The Hartford Yard Goats are happy to select a personal favorite ATD player,
LHP Masaichi "The Emperor" Kaneda
Nicknamed "The Emperor" because he was the most dominant pitcher in Japan during his prime, Kaneda holds numerous Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) career records. He managed to win 400 games despite being on a horrific team, the Kokutestu Swallows, for most of his career. About 90% of his 400 career wins came with the Swallows.
Kaneda threw a very lively, blazing fastball (said to top 100 MPH), a devastating drop curve (today, we would refer to it as a sharp-breaking "slurve"), and a baffling underhanded changeup.
He was a true workhorse, pitching 300 or more innings in 14 consecutive years on his way to the most innings pitched in NPB at 5526.2 innings. He served the Swallows as an ace starter/relief ace, pitching in at least 1/3 of his games every year from 1951 to 1963, occasionally as many as half his team's games. He also pitched two no hitters in his career, one of them a perfect game. His 82 shutouts are second most in Japanese baseball history. He had 103 games of 10 or more strikeouts and a 64.1 inning streak without a run scored against him.
From 1955 through 1958, he pitched at least 332 innings each year, and his ERA never exceeded 1.78
Notable NPB records Kaneda holds include: complete games (365), wins (400), losses (298), strikeouts (4490), innings pitched (5,5262⁄3), and walks (1,808). He also hit the most home runs of any Japanese pitcher (36), and is one of the few pitchers that played in over 1,000 games.
His list of most similar pitchers to his projection is, in order: Steve Carlton, Warren Spahn, Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Pete Alexander).
He pitched on a perennial cellar-dwelling team, the Kokutetsu Swallows (now, the Yakult Swallows). At times during their long existence, the Swallows set new standards for mediocrity. Even Walter Johnson's Washington Senators were no match for the Swallows' lowly status. In the midst of the Swallows' doldrums, there was Kaneda, the brightest star in the sky. The most incredible statistic surrounding Kaneda is that he won 45% of the Swallows' wins during his tenure (1950s and 1960s). Steve Carlton did it for one year (1972) with the Philadelphia Phillies, and that was noteworthy. Kaneda did it for an entire career. Of all pitchers in Japanese history, Kaneda suffered from the least run support (the Swallows' offense was usually anemic), losing 20+ games in 6 different seasons.
The American pitcher he is most compared to is Steve Carlton. It is estimated that Kaneda would have won approximately 360+ games in America, Whatever the estimate, he would have been a Hall of Famer here, too.
Career Stats/Highlights
Japanese HOF Inductee (1988)
3 Eiji Sawamura Awards (Japan's Cy Young)
10 time Strikeout leader
3 time ERA leader
14 time 20 game winner
2 No Hitters
1 Perfect Game (4th in Japan's history)
Named Best Japanese Player of the 1950's
Names Best Japanese Pitcher of the 1960's
14 Consecutive Seasons of 300+ IP and 20 Wins and 220 Strikeouts
944 Games (569 Games Started)
400 Wins
2.34 ERA
1.073 WHIP
4490 Strikeouts
0.6 HR/9
6.7 H/9
7.3 K/9
Batting
.198/.238/.287
38 Home Runs
177 RBI
160 Runs
7 Stolen Bases
His projected Bill James HOF Standard Score (with ultra-conservative projections) is 76. 50 is an average HOFer.
The speed gun was not introduced to Japan until after Kaneda had retired, but he claims that the velocity of his fastball reached 100 mph during his prime. In Kaneda's rookie year,
Masayasu Kaneda (no relation) from the Osaka Tigers complained that Kaneda's pitches appeared too fast because the mound was set too close to the batter's box. The game was stopped as the umpire measured the distance with a tape measure; the mound was found to be set the correct distance away from the batter's box.