 Hello, everyone, and welcome to Looking to the East. I'm your host of this show. My name is Steve Zercher. I'm a professor and dean at the Kansai Gaida University in Osaka. Those of you that watch my show regularly, you probably remember two weeks ago, we took a look at the Tokyo Olympics and some of the dynamics that are going on there with Jake Gattleston. We're gonna continue today on my live show, talking about sports, but maybe a more positive message. We're gonna talk about Shohei Otani, who has lasted onto the scene in American baseball and American society. When my mother contacts me and asks me, who is this guy? I know that he's broken through into mainstream media. We're very fortunate to have two special guests who have been following Shohei probably from his high school days. We have the host of a Japanese baseball weekly podcast. This is a work by these two guests. Both of these guests are journalists and baseball writers as well. So we have Jim Allen and also John Gibson with us. So both of you, thank you so much for participating early on this Tuesday morning Japan time for the show. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, one other thing is, yeah, you're very welcome, John. It's kind of, I've listened to your show for so many years now. It's kind of, it's a wonderful feeling for me to have you on my show. So one thing I want to mention too, in addition to the weekly podcast that these guys do, you can find it on iTunes very easily. Jim also has his own blog site where he gets more into details about Japanese baseball and also American baseball to some extent. That's jballallon.com. So please check that out. So guys, I was in Hawaii about five years ago. I had my kids in the University of Hawaii baseball program and I was talking to the head coach there who had Japanese players on his team. And I said, have you heard of this guy named Otani? And he told me, no. I was shocked that he hadn't heard of him. So fast forward five years and according to Axios Sports, right now Otani is the number one most popular baseball player in America. And the statistics that he gives, the author gives for this to back it up is his annual endorsement revenue is $6 million, which doesn't sound high when you compare it to basketball players, but for baseball, he's number one. 28% of all the merchandise that was sold during the All-Star, the recent All-Star game was Otani merchandise. So his trading card value is number one. It's higher than anybody else, higher than Trout, higher than Patiss and all of the other superstars. His followers on Instagram are over one million, which is one of very few baseball players. So who is this guy, Jim? And where did he come from? And can you give us a little bit of background? Cause I think my mother just knows he's a superstar now, doesn't know anything about him at all whatsoever. Okay, his parents were athletes. He grew up in Northeastern Japan. And he went to a Hanamaki Higashi high school where the Seattle Mariners, Yusekikuchi also preceded him. And he was basically, he was a slugging pitcher in high school, but he really had no ambition. He was going to do both. And his break, the real breakthrough came when he started talking to MLB scouts and they were saying, you know, you should come to the States. And he said, that's it, I'm going to go to the States. And as soon as he said, I'm going to go to the major leagues, don't draft me, don't bother with the Japanese pro baseball. His future, instead of narrowing his future, went from being a pitcher to being, everything's open for discussion. Because in order for the Japan's Nippon ham fighters to sign him, they basically promised that they would help him develop as both a pitcher and a hitter, which is something that wouldn't have happened in MLB. And so he followed on that course and he got the team focused on what was best for Shohei Otani, to some degree at the expense of the rest of the team. And he, in 2014, 2016, he had big years as a pitcher and a hitter, but has had injuries. Yeah, yeah. So I think Jim, you had sent us some images. Maybe you want to go through that. Sure, the first one is taken when he was with the fighters in the press conference. I think that was a game at Sapporo Dome. I'm going to guess it was 2016. This was the year they had to change the voting rules for Japan's awards and allow writers to vote for a player in two different categories, provided one was a pitcher. So the next image. All right, this is his press conference on November 11th, 2017, at the National Press Club in Tokyo, as he's explaining his reasons to go to the, he wants to go to the majors. Interesting. And what's this image, Jim? And this is him just taking some cuts before he had batting practice in the spring of 2018 in Tempe, Arizona. Okay, so you took that picture, right? You were actually there in Tempe. Yeah. So his physique, I mean, he was a big guy, but his physique has changed. If you look at him now, he's definitely bulked up. So I know you guys followed him so closely as he was playing for the Nippon Ham Fighters. That was the local Japanese professional team. And then you also followed as he transitioned out to the Angels. A couple of questions, maybe for you, John. I mean, what has he done to change? I understand he's doing weights, but his body has really changed. His batting style has changed. And that's leading towards his phenomenal year in Major League, where he's actually exceeding his statistics while he was in the MPB. He's projected this year to hit over 60 home runs. And for Markable, his slugging percentage is one of the top three in the major leagues. What has happened? How do you, you've been watching him for a long time. What's going on? Why is he's doing so well, even better than he did here in Japan? Well, I'll speak for what we were able to see when we were here in Japan. And that is he came in as a high school, a thin high school player who stepped in against professionals. So obviously he didn't have time to devote to the body and the rigors of playing a full season. You go from high school where you're playing, Jim can tell you the number better than I can because I don't watch that many high school games. But I would imagine in a season, you're playing about a hundred more games if you count all the pre-season and some of the inner squad stuff that they start on February 1st when you show up for spring training and you play that out over a season, you're going to either get muscle or you're going to thin out. But of course, he was 18, 19. So he got bigger in that respect. And when he transitioned to the major leagues, obviously they're gonna put you on different programs. He's gonna get, as I like to say, he's gonna develop physically and get his man body. So you're automatically going to get bigger. But what they were able to do was help him with the weight training to put some muscle on. So as you talked about before, we saw that he used to pick his front foot up when he was in Japan. As soon as he went to the States, they said, look, you're not catching up with some of the fast balls, some of the harder stuff. Let's just take that out of your, let's take that out of all of your mechanics and let's make your mechanics so that you can keep your bat in the swing path a little bit longer. And if you, first of all, you can catch up with the fast balls. That's not gonna be a problem. And since your swing path is so long, the swing is longer, it'll keep the bat in the zone for pitches that off speed pitches that are in the zone. Now, the ones that he chases sometimes, nobody's gonna hit those anyway. So we won't worry about those, but keep that bat in the zone a little bit longer. So, but what we've been able to see from my vantage point, obviously we're not over there covering. We don't get to see every day. And even the people who are over there covering don't get to quote unquote cover like we used to, which is going to watch batting practice and some of the workouts pre-game. But what I do see is that he's able to drive the ball consistently and catch up with all those fast pitches. I think in the early part of this season, you can see in particular, they were pitching him away. And they said, we're not gonna let him, we're not gonna throw anything in the wheelhouse so that he can yank. And pretty soon they're like, okay, he's hitting all those pitches away. He's hitting them to the left. Let's pitch him inside. And you can see the pitching patterns have changed. And they're trying to go low and in and high and in. They're searching. And I think coming out of the all-star break here where he had a little bit of a, the media likes to say, if you don't have a hit in three or four days against some of the best pitchers in the world that you're in a slump. And I never fall for that. So never. So I think 60 home runs is probably very high. You think that's on the high end? I do, but I didn't see him hitting 31 in the first half of the season. But things slow down in the second season. There are actually fewer games in the second half. They just split the all-star break at the appropriate time. So I don't really see 60, but I wouldn't put it past him. And as far as the wins go, that's not a great team. So it's hard to evaluate him on wins because he can leave like he did the other day after pitching six shutout innings. And then the bullpen acts like they're food servers at a restaurant and they start serving up lots of things. So delicious meals. Yeah, it's actually painful to watch the angels play other than to watch Otani. Are you guys amazed? I mean, you followed him for so long and you know he's a superstar. He is just a freak. He's like the Greek freak in basketball. But are you amazed also? Because I am amazed at how well he's doing and how he can stroke the ball. Even some pitches that are at his shoe top level, he's still able to yank out as a home run. So is he, in your mind, since you've watched him for so long, is he still developing? Is he still not going to speak? Can he get better? Or is this as good as it possibly can be? Jim, you wanna go first? I think he can get better as a pitcher. All right. He's, you know, John and, oh, this is his name. It was on our show. Scott? No, the tracker, tracker, MPV tracker, Patrick Newman. Patrick Newman. Yeah, oh, he's running data on him. Okay, you know, John and Patrick Newman, I was listening to a show that I wasn't on a few years ago and they went through a big analysis in which they both thought, well, because he's batting and pitching that he cannot learn a lot of the subtleties, but it seems that was half right. I think it takes him longer to learn the adjustments and the subtleties. You know, he's not doing it on a daily basis like every other hitter and pitcher, but he is accumulating that information. We've seen him make these big steps forward in his career. 2014, he had a big step forward. 2016, he's had a big step forward. This year, he had a big step forward. But in most of those seasons, we've also seen a lot of injuries. That's also been a constant. This is not the Tommy John, right? As far as him improving, sure, he can get better. What does that look like though? Does that look like more home runs or a higher batting average? Sometimes we wanna judge on the numbers that we can see, but how many productive outs does he have? How many, can he stop striking out as much? Can he change that strikeout rate? So I think he can get better as a hitter as well. I'm not gonna judge him if he has, if he gets to 45, 50 home runs this year and then for instance, next year, he only hits 30 or 35. I'm not gonna say, well, he had an off year because you have to look at the at bats and see what he did. But I think when he first became a professional, I always said, well, this is what he has been doing all his life against the best competition at that particular level. So he just needs to make adjustments and figure out what he has to do to pitch on a certain level and hit on a certain level. And I think he can do both. And I think at the very beginning, I saw him more as a pitcher who could hit and Jim kept telling me about the fact that a lot of the numbers that he was putting up as a rookie were on par with some of the players who ended up in MPB's Hall of Fame. And I kept seeing him as a hitter who could, I'm sorry, as a pitcher who could hit. And then I think a lot of people now are seeing him as a hitter who can pitch. And I think you just have to look at him as a player who can do both and sometimes step into the outfield when needed. But it's hard. It's very difficult for a lot of people to grasp and to calculate and to extrapolate numbers and to put all things together to figure out his actual value. But he's just a player. He's just a player. And the fact that you can use him a couple of ways benefits your team. That's how you have to evaluate it. Yeah, the Angels. I read in doing the prep for this that he is maybe the best bargain a baseball team has ever made. His salary is what, four million or so a year now. His market value is probably 10 times that easily. So one thing just quickly, because as I imagine the time is going by, I'm listening to the American announcers I'm watching the highlights and they are just in love with him. Just like you guys, you guys fell in love with Ohtani. You know, it also hits his Japanese culture that's on display. Americans don't understand that, you know, picking up garbage off the field or picking up the broken bad and giving it to the opposing batter. Those are just things that are a normal part of Japanese baseball culture. My kids are in junior high and high school baseball. So they're trained by their coaches to do that. So these announcers, of course, are fawning over him regarding his ability and what he's doing, the steals and the pitching and the home runs. But then also his nature, his character, his personality, the fact that he's handsome. It's just a huge love fest out there. But they say the same thing that I know you guys discuss and John you were pointing out. How can someone continue to do this because no one's done this before and they're kind of expecting him to be injured. That somehow a human body cannot do what he's doing. That I hear over and over and over again. You probably picked that up from the Major League comments as well. So what do you guys think about that is? All right, well, go ahead, John, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'll go first since you went first last time, Jim. You know, I get frustrated because I see evaluators and scouts and all these guys, they're all former players. They all used to do what they're the sport that they're looking at and evaluating these players on. And what they inevitably end up doing is saying, look, I couldn't do that. And I was X, X, X, I played in this and I couldn't do that. But you are not Shohei Okani. You know, you're you. So stop projecting what you could do and couldn't do on a player who has different physical attributes, different skill sets and then just evaluate each one on its own merits. And don't worry about, you know, well, he's not going to be able to do this physically. I remember we talked about, we talked about on the show that Ohtani came up the first two years, he had cramps and you'd have to leave the mound because of these cramps with the fighters. And at one point I got really frustrated on the show and I said, look, I run, I do distance running. I was running marathons at the time. I'm like, I know you have to manage these issues with your body. I had to learn mine, but it doesn't take two years. Let's get over this. And since then we haven't heard anything about cramps because they figured it out. So they're going to be hurdles, but that's all they are. They're not walls. They're not barriers. They're just hurdles and you have to figure out how to get over them. And obviously I think he's opening up a door to more players being able to do this because all these players in the past who probably could hit and could pitch have just hit a wall of scouts and coaches, but not their own limitations. No one let them find out and explore their own limitations. And that's what I just hope that this will do is it'll open a door so that other players won't have this barrier in front of them. Jim. I think that's you're absolutely right. And the idea, I think what I think of Otani, I think about stereotypes before Hideo Enomo went to the States, there was a belief in Japan and the US that no Japanese star could be a star in America because the quality of baseball in Japan was lower. Therefore, their best stars can't be as good as our best stars. And then Enomo changed that to Japanese pitchers can be as good, but hitters can't. And then Ichiro changed it to Japanese pitchers and fast slap hitting outfielders can be as good, but sluggers can't be. And then Hideki Matsui changed that to sluggers can be as good. And now it's a completely new dynamic. And he's just breaking the stereotypes, which stereotypes are great. They allow us to organize information, but they also, we tend to cling to them sometimes when what we see conflicts with what we believe and we tend to believe what we wanna believe. So people will say, well, he can't do both because nobody does both, as John said. My concern is in the future that people will, because Otani is so good at both that he'll set an impossible standard for people. People say, oh, he's, he can do both because he's so good at both, but he doesn't have to be as good as he is to be really valuable. If he's a, if he's a better than average, better than average player in playing, 50% or more, he's producing 50% more time than I really, really valuable. I'm like, oh, well, you're not Shohio Otani. And we've seen that in Japan with some players. Yeah, we're almost out of time, guys, but let's, Jim, you lead to my last question. And I read that he's gonna become a free agent in three years from now in 2024. And the projections, since he had, Jim, you told me before the show, he had 28 teams that were originally interested in him when he moved from Japanese professional baseball over to the major leagues. I'm sure that number will go up to 32 now that he has done so well. So $50 million a year, $60 million a year, six, eight year contract. Who's gonna get him? John, you're a Dodgers fan. You, you want him to go to LA? I don't know if the Giants could afford that. I know the Yates want him. That's for sure. They're really mad that they didn't get him initially. Well, I'll tell you what I'd tell the nurses to ask for projections. And I always say my crystal ball is out at the shop. I know, it's three years down the road, but... But I would like to see him go to a team that has an opportunity to win because he has really never done that. And, you know, performed at the highest level against the highest competition on both sides and the playoffs would be just a big thrill to see him do. I mean, yes, he has been, I think he was in the playoffs with the fighters, right? Yeah, what one in the Japan series? Okay, so I would like him to see him up at the top with the major leagues in the playoffs and whatever team has an opportunity to do that at that time. Sure, the Dodgers, I would, I prefer to actually see him in a Pacific in American League team because they have the DH and that does give them off his feet more often. And he does have to play the outfield or if the DH, if the Universal DH doesn't become a little soon here, I'd prefer to see him in the American League. But what team not the Yankees? Please, I've had enough when they took the Masahiro Tanaka and made me not watch him. All right, Jim, last word to you on this. Is your crystal ball also in the shop? Or this is kind of a tough point to realize. Well, I think we know, I want to say we know enough about Shohei Otani to say, this is probably going to be sort of the pattern. This has been the pattern. This was the pattern for him before he went to the majors of having a great season and then being hurt and then having a really good season and having another injury. I think this is probably the norm for moving forward. He's probably going to be just an exceptionally good hitter and pitcher, have these huge monster years every now and then and then probably have some ordinary years where he's having trouble adjusting or he's got some injury, but he's getting stronger, he's getting more athletic. His last year was such a bust that he went back to the drawing board and bulked up and fixed his nutrition and went to drive line to work on his swing and his pitching and I think that's what he's seeing. Jim, I didn't know he went to drive line. Wow. So you're saying Jimmy's going to join the Giants because that was a question. Yes. We got two votes for that. Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think our votes count, Steve. Okay. Oh, the, Eric's letting me know we have three more minutes. So I want very quick question. Eventually, Otani will come back and he seems like a very intelligent man in addition to his physical skills. And I had heard, although in the pre-show, you had not heard this, you two hadn't, that he is interested in coming back and helping to grow Japanese baseball, right? And if anybody can do that, it will be him. If he continues this great success in major league, he'll be like, he'll be bigger than Sadaharu, right? Theoretically. So do you think that when he does come back, maybe eight years from now, that he can help reform Japanese baseball? You guys know that there's strengths and weaknesses of Japanese baseball vis-a-vis the major leagues. Would he be the type of person if he wanted to, that it could actually restructure the sport? I think he already has. No, I think he already has. He has really opened the up. He has already opened the eyes of some of the most stubborn commudians to walk the face of the earth. You're talking about Japanese coaches. We're talking about Japanese baseball. I'm talking about the whole culture here. Yeah. Obviously, I went outside to high school because usually the best player is the shortstop, pitcher, cleanup hitter in high schools. So the high schools understand that these guys are so valuable. But once you get to the next level, that's where the problem starts. So I think he has already opened the eyes of these people, these players, these coaches. Because as a player, you have to put your foot down and you have to say, look, I'm good at both. I'm successful. I want to do both. And I'm going to go to a team that allows me to do that. And when Old Tiny decided, look, I'm not going to even sign with Japanese baseball team, it forced the fighters to put together a special program. They didn't just wrap them and say, we're going to take a chance. We're going to sit them down and convince them to stay. They actually put together a program and laid it all out in the outline. So if he comes back as a successful former major league player, I think he has the ears of everyone. The moment he steps foot on Japanese soil. So he already has. So for him, it would just take a little bit of work for him to get it done. Jim, what do you think? I think he's a leader by example. I can't imagine. He'll say some interesting things, but he very much likes to stay out of a controversy. Okay. He likes the focus to be on the game. And I think he has had an impact, as John said. He's had an impact in the degree to which high school kids are now doing strength training, because this used to be verboten in Japan. Right. And the old guys, you know, there was still one particular one will call me up and say, what's up with these kids that are ruining their bodies with the strength training? All right, guys, we have run out of time. And this was just so much fun. Thank you so much for talking about Otaniya. I know you're so fond of him and are proud, I guess, in the sense of how well he's doing. And Jim, you make such a great point. This is just broken through the perception of the ability of a Japanese player in not the two-way role, which is remarkable, but also the home run role as well, because he's already hit more home runs than Matsui did ever in a year. In a season, yes. Yeah, in the Yankees. All right, guys. So thank you so much. Really appreciate it. So that's a wrap. I'll have my show in a couple of weeks. For those of you that are regular viewers, please tune in again. This show will be rebroadcasted and potentially will be put on community TV also in Hawaii. So you can watch it again if you'd like at that point. Thanks again, guys. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Bye-bye. Yeah.