No. We knew what we were expecting this season.
Are we still upset and disappointed?
Yes.
Let's break this down.
To begin, we will start with the pitching. It's no secret that the rotation suffered some sort of regression. It just happened to affect those we didn't expect. Motoyuki Hatsutori suffered quite possible what was his worst season ever. Throwing a 4.29 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and an ERA+ of 89, he had a below-average year. While he did put up a WAR of 4.6, and an All-Star selection this year, he struggled with an ineffective offense. Darren Jackson, the man who seemingly had a breakout year last year, also had an off year. He posted an ERA of 4.35, allowed a career high of 199 hits, and posted an ERA+ of 87, which is only slightly worse than Hatsutori.
Not all of the pitching woes are entirely bleak. Roberto Camacho improved from last year's campaign, posting a team best Starter ERA of 3.31, a career high WHIP of 1.21, and a career high WAR of 3.6. While the team's bullpen was among the worse, there were some bright spots. Well, more like one or two bright spots. Orlando Rodriguez, a proud owner of a 2.63 ERA in 65 IP and Carlos Rivas, who put up an ERA of 3.36 in 80.1 IP were the staples in the bullpen this year. With Akio Sai finally showing his age, they and Tsuramatsu Ito had to help carry the bullpen throughout the season. I believe they did just that, and if they can reproduce those results, we can depend on them for the future.
!!!WARNING!!! THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS LANGUAGE NOT SUITED FOR CHILDREN !!!WARNING!!!
I think I can speak for most of us when I ask the offense "What the fuck was that?". Really? A .235 team average? That's all you could muster? How the Hell can the pitching staff do their job when all you can muster is a .235 average. We here at the Bureaucrat's Triplicate believe we have many culprits, and you will likely feel our anger is well-founded here. Shigekazu Shimizu, the man promised to help us put up a winning season, only hit .258/.324/.402. Sure 2/3 of that is decent, but I think you'll find a glaring 1/3 that is not good. Shimizu only hit 16 HR, and drove in 54 runs. Fifty-four. Five Four. Five times Eleven minus One. WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH 54 RBIs FROM THE TEAM'S BEST HITTER?
While the remaining lineup has no such expectation, we must draw attention to the defense. 111 errors, A defensive efficiency of .690, and a Zone Rating of -60.9. All three at the worst in the Imperial League. The worst offenders? Let's list them:
- 2B Ichiro Kanno: 20 (141 games)
- C Yoriie Oka: 11 (108 games)
- 3B Chris Higgins: 10 (147 games)
- Shigekazu Shimizu: 10 (150 games)
That leaves us with one more culprit.
Shohei Arai.
The Hitting coach who had been hired after nearly a decade out of any baseball involvement. The experiment that came with him has been eventful, but a decided failure. This experiment must end, and luckily for us, we can see that his contract ends next season. Hopefully, this means we can get competent hitting coaches, and thus better help our boys.
The 2030 offseason is upon us, and we can only hope for the best, and look to the future.
