As the Dragons wrap up camp in Okinawa and prepare for open-sen warm-up games, new manager Kazuki Inoue has revealed a batting order that raises more questions than it answers. Most puzzling: relegating Seiya Hosokawa, one of the Central League's premier hitters, to sixth in the lineup. While spring developments have been promising on several fronts, this particular decision deserves scrutiny
While the news has broken with how pleased management is with the likes of Reia Nakachi and Mizuki Miura in the pitching department, what still remains of great interest to me is how the line-up is being imagined. The Dragons once again featured at the bottom of the runs-scored chart in the Central League in 2024 despite an improved team OPS clocking it at 5th over the Hiroshima Carp. Recent comments from Inoue suggest that he plans to deploy one of the best hitters in the league, Seiya Hosokawa at sixth in the line-up. This seems like an overthink.
Jason Vosler's pre-season performances thus far have certainly put him in the reckoning for an opening-day start. Ryuku Tsuchida has also rocketed into reckoning after spending the last two seasons in the wilderness. His near .800 OPS on the farm last year has been consolidated with a solid spring camp to the point where Inoue has put him on the shortlist for starts at shortstop this year. These developments certainly make for interesting theorising over how Inoue is planning to put together his starting line-up. Based on his comments since becoming manager the most likely configuration is something like this:
- CF Yuki Okabayashi
- SS Kaito Muramatsu
- 2B Hiroki Fukunaga
- 3B Takaya Ishikawa
- 1B Jason Vosler
- RF Seiya Hosokawa
- LF Seiji Uebayashi
- C Yutaro Ishii
Hiroki Fukunaga, who was the Dragons second best hitter last year and one of the ten best hitters in the Central League, has long been earmarked for starts at second base in a measure to compensate for the poor production the team has had there since Toshiki Abe was traded to the Rakuten Eagles. Mikiya Tanaka was the worst of qualified hitters in the Central League at second base. Fukunaga however is not the defender that many of the other options are, like Tanaka. However, this is a high-upside play that then allows Takaya Ishikawa to play third base and one of Vosler, Nakata, or whoever at first base. Inoue has also remarked that he plans to use Ishikawa at 4th in the line-up. Uebayashi appears to be the best option in left field at present.
I am concerned with the overall thought process behind this line-up. While I can get behind Muramatsu and Fukunaga in the top half, I can't understand why Inoue would slot Ishikawa ahead of Hosokawa. While Ishikawa shows promise, Hosokawa delivered a 132 OPS+ last season, placing him among the league's elite hitters. Advanced metrics suggest that batting him sixth potentially costs the Dragons valuable run-production opportunities - up to 50 fewer plate appearances annually compared to a #3 or #4 slot, potentially costing the team at least two of his precious home runs.
The lineup sequence creates practical problems too. Even assuming Okabayashi, Muramatsu and Fukunaga make sense as the 1-2-3 hitters, locking Ishikawa at cleanup forces questionable decisions. To avoid three consecutive right-handed batters, Vosler gets inserted fifth, pushing Hosokawa to sixth. But consider how this plays out: Okabayashi reaches base, Muramatsu moves him over, Fukunaga hits a single, then Ishikawa is expected to drive runs in. If Ishikawa fails, Vosler bats with two outs, and Hosokawa might not even see an at-bat in the first inning. This limits Hosokawa's RBI opportunities and seems unnecessarily complicated.
I also worry about Okabayashi leading off with his .300 OBP last year, though his .370 OBP over the final three months offers some optimism.
Rather than forcing players into roles that don't maximize their strengths, I propose an approach that respects platoon advantages and recognizes the Dragons' hitters' tendencies. The data reveals clear patterns - including some surprises I discovered while examining player OPS splits for the first time.
I would like to suggest that a line-up not be set in stone for the season, but rather simply on platoon advantage. Thanks to DeltaGraphs' wonderful 1.02 database, I have been able to construct some line-ups based on OPS left/right splits from the farm and first team. I have taken a 2-year average of OPS vs either hand but have given more leeway to players that had a better 2024. I have highlighted 2-gun results in red while Vosler's AAA stats are in orange.
| vs RHP | | |
|---|
| LF | Bright | 0.757 |
| 1B | Vosler | 0.972 |
| C | Usami | 0.770 |
| RF | Hosokawa | 0.761 |
| 3B | Ishikawa | 0.748 |
| 2B | Fukunaga | 0.675 |
| CF | Okabayashi | 0.725 |
| SS | Tsuchida | 0.569 |
Kenta Bright is perhaps surprisingly one of the better hitters against RHP in the organisation, but this has only been shown so far at 2-gun level, and mostly only in 2023. Okabayashi may be the safer bet as a lead-off hitter if you want some speed on the bases. His 2024 however was not great overall despite finishing strongly. Vosler destroyed AAA righties last year, while Hosokowa's OPS against righties has been good but not great. Ishikawa performs better from the right side, but I'd still only slot him at #5 at the highest while Fukunaga's OPS against righties was .739 last year, which would either way put him at 6th. Ryuku Tsuchida is the biggest wildcard here, he had a .824 OPS against righties on the farm in 2024. This is the best configuration based on OPS against right-handers that I could develop. Still, Hosokawa is hitting 4th at the lowest.
Next onto a line-up against lefties;
| vs LHP | | |
|---|
| LF | Bright | 0.874 |
| RF | Hosokawa | 0.941 |
| 2B | Fukunaga | 0.785 |
| 3B | Calixte | 0.777 |
| 1B | Vosler | 0.772 |
| CF | Uebayashi | 0.755 |
| C | Ishibashi | 0.744 |
| SS | Muramatsu | 0.541 |
Hosokawa is absolutely death to lefties with a .941 OPS over the past two seasons. Fukunaga comes in at #3 in this line-up but he was equally damaging in 2024 with an .888 OPS. Calixte is much better against lefties and looks like the perfect platoon guy, while Vosler still seems like the better option over Nakata at first base. Uebayashi gets the nod over Okabayashi with the latter averaging .624 against lefties in the last two seasons. Bright is an interesting one - he mashed lefties on the farm last year. I would certainly think of starting him against lefties if Inoue wants to ease him into the team. His speed on the bases would potentially make him a decent lead-off hitter. Ishibashi too joins from the second team showing the best hitting ability vs lefties amongst Chunichi catchers.
Ultimately, Inoue's decisions will be judged by results on the field. However, optimizing the batting order represents low-hanging fruit for a team that has struggled to score runs. The data I have put forward suggests that putting Hosokawa a little lower in the line-up against righties may not be the silliest idea, but it isn't without risk. By prioritizing our best hitters' opportunities and leveraging platoon advantages, the Dragons could significantly boost their offensive output in 2025. Of course, the cultural norms of Japanese baseball and its role in player management may make these suggestions difficult to enact. Spring's experimentation period however provides the perfect opportunity to test these approaches before the games start counting.
