Japanese HOF Project

[nat]

Yoshiro Sotokoba pitched for the Carp from 1965 to 1979. Some of those were some pretty abbreviated seasons though. His full-time work was just 1968 to 1976. Quite short for a hall of famer. In total he logged about 2400 innings with a 2.88 ERA. His best season was almost certainly his first as a full-time pitcher. In 1968 he threw 302 innings and posted a 1.93 ERA (this figure led the league). Historically the Carp have been a bad team, and it shows in the win/loss records of their pitchers. Including Sotokoba. For his career he’s got a 131-138 record. To their credit, the Japanese voters didn’t let the losing record discourage them from inducting him into the hall of fame. But that a pitcher with a sub-3 ERA for his career has a losing record really tells you something about his team. (They went 25 years without a pennant. Not Cubs territory exactly, but pretty rough, especially considering the fact that the league is smaller.)

I wonder what the American electorate would do with an otherwise-qualified hall of fame candidate who had a losing record? It’s hard to know, since there’s never been such a creature. They did give Felix Hernandez a Cy Young award despite having only 13 wins. But he did, at least, have a winning record.

Anyways, as was long common for Japanese pitchers, Sotokoba did a lot of pitching in relief in between his starts. He finished 86 games (Japan seems not to have recognized saves as a statistic until 1974, so we don’t really know what kind of games he was finishing), and in total seems to have made about 120 relief appearances.

Sotokoba’s biggest claim to fame is his no hitters. In fact, his very first win was a no hitter. Three years later (so 1968), he threw a perfect game against the Whales. In 1970 he tossed his third and final no hitter (over the Giants). This feat equaled Eiji Sawamura’s record. There have been 93 no hitters in Japan’s history (regular season only, and counting combined no hitters), so Sotokoba is responsible for something in the neighborhood of 4% of them.

Japan doesn’t have many pitchers that have thrown multiple no hitters. Hiroshi Nakao threw two of them, so did Hideo Fujimoto, Juzo Sanada, Masaichi Kaneda, and Keishi Suzuki. Everyone else who has thrown a no hitter managed only one. (source)

Although I think that 1968 was his best season, it was in 1975, toward the end of his career, that Sotokoba won the Sawamura award. He pitched a tremendous number of innings, and so led the league in most of the counting stats. The Carp were, unusually for them, also good this year. They made a very unusual appearance in the Japan Series, but lost to the Braves.

Meikyukai – No : Hall of Fame – Yes

One down, two to go.

1976 Calbee.