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Pro Yakyuu : Eiyuu, the Japanese Baseball Heroes

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 2:59:49 AM

I wanted to model a Japan set that was quite similar in design to a hybrid of SOM's HoF and Heroes sets. This set draws from the player pool between the years 1936, the start of the professional game in Japan, right through to 2010. Some of the players you will be familiar with, by name if not by deed, like the stars Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima, perhaps even Yutaka Enatsu. You'll recognize quite a few of the players who were ex-ML who became stars in the Japan leagues, like Charlie Manuel, Leon Lee, and Alex Cabrera. You may have read about, or perhaps encountered in my classic team cards or in one of Fred or Gary's sets, stars like Fumio Fujimura, Tetsuharu Kawakami, and Kohji Akiyama. And you will perhaps have watched at your ballpark the recent influx of Japan's best like Hideo Nomo, Ichiro!, and Hideki Matsui. Maybe you're curious about the buzz on the young star pitcher Yu Darvish.

The set is two-fold:
A computer set (V 16 required).
A pdf book that includes all of the Heroes in a print-to-card format.

Over the jump we bring you The Pro Yakyuu : Eiyuu (Japan's Professional Baseball Heroes) set for your delight, and maybe even your enlightenment.


Like SOM's HoF and Heroes sets, the players' best 7 years* are selected, and then the players are carded within their league's seasonal context. The cards are peer context normalized; the cards have not been MLE adjusted. The 7 year exceptions include players whose yakyuu careers were short due to wartime death (Sawamura), moves to MLB (Nomo, Matsuzaka, etc.), exceptional foreign recruits who played less than 7 years in the league (Bass, Spencer, etc.), and those of more recent seasons who are still marking out their greatness (Darvish, Murata, etc.)

* A player's best 7 years are used (when applicable). Allowance is made for those from the WW2 era, the overseas recruits, and the big stars of the present day.


174 Heroes in the set.

All of the professional players who have been elected to The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame are included. [The Japan Hall of Fame is broader in scope than just a selection of the game's great players. A sizeable contingent of that Hall is what we'd classify as foundation type players (of perhaps middling talent) whose renown was achieved by managerial success, or were amateur notables who pre-date the pro league, or were citizens instrumental in the development of baseball in Japan. None of this type is in the set.]

All of the players who have been elected to the Meikyukai, an organization separate to their HoF, whose covenant is to honor only the pro baseballers who achieve a defined set of statistical thresholds.

We also add players who have been rewarded with multiple Best Nine award selections during their career. These awards acknowledge the selected players as those considered to be the best at their position over an entire season (in effect, a post-season all star award).

There are some players who are well known in North America after their move to MLB; their card is based only on their achievement in NPB.

Some of the foreign players remained in Japan for less than the 7 year preference. Their accomplishment in Japan was so good in the years they played that the set would be poorer for their absence.

Then there is the glaring exception of the hulking Hawaiian catcher Charlie Luis (not a nisei, he's Portugese-American) who only played in Japan for 2 years, but he made Best Nine both years, and we needed a good catcher for the roster that he's on.

There are some very good young players who won't hit the 7 years of quality mark for another year or 2, so in time we plan on updating this set.


This is modeled on the SOM HoF set. There are 8 teams and they're divided into league and time frames.

Japanese pro baseball began in 1936, so one of these teams, the [Dead Ball era-ish](36-40) Nippon Kokutais, is made up of the players who had their career between 1936 to 1949, the single league era, or played the majority of their best years during this period.

There are 2 teams covering the time frame of the 1950-1969. The (50-60) Central Gigantors cover the Central League players, and the (50-60) Pacific Keiretsus the Pacific League.

1970-1989 is represented by the (70-80) Central Boryokudans and the (70-80) Pacific Chambaras.

1990 to the present by the (90-00) Central Hodo-Hodo Zokus and the (90-00) Pacific Otakus.

There is 1 team for the spill overs, like the HoF set's Left Outs, the (30-10) Nakama Giant Robos. This team is hardly a left out, not with Ichiro!, master blaster Randy Bass, and the Tigers' great 3rd baseman Fujimura, a talent who would have been destined to play 2nd fiddle behind Nagashima had he remained in the (50-60 ) Central.

There hasn't been the same amount of player movement between leagues (or even teams) that we're used to in MLB, so there is a lot of league solidarity in the players. (Though that has been changing over the last decade.) The Central League, thanks to the Tokyo Giants, is very much the top dog since the 1960s.

There are no "primary" relievers in this set. The Japanese way was to leave the game in the hands of the starting pitcher for many years after ML teams had balanced their pitching staff with reliever types. All of the pitchers, either 7 or 8 per team, are assigned starts in the schpit. Most of the pitchers, though less so on the 90-00 clubs, have relief ratings too, and most of them have generous relief ratings. Do Not Use Closer is the selected rule (all pitchers are rated N).

The 2 Primary Lineups and the Starter hierarchy are filled in.

This is set up for SAdv play. It has all of the extra ratings except for Weather. All of the ballparks are rated as 7/5, which is also suggested to card players to use.


The computer roster requires V 16. The league base year used is 1936 and the set includes a PHC league. If you don't have a 193699 league installed then just extract into, or paste into, these 2 rosters (1936py and 193699) to the game. If you already have the 193699 league installed, and you want to use these PHC, that's fine, but you need to do this to install the PHC portion. Add the set by using Duplicate League, name it 1936jj, and then when it appears in the game, cut/paste the players onto your 193699 league. The game will use the ML PHC cards when playing your 1936 AL or NL set, and the Yakyuu PHC players when playing your PY set.

Ken R has made a schpit (which has been imported) that plays a 140 game schedule.

Ken W has gathered together a complete set of player pix, which is an amazing thing for him to have done. Look for his 5-12-11 set. He's also done a league and team logo set.

Ken R has compiled a playurl file. This gives you access by web links to all of the player biographies (primarily BB-Ref's Bullpen or Wikipedia pages, but there are other sources too) to help you with your understanding of the players concerned. A great kindness on his part; he hopes that it helps a great deal in your getting better involved with the players' backgrounds, many of whom, we appreciate, are new to you.

In order to use this file, "playurl", do either of the following. If you don't use a playurl file for any of your other sets (and this is the first time that we offer one) then let this single file overwrite the default file located in your Player folder. (The default file is just a sample guide how-to, so you're not losing anything by the overwriting.) If you use a playurl then do a copy from our file and paste/save it onto the tail end of your playurl file in the Players folder.


You can change the team BP names and codes to whatever you like.


A version of the Kimigayo (National Anthem of Japan).

Pro Yakyuu : Eiyuu


For the card guys, or for the comp and card guys, we're releasing a 101 page pdf "book" as well. The "book" includes print-to-card sheets for all of the 174 Heroes (though not the PHC cards too as that is comp set only).

The pdf file includes,
The 174 Heroes in one-sided, SAdv cards, ready for your printer. The cards use color. If you want to save on your color ink then you can change your Printer Property setting, for this job, to print in b+w, or you can turn off the setting that prints page background. You will want to print run from pages 2 - 66. These are the pages with the player cards, either 3 or 1 to a sheet. Also, KR recommends that in your print settings you turn off "resizing".

Sheets giving you the same settings that the computer game is using for the team Manager settings, which includes the suggested lineups vs L and RH starters, and the starting pitcher order.

Sheets with the detail of the playurl file that the computer players get, which enables you to click the active link to take you right to each player's biographical web page.

A 21 page player picture gallery (that includes all but 2 player images). These are different images, like the pix set mostly from player cards, to those used in the computer player pix set by KW.


One note, if you plan to play along with the computer set while also using the cards. There are a few carded players where I had to change the location of the player's card result from his comp version. This is due solely to the need to make a clean looking printable card; the card result value is identical (e.g. switching the results of 1.11 and 1.3).

Pro Yakyuu : Eiyuu, the Book, pdf print file included



Team rosters for the card guys



My thanks, hopefully yours to, go to the 2 Kens, Rhodes and Wenger, for all of the contributions they made, and patience they showed to me, in the creation of this complete package. It was a long, thorough, and trying process, but we got it very right in the end, so the time was well worth the effort. Also I wish to thank the 2 Kens as well as Gary Simonds for the time that they spent testing various permutations of the print-to-card set until we were satisfied that the cards would look and print first class for you.



The team nicknames are whimsical, while related to the time frame each team represents.
Kokutais = Servants of the Emperor
Keiretsus = Business conglomerates
Boryokudans = The mob
Chambaras = Swordplay flicks
Hodo-Hodo Zokus = Slackers and rebels
Otakus = Geeks living in a 6 tatami (tiny apartment), reading manga
Giant Robos and Gigantors you can probably work out.


Please enjoy this different flavor of baseball. We hope that you enjoy your exposure to these Heroes of the Pacific.

Steve Barkan's big 'unInternational BPs

Comments

bolee41 Thursday, May 19, 2011 1:14:09 AM

I admit knowing almost nothing about Japanese baseball. This will definitely help me learn about these players much like the Negro Leagues set educated me about those players.

I know the MLE would be almost impossible to calculate but it would have been really great to be able to incorporate them with the MLB HOF, Heroes, and Negro League players.

Thanks a bunch Len
Brian

stged20 Thursday, May 19, 2011 1:04:33 PM

I am almost giddy with excitement to fiddle around with these players. I have to finish up a replay first, but these guys should go very nicely into an all-decades project I'm doing that already uses the Negro Leaguers.

phillydj Thursday, May 19, 2011 2:37:17 PM

Love the PDF book! Fun to see the players who started their careers in Japan and then came to MLB, and vice-versa. Very cool stuff.

DJ

Ken RhodesKenRhodes Friday, May 20, 2011 11:40:56 AM

Just a note to lend support to this launch. This is really a pretty amazing set and will go a long way to help broaden your baseball knowledge, should you partake. Considering that there are ballpark images, player cards, and player pictures -- all made available for gratis is awesome. I hope folks take some time and get involved with this set. Great work lads!!

KenP1 Sunday, May 22, 2011 11:00:56 PM

Thank you Len, Ken, & Ken for your diligent work on this Heros set. I have enjoyed playing the other Japanese sets that have been created in the past & I'm sure this one will be great too.

Mike Lmlmorgen Wednesday, May 25, 2011 12:05:14 AM

In the words of the great Christopher Walken, "Wowee-wow-wow!" Thank you for the hard work. I look forward to rolling Aaron vs. Starffin in the near future.

KenWen Wednesday, May 25, 2011 10:35:55 AM

I know that you put a tremendous amount of work into this and I know your exacting standards. Thanks for making this available to us.

Ken Wenger

Alec RogersBaseballinDC Friday, July 8, 2011 2:33:16 AM

The Japanese BPs are a lot of fun - thanks! Has inspired me to download the Japanese heros and play around...

Dan Pettydanpetty Saturday, July 9, 2011 9:31:28 PM

All the volunteer work done to give Japanese baseball the complete Strat treatment unlocks another universe of baseball for me. I can't thank all of you enough.

tystates Friday, November 18, 2011 4:35:50 AM

This is great stuff! I look forward to using these cards as I don't have anywhere near a current version of computer SOMBB. I was trying to figure out how to tell who is on what teams from the pdf file. The computer manager settings won't give me everybody on the roster. Are players arranged in the pdf by team? Thanks for all the hard work.

GarLen Friday, November 18, 2011 5:01:51 AM

Ah, I didn't think of that. I don't know a lot of card guys. Use the Roster list I just added a link for under the card set link. I think that might do.

tystates Friday, November 18, 2011 5:19:38 AM

Thank you Len! That does the trick.

Tom Wilcoxwilcoto Friday, November 18, 2011 7:16:09 AM

Simply awesome, as always, and greatly appreciated. As a Braves fan, will be interesting to have a Kenshin Kawakami card that can get people out!

Lee Robertsmendozaline Friday, November 18, 2011 12:17:21 PM

You guys are unbelievable!!

tystates Friday, November 18, 2011 11:19:57 PM

Thought of something else the c&d players need. The ballpark effects and stadium names for each team. Unless that's somewhere in the pdfs that I missed. Anyway thanks a lot for all this.

Jack ButlerYonkersStrat Sunday, November 20, 2011 8:59:13 PM

This is so cool! A great addition to the HOF, Heroes, & NL experience. Love those cards and nicknames. Thanks guys for a very special set!

Buzz41 Sunday, November 20, 2011 10:58:15 PM

THANK YOU for all of your hard work! I am very impressed by the quality and attention to detail. Can't wait to play with these!

GarLen Monday, November 21, 2011 3:46:20 AM

"will be interesting to have a Kenshin Kawakami card that can get people out!"

Was annoying to me to have a KazMat card that can actually hit (and field).


"The ballpark effects"

All of the ballparks are rated as 7/5, which is also suggested to card players to use.

"stadium names for each team"

Pick out which you'd like to use. Have a look at the Japanese Code sheet, and the thumnail images of those parks, in our International BPs section.

vetsurg Wednesday, November 23, 2011 2:15:43 AM

Thank you guys! I am very excited to give this set a try and learn something as well!

RBIadmin Thursday, November 24, 2011 12:45:33 AM

You guys are GREAT!!! Previously I downloaded the Japanese players from your old site. I'm a life-long (give or take a few years) basic SOM player, so the basic Japanese cards are best for me. What you have here just might sway me towards lefty-righty play. While playing the basic cards I learned alot about baseball history in Japan and some cool things about their HOFers like Starfin and Yonamine. Truly GREAT stuff!!! Thanks!

y2daddy Thursday, November 24, 2011 12:33:33 PM

Guys, this is freaking awesome! Thanks so much for this.

GarLen Wednesday, November 30, 2011 3:46:52 AM

Thanks, guys. Glad that we could share this.

BaseballJeffje555 Wednesday, December 7, 2011 2:28:41 PM

I finally had time to check this out. Truly a work of art and I can't imagine all of the hard work it took to put together a project of this magnitude. Thanks a million Len.

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