The 2024 Hanshin Tigers are struggling way worse than anyone could have imagined. With a record that has hovered just above .500 for much of the past six weeks, the team is in danger of missing the playoffs this year, let alone repeating as Central League champions. Yes, I know there are still nearly 53 games left in the season, and that they are a mere 3.5 games out of first. But some signs alarm me, and I think we need to look at repairing them if we want any hopes of making a push for the playoffs (and ideally, the elusive back-to-back championships).
Check out this chart first.
This shows the number of bases the team has stolen in the past decade. Note that the 2015 season featured the uninspired management of Yutaka Wada, who bunted away so many outs that he got canned at season’s end. (Technically it was not for bunting, but for not leading the team to a championship.) Then came three years of Tomoaki Kanemoto, who honestly did not have much speed at his disposal. From Akihiro Yano’s stint (2019-22), the team featured Koji Chikamoto (2018 D1), Kai Ueda, Kairi Shimada (2017 D4), Takahiro Kumagai (2017 D3), Takumu Nakano (2020 D6), and more. So it makes sense that the team outperformed all of the rest of the Central during the Yano years in terms of both stolen bases and success rate. Even last year under Akinobu Okada, the team was top in the CL in SB and second in SB%.
Enter 2024. The CL stolen base leader, Koji Chikamoto, has just 11 stolen bases. That puts him on pace to steal a mere 17 bags this year. On the other hand, the PL leader, Ukyo Shuto, has 32, and is on pace for 53. It seems to me that generational base-running talents aside, overall stolen base totals have gone down in the past couple of decades. Check out this chart:
Even in the past 10 years, average numbers have steadily declined. The chart also shows that teams’ success rates have even dropped slightly. Perhaps this is an indication that catchers (and pitchers throwing from the stretch) have gotten better at their crafts. So the question then is, should we be OK with that? Is it just part of the evolution of the game, and should we expect those numbers to continue to dwindle until stolen bases go the way of the dinosaur? Or can we expect a resurgence as base runners find another level of speed that negates the improvements made by the batteries? Am I the only one who misses the days of Rickey Henderson (1982-83), Vince Coleman (1985-87) and Yutaka Fukumoto (1972) swiping bases in triple digits?
Yes, I am backpedaling on my article from last May, but I propose that NPB do something drastic to bring back one of the most exciting elements of the game: copy MLB. Let me preface that by saying that I am OK with the pitch clock not being implemented… but what I do want to see is a limit on the number of pick-off attempts a pitcher can make and widening the bases by a few centimeters. Both of these would improve runners’ chances of sliding into the bases safely (figuratively and physically). MLB has stated on their website that stolen bases are helpful to a team when runners are successful 75% of the time. Let’s give those runners a little help, shall we?
Look at the massive jump in stolen bases seen in MLB in 2023, when they added a rule to restrict pitchers’ pick-off attempts and reduced the distance between the bases (1st-2nd, 2nd-3rd) by 4.5” (11.43 cm).
Not only did stolen base attempts increase (from 1.4 per game in 2022 to 1.8 in 2023), but so did actual stolen bases (1.0 to 1.4) and success rate (75.4% to 80.2%). Given that Japanese baseball is universally known for its “small ball” do you not think that a little more action on the basepaths by the speedy small ballplayers would add an extra element of excitement to the games?
Or would you like to see pitchers continue to throw unlimited (often uninspired) pick-offs and slow the pace of the game down so that fewer runners take off and ultimately, fewer runs score? Come on NPB. It’s time to bring running back to the game in a big way.