Out of the Cellar, Not yet in Contention:
Shisa Year in Review
Shiba Taguchi, Ryukyu Sports News
Naha, Okinawa -
October 8, 2022: The Shisa began the season with a payroll that ranked 25th out of the 32 PEBA teams, and less star power than a community theater production of Oklahoma. Expectations for the the team were low. Sixty-four wins and a last place finish in the Rising Sun Division seemed to be the consensus among the prognosticators. All along, however, the Okinawa front office argued that the team was poised to make strides in 2022 and improve upon the previous year's abysmal 61-101 record, which in all honesty should not have been all that difficult. In the end, the work of the Shisa executives yielded mixed results, but the team did win more games than the year prior, posting a 78-84 record on its way to a second place finish in the RSD.
Faced with the need to improve at nearly every position, the club signed eleven new players, most of them via free agency. There were more misses than hits on these new players, but two players played very well, accounting for half of the team's total offensive WAR in 2022. The team's pitching acquisitions barely made a difference at all, however.
Scott Morris, the unassuming Shisa third baseman, became the highest paid player on the roster with a salary of $8.5M when he signed on as a free agent on December 28. Morris, whose best prior season, with the London Underground, saw him post a 106 OPS+ and a 3.8 WAR. Good, but not great, production. But Morris would turn out to be well worth the money. The thirty-two year old Morris (who would turn thirty-three in July) put up a slash line of .290/.389/.458, an OPS+ of 131, and a 5.2 WAR (highest on the team and good for second best in the Sovereign League at his position) in 2022.
It was center fielder Mario Martínez who proved to be the biggest feather in the cap of the Shisa front office. Signing for a modest $1M, Martínez would appear in 156 games for Okinawa and post a slash line of .274/.330/.458 and a 5.2 WAR (highest on the team and highest among Sovereign League center fielders). His 25 home runs in 2022 were a career high for Mario. Not only was Martínez effective at the plate, he had the second best ZR (+18) among Sovereign League center fielders. It was the best defensive season of his career by far.
At the beginning of the season, we speculated that Rule 5 pick Salvador Rodríguez could potentially be an emerging star in the Okinawa outfield. While his 26 home runs were second best on the team, his slash line on the year was .237/.302/.467, and his lackluster defense in left field held him to a WAR of 0.9 on the season. Replacement level, more or less.
Okinawa had modest success with its two first basemen signings. Dax O'Mannis and El Chupacabra (Octávio Pexego) played at first and DH throughout the season. O'Mannis would end up missing roughly two months to injuries and would appear in only 119 games, which of course hampered his production (2.2 WAR). Pexego, thirty-nine years old and with almost no defensive value, was used mostly as a DH (but he still managed to play four games at short, as a joke, we guess), and put up a WAR of 1.8.
The real story at first base would turn out to be Red Hook, Alex Bothwell, the twenty-three year old slugger that the team brought up from AAA after O'Mannis went down. In the forty-one games that he would start, Shisa fans would be treated to an all-star level performance (.317/.372/.610). Bothwell would hit a home run in every 12.6 at-bats in those games, and appears to be on track to take over at first full time in 2023.
The performance of the Shisa starting rotation needed to improve in 2022, and it did, but this improvement had little to do with the team's attempts to bolster the rotation. Okinawa starters posted a 4.70 ERA in 2022, 'good' for twelfth best in the SL. The three pitchers the team brought in to help (Chris Graves, Livewire Hendricks, and Alex Stinnett) collectively put up a not very helpful ERA of 5.03. On July 29th, Stinnett, the only one of the three performing at a decent level (4.02 ERA through 21 starts) suffered a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder and was done for the year.
Most of the marginal improvement in the performance of the rotation could be accounted for by players the team already had on hand. Isei Yamaguchi began the season in the bullpen so that he could acclimate himself to pitching at the big league level. The team soon made him a starter when the rotation it had put in place began to fall to pieces, and he did well, putting up a 3.51 ERA in 29 starts and 34 appearances, but his FIP of 4.37 does raise questions about whether this performance can be repeated in 2023. Tsuginori Honma also had some significant improvement in his game, lowering his ERA from 5.35 in 2021 to 4.07 in 2022.
The Shisa led the SL in home runs, with 208, and were seventh in runs scored, with 766. They were ninth in team ERA at 4.41, and were tenth in runs allowed with 758. The team fell short of their pythagorean expectation of 82-80, finishing with a losing record (78-84). Seeing Duluth claim the last playoff spot with an 81-81 record, the Shisa front office can only wonder what might have been.
Financially, the team saw its revenue increase by roughly $24.5M ($127,639,028 in 2022 versus $103,157,617), an increase of 23.7%. Attendance increased by 464,160 (3,317,774 in 2022 versus 2,853,614 in 2021), and increase of 16.3%.
Okinawa Shisa Minor League Player of the Year
Center fielder Dave MacIntosh, United States, AA Kumamoto. .294/.313/.449, 111 OPS+, 2.9 WAR.
Okinawa Shisa Rookie of the Year
First baseman Alex 'Red Hook' Bothwell, United States. .317/.372/.610, 163 OPS+, 1.4 WAR.
Okinawa Shisa Reliever of the Year
LHP Willie Owens, United States. 1.93 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 221 ERA+, 1.3 WAR.
Okinawa Shisa Starting Pitcher of the Year
RHP Isei Yamaguchi, Japan. 3.51 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 121 ERA+, 2.5 WAR.
Okinawa Shisa Position Player of the Year
Third baseman Scott Morris, United States. .290/.389/.458, 131 OPS+, 5.2 WAR.