Seattle Sports Insider

PTI on Johjima and MLB Dogma

Posted by

3/24/09

Spec

Doc, FYI, from Shannon Drayer, what do you make of “he calls pitches right”?:

[begin quote] [Felix] enjoyed throwing to Ramon Hernandez.

“He is unbelievable. He calls pitches right. He told me you have to get ahead, and if you throw the fastball for strikes the breaking ball will be better.”

He spoke about the importance of his fastball, both the 4 seamer and 2 seamer but when I asked which of his pitches he would least like to see if he was a hitter he said his curve or slider. No doubt after a well established fastball. [end quote]

LOL :- ) I make of it, that IFelix was part of the circle that trashed Johjima-san in 2008. The groupthink in the M's rotation -- Washburn, Silva, now obviously Felix, and Bedard asked for his own catcher after three games -- focuses on the negative. That is precisely how you get 102 losses out of a $100M roster, and the reporters were wonderful facilitators for the "major league way to play" mindset.

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Team Japan just finished winning .... that's W-I-N-N-I-N-G ... the championship tournament, thrashing MLB (TM) while they were at it. Kenji Johjima worked wonderfully with the championship pitchers, though he obviously worked terribly with pitchers losing 102 games the right way.

That said, it's interesting that Felix (who is NOT an Entitled Loser) hated throwing to Johjima, enough so that even he would throw his teammate under the bus like that. When they are ALL doing it, there's something very drastic going on.

For my own part, I love NPB baseball and the Japanese culture, so am biased towards Johjima-san. But fair's fair. I declared Erik Bedard the objective litmus test for this problem: if Erik Bedard came in, fresh perspective, great pitcher, and didn't like Johjima, then fine. ... Bedard threw to Kenji Johjima 2-3 times and all of a sudden, had his own personal American catcher every fifth day.

So fair's fair. I'll concede that the root cause of the problems was, by definition, my man Kenji. That's not to say that you would find he was the root cause of ANYTHING (except pennants) in Boston or Atlanta. But in Seattle, Johjima's the changeable part here.

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Felix' quote about calling pitches "right" reflects the dogma that too often afflicts American baseball. Did Team Japan play baseball "wrong" this last week? They played baseball wrong, pitching backwards in the first inning and taking walks with first base open and men on and all that stuff. They did happen to finish games with more runs than the other team, but that doesn't make their way right....

Johjima plays the game wrong, but did start at catcher for the team that won the "World" Series, a team that happens to feel that Johjima plays it right. So you can see why amigos like Joe Morgan are so incredibly uncomfortable broadcasting the event. It is a very real challenge to MLB (TM) dogma.

Kenji Johjima is an intersection point for all of the various dogmatic beliefs, and entitlement attitudes, that afflict baseball. He's a ley line, so to speak, for many things that are fractured about the game. He's a great Japanese catcher, very effective when playing for the Japanese. He's a catastrophe for a 102-loss team that doesn't have much right to claim the high ground, about anything.

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Just the same, there's a disconnect, and it continues to sound like it's unfixable. What I make of Felix' not-too-classy quote is, there's not a lot of hope for a Death, Burial and Resurrection for Joh-san under his new manager Wok.

I don't suppose I have to tell you that no ballclub ever won, if 5 members of its rotation were complaining to the public that their catcher calls the game wrong. Unless Wakamatsu can change that ATTITUDE (not merely the news quotes) of those guys and TODAY, the ballclub remains a mortal lock for 90+ losses. Backup centerfielders or no backup centerfielders. :- )

Again, my eyes aren't filling with tears, exactly :- ) over Johjima's or Ichiro's plight, because we all know how an American would be treated in Japan if he did not accept his role as being seen and not heard. Jason Varitek would probably suffer a worse fate in the Central League than Joh-san has here. So we should keep the cultural bias in perspective.

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WHOEVER the catcher's going to be -- Gregg Zaun or Scrapiron Stinson or whoever -- ANYTHING would be better than a catcher (unjustly) loathed by all five starting pitchers.

Wakamatsu said that Johjima's starting role will depend on his productivity: read, if things aren't going well, they'll make a change.

If Wok doesn't change attitudes in March, things won't go well.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

Felix's comments are even

Felix's comments are even more striking when compared to Joh's as relayed by Brad Lefton:
"Japan's greatest asset is its pitching," he said. "Can they throw harder than America's pitchers? No. But when you consider how they react to a bunt situation, the running game, the quality of their slide step, they're first class. They're able to compete with subtleties like adjusting their timing with runners on base, executing superb control, throwing pitches with sharp breaks, and so on. The catcher's got to step it up so he doesn't kill their game. The American game is more of a power game. They're [American pitchers] not likely to throw a breaking pitch at 2-0. Japanese pitchers can throw their breaking pitches for strikes."

How does King Felix'

How does King Felix' complimenting a long-established - and generally well-regarded for his pitching calling - MLB veteran catcher rise to the level of being "unclassy" or, as Doc put it "throwing his own teammate under the bus".
I think you guys need to stop being so sensitive.

Pretty much agree with

Pretty much agree with everyone here.
The problem is not "Joh is stupid" or "The rotation is stupid". The problem is communication. As noted, US and Japanese systems are vastly different. The Seattle rotation grew up being spoonfed western dogma -- and Joh grew up chowing down on Eastern dogma.
If your battery don't like working with each other - you're gonna be out of energy real quick.
In simple numbers, you've got a choice -- convince the ONE guy with Eastern thinking to adapt to Western -- or convince the 12 guys with Western thinking to adapt to Eastern. This is not a hard choice to make. If Eastern thought dude is either unable or unwilling to adapt, then yes *HE* is the problem.
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I agree with Matt here that complimenting person "A" is not -- and let me emphasize this *EVER* an insult to guy "B".
If I say Barry Bonds is a great hitter -- that is not a comment *IN ANY WAY* on what I think about Babe Ruth or Ted Williams. But, if the reader of a quote chooses to bring someone not mentioned into the discussion, then that is clearly THEIR issue.
I'm probably coming off grumpier than I intend to be -- but I'm seeing more and more in the print media and elsewhere this tendency to frame the "unspoken" as if it was stated, and it annoys me.
IMO, infering that Felix' positive comments were a slam on Joh makes about as much sense as saying they were a slam on Obama's adminstration.

The "he calls pitches right"

The "he calls pitches right" comment pretty much makes it seem like hes comparing to somebody "who calls 'em wrong".
I actually agree that Joh's pitch-calling style isn't ideal for pitchers with poor command of their breaking pitches (or poor command in general). I think he needs to catch more of the middle of the plate with his glove.
He started doing a better job of this in the 2nd half, so we'll see how it pans out this year.

Thank you Sandy...voice of

Thank you Sandy...voice of reason as always - even when I do not agree with you, I respect your way of thinking.
Felix saying "he calls pitches right' in no way infers that Joh calls 'em wrong. If he'd said something like "he calls pitches right...I've really never had the opportunity to work with a guy as good at that as Ramon..." then you'd have a beef. He didn't. And I really see no reason to think that Felix is without class for complimenting a veteran of great repute.

taro, If you see a woman in

taro,
If you see a woman in your office in a dress you particularly like, and say to her, "You look really nice, today," did you just imply that every other woman in the office is hideous? Because I don't see how my hypothetical is any different than the Felix quote. (And what would your response be when the woman behind you snarled, "Why do you think I'm ugly?")
One thing to keep in mind is that these sports quotes are all coming "off the cuff", where the players are making it up as they go along. I like to believe I'm a decent writer -- and I do a fair job of writing extemporaneously -- but I definitely know there are times when I'm searching for a particular word and it isn't coming - so I use a word that is less precise to what I am saying.
As a rule, I think it HIGHLY unfair the way the media has begun dissecting every in-the-moment answer for the deep and hidden layers of meaning that are being implied. It's like sophomore English poetry analysis on steroids -- forget what the poet said -- what did he really MEAN?
Having been asked a question SPECIFICALLY about Ramon, he gave an answer specifically about Ramon.
As to the analysis of what "he calls 'em right" means?
MY interpretation would be something like: "I would think about throwing X -- and that's what Ramon would ask for."
That may not be the reality with Joh -- but that doesn't mean that Joh was in Felix' head in any way at the time the question was asked.

I don't mean to put Felix's

I don't mean to put Felix's character on trial here, thats not the point or what I was implying. I don't think he meant any ill towards Johjima with that comment. It just seems pretty obvious that he prefers Ramon Hernandez' style of calling a game to Johjima's.
Its pretty dang clear with that quote that someone drilled the "pitch fastball, fastball, fastball" idea into Felix's head..DEFinetly not the way Johjima prefers to call a game.

Have you ever watched Ramon

Have you ever watched Ramon Hernandez call a game? He isn't an all-fastball catcher, from what I can tell. The As' big-three had a lot of success with Hernandez as their backstop and those were pitchers who relied on secondary weapons HEAVILY (Zito and his mega-curve, Hudson and his sinker/change-speed game and Mulder and his slider/2-seamer).

I don't think it even

I don't think it even matters. Its Felix's PERCEPTION here were talking about based on the quotes.
He clearly prefers the fastball first mindset. Thats why he threw a bunch of them last year, and thats why he prefers his catcher call a game that way.

Um...I'm confused. Ramon

Um...I'm confused. Ramon doesn't have a particular bias toward calling for the fastball apparently...he worked with pitchers that had deadly secondary weapons. Unless you are saying you saw the WBC and Felix was throwing 90% fastballs, I don't see how Felix liking Ramon is a strong case for Felix preferring exclusively a fastball-first mentality. He's shown that preference in the past, that's true, but last year, he pitched backwards a lot more than in previous seasons and did better when Johjima was behind the plate than any of the other catchers...

Actually they had a thread

Actually they had a thread over at LL that showed Felix was throwing a crazy% of fastballs in WBC.
Its clearly the approach Felix prefers.

OK...I didn't get to se ehis

OK...I didn't get to se ehis performances, so I didn't have that information. Thanks for that info.