lure away the Japanese stars — how exactly? By offering them more money? But you said that the whole reason for this pan-asian league thingy is because the teams are all in financial straits of some sort, so how are they supposed to afford this?
J: No, the whole reason is because it seems sensless to have 3 individual rather uninspring leagues of baseball in a pacific rim area where you could have 26 teams competing in one league. All are within traveling distance and it would lead to much better games and increase revenues if there were more media coverage, better marketing, etc. The advantage isn’t just economic. Its because it would make the game in Asia better. Economically, obviously you’d have to figure out a way to allow the teams in lesser financial situations to compete, and you’d have to do a lot of restructuring so that there’s a salary cap and/or some kind of luxury tax, etc.
D:Would the attendance at a, say, KIA Tigers vs. Orix Buffaloes game be worth it for either team? People don’t even come to see the Buffaloes when they’re in Tokyo, so why would they come see them in Gwangju?
J: I think it would be if KIA and Orix both had some players worth seeing, and there was an improved atmosphere and marketing. People go watch the Royals play the Devil Rays even when its a lousy game. the reason people don’t see the Buffaloes when they’re in Tokyo has to do with the inane way the league is set up now, right?
D: Again, you ignore the point of competitive balance. Your article suggests that this “interleague” either involves
1) promotional and exhibition games
2) real live official games
J: Like I said before, the Japanese teams, like the NL teams would only play against each other until they got to the playoffs. Like MLB, there would be a series of interleague games, but the majority of games would be played within the teams own division. If teams wanna sit and gripe because they played an easier team, its their own problem. Like Aaron pointed out, some AL teams get to play the Pirates and some the Mets. They can cry all they want.
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also, it wouldn’t just be a matter of increasing the # of exhibition games. It would also be a matter of playing a synchronized 162 (or 150 or whatever is decided on) game schedule, keeping stats for the league as a whole, sharing revenues, cable TV deals etc.
I frankly don’t think continuing to pander to a kind of elitist attitude that these Japanese teams can’t be bothered to play other Asian teams–when the level of talent in Taiwan and Korea has been catching up to the Japanese level–is healthy for anyone at this point, and this bizarre sense of superiority a handful of certain NBP franchises have is one of the major reasons why you see a greater mass defection of players to MLB every year, which should only keep on increasing.
International baseball works and draws fans. Its exciting and would inevitably be a whole lot more interesting than the system that’s in place now.
15 Deanna // Nov 26, 2007 at 11:47 am
“International baseball works and draws fans.”
…really? The finals of the Konami Cup, at prime time for a game, didn’t even fill the Tokyo Dome to 50% capacity. Where are you getting this statement from? Your own thoughts on the situation? None of the WBC games were sellouts in Japan either.
As for the rest of it, you really need to talk to some Japanese people, since you’re not going to believe me, and I really have better things to do than waste my time arguing with you.
Just last week, one guy said to me “I heard the Red Sox are coming here in March but Matsuzaka might not play. What’s the point of going to see them then?”
16 A.S. // Nov 26, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Well, to use your example, (since you aren’t going to try and address my previous comment) lets look at the championship game of the Konami Cup. It drew 21,000, and that was the worst of its three years. In 2005 it drew over 37,000. I’d say that’s pretty good for a meaningless one game exhibition against a team that absolutely no one in the country has any notion that they’re from Incheon. What if this year’s final between SK and Chunichi had been a game five? A game seven? A playoff push? What would the attendence be? Do you want to say it’d be the same?
17 jackson // Nov 26, 2007 at 3:21 pm
and furthermore, what if that final game was the final of an organized league and not just and exhibition, but actually counted?
Sorry to question your all knowing authority on Japan Deanna, but I lived in Japan for two years, speak Japanese, and I know a lot of Japanese people who are very into MLB and care about it beyond the Japanese players in the league. Your interview of ’some guy down the street’ doesn’t exactly make compelling evidence. All I see coming from you are some blithe assertions based on anecdotal evidence. Mixed with rather baseless apologies for the snobbery and arcane thinking thats threatening NPB currently.
I believe actually you would be better suited to look at baseball from the greater overall picture in Asia.
18 jackson // Nov 26, 2007 at 5:32 pm
And unlike yourself Diana, I will provide facts to back up my claims:
the total attendance for the Konami Cup final in 2006 was 24,580. Not bad for a game featuring the Ham Fighters and a team from the little provincial enclave known as Kaohsiung. In game 7 of 2007 the attendance was 21,000. This time the team was some unknown team from somewhere on that place called, what is it, Kor….I dunno. (it isn’t japan so who cares anyways, right?). Now imagine that these games were the actual deciding games of a playoff series in a 26 team professional league. Do you think the attendance would be even higher?
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Now again to furnish proof of what i’m arguing rather than rely on the opinion of my neighbor Mr.Chen across the street, here’s data on the claims that international baseball works and is popular. From Wikipedia:
“Attendance was higher than expected at several sites, including the 19,000-seat Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, which was sold out for every Puerto Rico game in the first two rounds. Though international ratings figures are not yet available, viewership is expected to be high, ESPN spokeswoman Diane Lamb said. In addition, there were 4,000 media credentials issued — more than the World Series and the Olympic Games — which bodes well for the stated goal of internationalizing the sport. Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci reported that “more merchandise was sold in the first round than organizers projected for the entire 17-day event.” He also reported that, at one point, jerseys for the Venezuelan team were selling at the rate of one every six seconds.
The US television ratings on ESPN were stronger than initially expected, drawing in more than one million television sets for some games, more than almost any other ESPN program in the month of March. This occurred despite less than stellar airing times for the games. Most were not aired live but taped, and sometimes with innings cut, as the WBC was organized well after ESPN had committed to much of its programming. These ratings all but assure the next WBC, in 2009, will be awarded more live broadcasts during prime time. “
19 salva // Nov 27, 2007 at 5:54 am
This is a nice discussion :).
For a fan point of view, it is a dream for me to see an international baseball league. I a m also an avid football (soccer) fan, so international competition between clubs is somewhat familiar ;), so I hope to see something like that in baseball
I guess that it could be like soccer UEFA champions league, so it will preserve all leagues structure, without disbanding teams. That is a different tournament from the traditional regular season. I prefer an end season tournament, but seems more easy if it runs parallel to regular season (as in soccer). There are of course some problems, for me, the most important is that it would need a reduction of domestic schedule (by now you could see how extended post seasoning harm some MLB teams, specifically pitchers arms!). Another one, I suppose, is that a tournament like that would be include some shared revenue strategy, that helps to improve small teams (in soccer, you see each year how the gap between big market and low market clubs increase with big jumps!).
Of course, that initiative could be produce some resistance in the beginning. Here in Latin america, the most powerful soccer league is form Brazil, for many years they send they bench players to international competition, but with time, they recognize the tournament and by now they sent the most dominant clubs! I guess than KBO clubs beats some NPB clubs, the japan teams could begin to take it seriously!
Also, I think that MLB would be involved more seriously, in order to enhance the tournament, it is sad that not MLB, and not WBC sites covered the asia series, even I think they could send a second place team in wildcard standings (one for each league) to this tournament (i prefer the world series champion, but i guess, that it puts player health in the lines!)…
For the moment I guess, we only could discuss as fans, and hope, that some time some executive from a league propose a similar idea
20 KJOK // Nov 27, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Interesting discussion.
I don’t see the Japanese Leagues ever agreeing to ‘merge’ with the 6 Taiwanese teams or the 8 Korean teams, but if those league go bankrupt, I could see the Central and Pacif Leagues each adding 2 teams, with 2 based maybe in Incheon/Seoul, 1 in Taipei, and maybe one in Shanghai, and stocking them with the best Korean, Taiwanese, & Chinese players to begin with. Those teams could eventually sign some Japanese players, just like the Japanese teams sign U.S. players today, while still keeping their ‘national’ identities for the most part.
21 Westbaystars // Nov 28, 2007 at 11:15 am
Deanna wrote:
I guess you hung out with the wrong people at the Konami Cup. It was pointed out to me that the SK Wyverns had Japanese ties on their managerial staff. Wyverns’ manager Kim Sung-Kun was born in Kyodo, Japan and moved to Korea after graduating from high school. He was also part of the Chiba Lotte Marines’ staff in 2005-6 (to oversee Lee?). On Kim’s staff at the Asian Series were Katoh Hajima (19 year career in NPB from 1972 to 1990, playing for Nishitetsu, Taiheiyo, and the Giants) and Ohta Takuji (18 years in NPB from 1969 to 1986, playing for Nishitetsu, Taiheiyo, Crown, and Seibu).
I had also met with a group of Japanese salary men from Mixi (a Japanese social network site) who had on Wyverns’ jerseys at the Chunichi vs. SK game. Business brings them to Korea and Taiwan often, and they’ve really gotten into the KBO and CPBL. One even gave me a CPBL player’s guide (in Chinese) that he happened to have an extra copy of.
I guess I just have a knack for finding the otaku in the crowd.
But I think that the basic idea of creating a Pacific Rim League is a good one for promoting more variety. And it’s that added variety that will make it a success.
As further evidence as to why I think that an international league can succeed, I just read in Nikkan Sports this morning that many of the CPBL players were out to get NPB players’ autographs as the NPB Olympic team practices for the qualifiers coming up next month in Taiwan. NPB is being broadcast in both Korea and Taiwan, so many of the Japanese players are well known.
There were a couple of regular season NPB games played in Taiwan a few years back as well that went over pretty well as I recall. Games were then scheduled the next year, but outbreak of the Bird Flu (I think) canceled all travel and thus a repeat.
When I wrote a similar proposal a few years ago, I didn’t expect the Central League to ever allow for inter-league play, so I had hoped that the Pacific League would reach out to Korea and Taiwan to bring more variety to the game. Since inter-league games have started in Japan, I think that the chances of international baseball happening have been greatly reduced, which is a shame.
22 Westbaystars // Nov 28, 2007 at 11:28 am
Oh, no. Reading what I wrote:
I’m reminded of what I read in the North American press all the time about how MLB players are well known in Japan because so many MLB games are broadcast. There certainly are those who get into MLB, but most just pay attention to the Japanese players. Such logic is a fallacy.
Have I just fallen into the same trap? Led on by a Nikkan Sports writer who also has?
Please regard that paragraph as ill-informed opinion, not fact. Hopefully someone from Taiwan and/or Korea with closer contact to the pulse of the people can set the record straight. I humbly apologize for making such a careless remark.
23 A.S. // Nov 28, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I was a little surprised how few Japanese games were on Korean TV in the run up to the NPB playoffs this year. Last year most of Giant Lee’s games were shown. I don’t know what the deal was this year. Dragon Lee is covered in the print media, but almost never on TV. Games 1 and 2 of the NPB series weren’t even shown, which is dumb. Then they got their act together for the last three.
That said, I think the Japanese league is followed to some degree here in Korea. Probably not to the extent that MLB is followed in Japan, but the standings and leaders are usually printed. Are Korean tables printed in Japan?
For whatever reason there are no Japanese players currently playing in Korea. I’m not sure if that’s because Korean teams don’t want Japanese players in the league or if Japanese players won’t deign to play in Korea. In either event, it would behoove both parties to get over it.
24 Westbaystars // Nov 28, 2007 at 10:19 pm
The Giants’ Lee was hurt toward the end of the season, and the Giants didn’t even bother broadcasting many of their final games in Japan toward the end of the year. I believe that I’d read that the feed in Korea is via the Yomiuri network.
And, yes, the Korean and Taiwanese league standings are printed in the Japanese sports dailies (at least Nikkan Sports) and Shukan Baseball (the weekly baseball magazine). ShuBe accompanies the standings with news about teams and players, one page per league. Nikkan Sports will have additional information from the leagues about once a week.
Today’s Nikkan Sports had a big review of the Korean team going into the Olympic qualifiers, dedicating much ink to manager Sun, who formerly played for the Chunichi Dragons.
25 A.S. // Nov 28, 2007 at 11:56 pm
NHK broadcasts here and the NPB is sometimes shown on that. But like I said…the early rounds of the playoffs for both Yomiuri and Chunichi were nowhere to be found. And I was beside myself when I was unable to see Game 1 of the Series.
Then there is another feed, which may be the Yomiuri feed you’re talking about. For that they have a Korean broadcast team.
And actually, it gives me the chance to ask a question I’ve wondered about for some time now. Japanese televised baseball seems to use a unique camera angle when the ball is put in play…a sweeping shot from behind the firstbase line. Do you know what I’m talking about? I’ve never seen it before. Does it have a name? A history? It’s not used in Korea that I’ve ever seen.
26 Westbaystars // Nov 29, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Sweeping shot from behind the first base line? No, I’m not sure. Does it follow the pitcher’s hand on the delivery? No, that has nothing to do with putting the ball in play. Maybe I’m so used to it that I don’t notice it.
Can you find a YouTube shot?
27 simon // Nov 30, 2007 at 2:57 am
Financial problems in ice hockey caused many corporate backed pro teams to fold in both Japan and Korea, and it eventually led to the formation of the Asia League (Japan, Korea, China), which is still an experimentation in progress being several years into the formation of the league (with clubs coming and leaving the league every year, there was a team from Khavarovsk some years ago, that was fun).
http://www.alhockey.com/
Attendance figures for international matches are generally worse than domestic “derby” matches mainly due to the fact that most fans don’t travel overseas to support their teams (but many do domestically). I reckon a pan-Asian baseball league would face the same problem. Though, if interest in this new league (very limited interlocking schedule, like the current Japanese interleague play would be most realistic, I suppose) gradually increases over the years (assuming that the owners don’t pull the plug quickly), then maybe eventually we’ll see more fans travelling overseas to support their teams.
But this is the one crucial difference between MLB and NPB (and other Asian leagues?). MLB teams can generally fill the stands with only the home team’s fans while most NPB teams rely on opposing team’s fans to attend the games to boost the attendance. Different baseball culture, travel distance, etc. Then there’s also the general lack of business sense in NPB (and other Asian leagues if they’re facing financial problems as well). MLB has seen its revenue almost double over the last 5 years, so the gap between MLB and the Asian leagues is widening in terms of economic prowess (and all the trappings that come with it regarding player retention, fan service, etc.)
My rambling 2 yen (I really need to set up my Japanese/Asian hockey blog…)
28 Zack // Dec 2, 2007 at 7:23 am
They should do something like the champions league in soccer. The top 5 from japan, top 3 from korea and top 2 from taiwan would be invited into the following years edition. It would be a separate league that could be played simultaneously to their own leagues. For about 3-4 months they could schedule games once every two weeks, and the winner of those pools would advance to the final round or something.
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