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Show Awareness and Resolve to Retain Special Talent
Thursday, April 26, 12:05 – On April 21, Hanshin pitcher Shintaro Fujinami was demoted to the second squad. Long expected to be the Tigers’ ace, Fujinami has instead struggled extensively, and it’s still unclear what it will take to get the “beast” back on track. The issue now is the team’s awareness and resolve.
Two long years since he began to fall apart. The “beast” is baffled.
Fujinami made his fourth start of the season on April 20 against the Giants. Although he threw five complete innings with 10 strikeouts, he was terrible with his control, serving up 6 walks and 9 hits. The result was 6 earned runs and his first loss of the 2018 season. The next day, Hanshin removed him from the list of active players and announced he would be demoted to the second squad.
Despite being given a spot in the opening rotation this year, Fujinami has so far gone 0-1 with an ERA of 5.40 in four games (as of April 25). He is long removed from his last win, which came almost a full year ago, on May 4, 2017, against the Yakult Swallows.
So when exactly did things start to fall apart?
As a high schooler, Fujinami was Osaka Toin’s ace as the school won back-to-back championships at the spring and summer Koshien tournaments. Four teams fought for him as their first round draft pick, with Hanshin ultimately winning out. In his first season, he matched Hanshin legend Yutaka Enatsu’s 46-year-old record of double-digit wins for a rookie drafted out of high school. He won 11 games in his second season and 14 in his third, for a total of 35 wins in his first three years as a pro. There was absolutely no doubt he would grow into a premier ace, not only for the Hanshin Tigers, but for all of Japanese baseball.
The first signs of trouble came in 2016, Fujinami’s fourth year, when he went 7-11, both failing to reach double-digit wins and finishing with a losing record. His troubles continued from the start of last season, which included a humiliating demotion to the second squad and ended with a new personal worst: just 3 wins against 5 losses.
The team is still hoping for a recovery. But the old Fujinami has yet to show up.
People have blamed his struggles on a wide variety of factors, from a case of “yips” to changes in his pitching form. There is of course a reason for what’s happened to Fujinami — that much is clear. But whether his struggles are technical in nature, or whether the problem is mental, still remains firmly in the realm of conjecture. That said, considering there has been no improvement for a full two years, it seems reasonable to think that both the team as a whole and Fujinami himself are just blindly groping their way toward a solution.
An unmatched superstar born from “special treatment”
What I would like to talk about here are not so much the reasons themselves for Fujinami’s problems, but rather the team’s attitude toward Fujinami as he struggles and remains unable to realize his innate abilities.
Fujinami himself has, without question, the potential to leave his name in the history books. Of that there is no doubt. Standing 197 cm tall, he is built quite differently from normal Japanese people, and his fastball tops out at 160 km/h. From that alone, anyone can see that Fujinami’s potential is decidedly not run-of-the-mill.
Looking back through the history of the NPB, the only pitchers to stand out with this sense of scale are Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani, and Fujinami. Darvish has been called “top tier” in the MLB. Ohtani, fresh off his move to the majors, has already made a huge splash in America as a two-way player.
And then, there’s Fujinami.
Of course, having a lot of potential does not guarantee a lot of success. Professional baseball is not so forgiving. Talent only blossoms when a player constantly works hard and strives to improve his technique. But a player needs more than just hard work — he also needs the support of his team.
Professional baseball is a game in which ability matters. As soon as you pass your arms through the sleeves of a pro uniform, your past successes and experience mean nothing. Only those who play well on the field will rise up to enjoy success and fame. That is a fact. However, sometimes creating a superstar requires a little “special treatment.” That, too, is a fact.
The “Monster of the Heisei Era,” Daisuke Matsuzaka, pitched poorly during the exhibition schedule in his first year. Management stuck with him, though, and on his last start before opening day, he pitched well enough to secure a spot in the opening day rotation. The result was an explosive debut — at one point Matsuzaka threw a 155 km/h fastball — which whipped up a huge frenzy.
For his part, Yu Darvish caused a different sort of frenzy his first year, when he was spotted smoking cigarettes at a pachinko parlor during spring training. He was suspended for his actions, and didn’t return to action until May of that year. He made his top squad debut in June, and has been on solid ground ever since.
Masahiro Tanaka also struggled from opening day during his first year, with his manager at the time, Katsuya Nomura, dubbing him “Ma-kun, the prodigy, the weirdo.” He benefitted from good luck, giving up lots of hits but never getting hung with the loss. The team’s patience paid off, though: Tanaka ended up with 11 wins and a Rookie of the Year award on the season.
The most extreme case of “special treatment”, however, is Shohei Ohtani, who happens to be the same age as Fujinami. Although two-way players are somewhat uncharted territory, Ohtani’s team gave him full support in the endeavor. Lineups were essentially built around Ohtani to accommodate the irregular way in which he slotted into the rotation and defensive positions. The timing of his posting — the offseason of his fifth year — was strange as well, but the team’s acceptance of that was just another kind of “special treatment.”
Make no mistake, though: “special treatment” is not the same as simple “favoritism.” A player gets special treatment only when he shows the ability and potential to make it worthwhile. And I think Fujinami has that ability and potential.
The issue: Hanshin’s attitude and the necessary support
So: how have the Hanshin Tigers handled Fujinami? Yes, they did use him on the top squad from his first year, and he pitched well; but that is only because Fujinami had exceptional abilities for a rookie player fresh out of high school. To be honest, I feel like there has been something off about the way Hanshin has “handled” Fujinami particularly from 2016, the first year he missed out on double-digit wins.
Pitching against Hiroshima on July 8 of that year, Fujinami got lit up from the beginning. Left in the game almost as some sort of punishment, he ultimately went a full 8 innings with 8 runs allowed. He threw a whopping 161 pitches in the game. At what is the peak of the season in modern baseball, that is an unbelievable number. Manager Tomoaki Kanemoto purposefully took a harsh stance, saying he wanted Fujinami to “act like an ace.” In this author’s opinion, though, that is precisely the wrong kind of “special treatment.”
Last season, Fujinami’s struggles saw him demoted on May 27, where he remained until August 16, spending the entire two and a half months making adjustments on the farm. Maybe he wouldn’t have had better results, but if he was just throwing on the second squad anyway, surely it would have been better to bring him up to the top squad on a regular basis to check his condition, even if it meant demoting him again after each start.
For better or worse, Kanemoto is “harsh” on his players. The same seems to be the current philosophy of the team as a whole. Give no player “special treatment”; knock players down when they play poorly; use only the players who manage to claw their way back up. We’ll give you a chance, but no sympathy if you don’t perform. Someone else will take your place.
Of course, this is normally the right attitude for pro baseball. Only a pure merit-based system gives players proper discipline and leads to improvements in technique. But at the same time, we shouldn’t forget that an “exception” comes along once every 10 or 20 years. Daisuke Matsuzaka was such an exception. So was Yu Darvish, and so was Shohei Ohtani.
And so is Shintaro Fujinami.
Fujinami’s own effort is of course the most important factor in his recovery. At the same time, a sense of “we will do whatever it takes to get you back on track” is nowhere to be found with the current Hanshin management. Yes, Fujinami’s recovery may depend entirely on his own hard work and abilities. But it is Hanshin’s task to grow Shintaro Fujinami into the top pitcher in the NPB. If you’ve been blessed with a pitcher of his potential, that is your duty as a team.
If your only concern is victory for the team, then maybe it is better to avoid “special treatment” and wait for him to start producing results on his own. But to reiterate, Fujinami is an entirely different “class” of player.
Fujinami can become the kind of ace that brings pride to all of Japanese baseball. I only hope that both he and his organization can find the understanding and resolve to make that a reality.
Translated by Jacob Dunlap