Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Masaji Hiramatsu pitched for the Taiyo Whales for 18 years. In 1967 he broke in as a 19 year old, and he retired at 36 after the 1984 season. He was consistently very good. But the Whales… the Whales were not. Despite being a very good pitcher, Hiramatsu just barely managed a winning record: 201-196. I nominate Ted Lyons as a similar American player (although Lyons played until he was much older). In what was probably his best season he went 25-19 (both figures led the league) with a 1.95 ERA for a Whales team that managed to claw its way up to third place. But within a couple seasons they were back to fifth.

Japan in general seems to be more contact-oriented than the US, and Hiramatsu’s strike out rate doesn’t seem to be especially impressive. He was K’ing 5.5 per nine innings. Spot-checking a few seasons, it looks like his strikeout rate was slightly better than average. Likewise his control – about 2 K’s per walk for his career – was a little bit better than average. With that kind of profile, my guess is that he had some good defenders behind him.

And sure enough. I just checked the Whales’ shortstop, who would make the biggest difference for a contact-friendly pitcher. For most of Hiramatsu’s career it was a man named Daisuke Yamashita. I’d never heard of him before just now, but he is an 8x gold glove winner, and baseball-reference refers to him as a “defensive wizard at shortstop”. Yamashita isn’t in the hall of fame, but I sure hope that Hiramatsu gave him a nice tip of the cap during his acceptance speech.

Hiramatsu himself made eight all-star teams, two best-nines, and took home the Sawamura award in 1970. His trademark was his shuuto pitch – sort of a hard slider/curve which is very popular in Japan but almost unheard of in the US. It may have been the best shuuto of all time. Over time arm injuries caught up with him, however, and he had to start mixing in more pitches that are easier on the arm.

As a boy Hiramatsu had been a huge Giants fan. I get the impression that just about every baseball fan in Japan is a huge Giants fan. Anyway, he starred at the Koshien tournament in high school (his team won; and in 2018 he was invited back to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in a few of the matches) and turned down a contract with the Dragons to play in the industrial leagues. Jim Allen reports that the Giants busily tried to recruit him during this time, but once he was eligible they turned him down. Ouch. He did get a little bit of revenge: despite playing for the dismally bad Whales, he had a winning record against the Giants.

Here is a really interesting look at his delivery. The text below talks about the nature of his shuuto and how he delivered it.

My card is from the 1979 Yamakatsu set.