Nippon Professional Baseball Primer: DFS Preview
Hello Grinders. Baseball is back, well, sort of. While Major League Baseball players and owners point fingers at each other, some of us have been grinding the Korea Baseball Championship league, or KBO. DraftKings threw us a curveball (oh, pun not intended!) and has now introduced DFS for the Nippon Professional Baseball, or NPB.
The NPB is Japan’s baseball league and is finally starting up after a three-month delay due to COVID-19. Let me just state something very clearly here – I am not a NPB expert and will never claim to be one. I am learning this from square one just like you are, and my goal for this primer is to simply soak up as much information as possible and share it with you. It’s been months since I’ve had a chance to write my Questions & Answers column on Sundays, so let’s dive in and ask ourselves some questions!
How many teams are in the NPB?
The NPB consists of 12 teams, six in the Central League and six in the Pacific League. Similar to what we’ve seen in the KBO, the NPB will typically have Mondays as their off day. Due to the situation, the season has been reduced from 146 games to 125 games.
Here is how the 2019 standings looked. The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks ended up sweeping the Yomiuri Giants 4-0 in the Japan Series to win last year’s championship.
I was looking at some ZiPS projections and the Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Pacific League and Tokyo Yakult Swallows of the Central League are expected to be bottom-dwellers once again. At the very least, they may be the teams you’ll want to target your starting pitchers against if you buy into the projections.
My understanding is that each team is allowed to have up to five import players on their active roster, so similar to the KBO, there’s a limit on how much outside help each team can get.
What is the DraftKings format?
DraftKings is changing things up with a short slate format, allowing us to draft seven players within the normal $50,000 salary cap. The difference here is that we only need to roster one pitcher, two infielders, two outfielders and two utility players. In terms of scoring, nothing has changed from the MLB scoring format, where singles are still worth three points, doubles five points, etc.
The biggest question mark for me entering this sport is whether it’s optimal to stack, or if I should be targeting more one-offs or mini stacks based on matchup. DraftKings allows you to stack up to four hitters on a team, meaning the 4-2 or 4-1-1 lineup construction is fully in play here if you want to load up on a single team. With that in mind, my next question is to figure out how the pitching and offense shook out last season around the league to see if there are any offenses that were juggernauts.
What happened last year?
While home runs and offense was a little harder to come by in the KBO, that wasn’t the case last year in the NBP. In 2019, there were 27 batters who hit 20 or more homers, including three players that reached 40 home runs (which is a staggering number considering they are playing 140+ games per season). These are the home run leaders last year per league, courtesy of Baseball Reference:
Pacific League
Central League
One thing that stands out to me instantly is while we saw in the KBO that former MLBers were the ones we wanted to target, the majority of the top home run hitters are not former MLBers. In other words I think an edge may exist in trying to overcome our MLB bias and instead looking to some of these Japanese hitters we aren’t familiar with. Let’s now looking at pitching:
I was curious how the strikeout leaders looked in the Pacific League and was shocked only nine pitchers reached 100+ strikeouts last year. Kodai Senga was by far the best strikeout pitcher in the league last year and a legit MLB prospect at some point in his career, but I’m seeing him listed as injured with a forearm injury which is why I believe DraftKings priced him down to $5,000.
The Central League had a few more strikeout pitchers with 14 players reaching 100 or more K’s last season, but for the most part we’re seeing a lot of K/9 ratios in the 7ish range. I’m still a firm believer that strikeouts are king and I’m going to do what I can to prioritize strikeouts in a contact-heavy league.
What are the key transactions since last season?
Orix Buffaloes – Added Adam Jones, but keep in mind he’s going to be 35 years old in a few months and the last time we saw him in the majors, he hit .260 and had a 19.1 K%. I’m sure he has a little left in the tank to be effective in this league but we’ll see just how much is remaining.
Hanshin Tigers – Added Jerry Sands from the KBO after he hit 28 homers with 113 RBIs over a .305 batting average with the Kiwoom Heroes. He acts as a nice sidekick to Jefry Marte in this lineup and may be overlooked as he’s not going to appear in any of the 2019 NPB data since he played in the KBO last season.
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks – Signed Wladimir Balentien, which is a huge get considering he hit 33 homers last year, 5th most in the Central League.
Saitama Seibu Lions – Lost Shogo Akiyama, who went to the Cincinnati Reds. I’ve been playing him in my FanDuel MLB Simulations.
Yokohama Bay Stars – Lost Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, who went to the Tampa Bay Rays. This is a big loss considering he hit 29 homers last year, 8th most in the Central League.
Who should we target for the Friday June 19, 2020 opening slate?
While this was meant to be a primer, I wanted to at least provide a few possible targets for this opening slate. I’m going to mention a few options I like relative to their salary and performance from last season. Please note I have not found a list of projected starters yet so this list may be fluid as we get closer to lock and I’m hoping we get some kind of confirmation on starters:
Pitcher
Update: There’s a tweet here with probable starting pitchers and it turns out neither Moore or Yamamoto, who I wrote up originally, are expected to start. Based on this revised list, I do think Taisuke Yamaoka is one of the stronger plays for the Orix Buffaloes at $12,400. He had an 8.2 K/9 ratio last season with a 3.71 ERA and 13-4 record. His 154 strikeouts were 3rd most in the Pacific League. My favorite point-per-dollar option might be Yudai Ono (aka Yudai Ohno on DraftKings), listed at just $5,000. In 177.2 innings last season he went 9-8 with a 2.58 ERA and 156 strikeouts. His WHIP and HR/9 ratio were both under 1 as well. Considering he’s just $5,000, he allows you to spend up on any bats you want. In terms of pure strikeout upside, the best option is likely Shota Imanaga. He’s $15,000 though so you’re paying a premium, but he had 186 strikeouts in 170 innings last season, good for a 9.8 K/9 ratio. Kohei Arihara was also solid with 161 strikeouts in 164.1 innings but costs $14,000 and for an extra $1,000, I think I’d prefer getting up to Imanaga if possible. Lastly, I’ll call out Takahiro Norimoto for $11,700. Based on his pitcher logs it seems like he was a former starter who has been a reliever for the past two seasons. But his career K/9 ratio is 9.4 and he had four straight 200+ strikeout seasons earlier in his career. He’s dealt with elbow injuries and was considering coming to the MLB, but changed his mind. I have no idea if he’s on any pitch counts or has any restrictions but considering his strikeout history, he’s at least on my radar, albeit as a somewhat more risky play given his injury history.
1. Matt Moore (Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, $13,000) – Yes, I know stacking against Matt Moore has been a thing in the DFS community for years now and I’m not advocating he’s suddenly good now. But assuming he gets the Opening Day nod, keep in mind this is still a 30-year old former MLB top prospect who was given a contract worth up to $6 million dollars if he reaches his incentives to pitch for the SoftBank Hawks. He had an 8.1 K/9 ratio in the majors for his career, so this is someone with strikeout upside when pitching here in the states. I have no idea how that translates to the NPB, but I don’t hate the idea of taking some shots on him considering this league does not have a ton of strikeout arms.
2. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Orix Buffaloes, $14,500) – Ranked 5th in the Pacific League last season with 127 strikeouts but more impressively had a minuscule 0.958 WHIP and a 0.5 HR/9 ratio. While Orix is not projected to be anything more than a mediocre team as a whole, Yamamoto headlines one of the best pitching staffs. He had a ridiculous 1.95 ERA last year over 143 innings and ZiPS projects another sub-2.50 ERA season.
Infield
1. Hayato Sakamoto (Yomiuri Giants, $8,000) – Sakamoto is the most expensive infielder but for good reason. He’s coming off a 40-homer season and he slashed .312/.396/.575 (he led the Central League in slugging percentage). He had only hit 18 home runs the prior season so the surge did come out of nowhere, but he’s just 30 years old and in his prime.
2. Neftali Soto (Yokohama Bay Stars, $6,700) – My guess is Soto is the most owned infielder on this slate given his price tag and the fact he led the Central League last year with 43 homers. Soto was always a decent prospect in the Nationals organization so the success isn’t too surprising, although I never expected him to be this kind of international superstar. He’s coming off back-to-back 40+ homer seasons and the only reason to fade him is for his expected high ownership. I am more likely to play him and eat the chalk, hoping he continues to rake when in my lineups. You can watch him jack a preseason homer here.
3. Hotaka Yamakawa (Saitama Seibu Lions, $7,800) – Yamakawa led the Pacific League with 43 homers last season and is only 27 years old. This is coming off a 47-homer season in 2018, so the power is real. It’s worth noting Yamakawa has seen his strikeout rate surge over the last few seasons, where he struck out 138 times in 143 games back in 2018, and then 142 times in 143 games last season. He also saw his batting average drop all the way down to .256 last year after being a career .286 hitter. Since I don’t know much about him as a hitter or this league yet, the numbers suggest he’s trading in contact for power. It’s working, but he seems to profile more as an all-or-nothing type hitter if this trend continues, similar to what Adam Dunn or Pedro Alvarez did in their careers. I do have interest at this price tag for his power upside, but there seem to at least be some red flags as well.
4. Yurisbel Gracial (Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, $6,100) – This price tag is pretty fair for a guy who hit 28 homers last year and batted .319, good for 3rd in the Pacific League. Also impressive is that he did this in just 103 games. The sudden spike in power was surprising considering he’s 34 years old and not a young player anymore. Additionally, he hadn’t hit more than 20 homers in a season at any level of his professional career prior to last season’s outburst. I’m still a bit skeptical as I’m not entirely sure if he ran into an outlier season or if something about this league has just clicked for Gracial, but he’s on my radar for GPPs.
Others to consider: Brandon Laird (hit 32 homers last season and only $6,300, but did have 128 strikeouts in 139 games so he’s somewhat boom/bust);
Outfield
1. Seiya Suzuki (Hiroshima Carp, $7,900) – Suzuki is not going to be easy to fit in at this price tag but all the signs of stardom are there. He’s only 24 but was 9th in the Central League with 28 homers last year and a crazy .335/.453/.565 slash. His batting average, on-base percentage and OPS of 1.018 led the league. He also went 25/41 in stolen bases, so he’s not afraid to run on the base paths. I wrote up Yamakawa above for $7,800 but for just $100 more, you can get Suzuki, who I much prefer given his ability to steal bases and make contact/get on-base and a crazy rate.
2. Jerry Sands (Hanshin Tigers, $4,200) – I’m taking a bit of a shot in the dark here with Sands as we don’t have any prior data on him in the NPB, nor do we know his exact role yet. What I do know is this is a former MLB top prospect who is coming off a monster season with the Kiwoom Heroes. At $4,200, he opens up a ton of options and you know you’re not sacrificing upside or power considering he jacked 28 homers in Korea last season (and that’s even with the balls de-juiced last season)!
3. Jabari Blash (Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, $6,400) – How could I not end my article without mentioning Jabari Blash? Blash bashed 33 homers last year, 4th most in the Pacific League. Strikeouts were an issue with Blash when he was with the Padres, and they continue to this day in Japan where he fanned a ridiculous 157 times in 128 games last season, second most in the Pacific League. Basically who Jabari Blash was when on the Padres is still who he is on the Golden Eagles – a powerful hitter who is going to strikeout a ton of times but will smack the ball when he makes contact. At $6,400, there’s plenty of upside here if hunting for the homer.
Thanks for reading, and good luck. May variance be on your side.