I got curious recently about who the active NPB leaders in victories were so I took a look at the leaderboard on NPB's website. After seeing that there's only one pitcher with over 150 wins (Masanori Ishikawa with 173), I started wondering if we'd ever get another pitcher in the Meikyukai which has a 200 victory requirement for starting pitchers. Ishikawa is 40 years only (he'll be 41 in a couple weeks) so it seems unlikely he will get the other 27 necessary wins. But then I remembered something important - you don't have to get all 200 wins in Japan! I did some checking up on Baseball-Reference and came up with a list of seven pitchers who have more than 140 wins between MLB and Japan:
7. Tsuyoshi Wada, 143 wins (138 in NPB, 5 in MLB)
2005 SCM #51 |
6. Hideaki Wakui, 144 wins
2017 Epoch Pacific League #20 |
5. Kenta Maeda, 150 wins (97 in NPB, 53 in MLB)
2012 Front Runner Carp Starting Lineup #09 |
4. Yu Darvish, 164 wins (93 in NPB, 71 in MLB)
2009 BBM 1st Version #505 |
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka, 170 (114 in NPB, 56 in MLB)
2002 Calbee #OP-6 |
2. Masanori Ishikawa, 173 wins
2008 Swallows Premium Card Vol 2 #YsS04 |
1. Masahiro Tanaka, 177 wins (99 in NPB, 78 in MLB)
2009 Eagles Seat Owners Club #18 |
I'm not sure what surprised me the most - that Tanaka had more wins than Darvish in MLB despite having played two fewer seasons or that Tanaka had more wins than Darvish in NPB despite playing for a worse team (the Eagles) than Darvish (the Fighters).
Of this seven, I think the only ones who will reach 200 wins are the three players currently playing in MLB. Darvish is the oldest of the three at 34 while Maeda and Tanaka are both 32. Wakui is also 34 but he's 56 wins away and I don't have a lot of confidence in him sustaining his effectiveness in the future. I think there's no way Ishikawa, Matsuzaka (who were teammates on the 2000 Olympic team) or Wada get there.
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