As you might have guessed, articles covering the postseason were some of the most popular on the site.

Hello 2012, and Happy New Year to everyone out there in Tsubamegun land!

We’d like to welcome you to the new year, and a spring training camp in Okinawa that’s only a month away, by looking back briefly on the most popular posts of last season.

They’re listed here according to page views, and it’s an amusing view into what interested the record number of readers that accessed this site last year.

5. Tokyo vs Yomiuri Game 3 – Climax Series 1st Stage

This was Kozo’s personalized version of the emotional ups and downs of that historic game between the birds and their much better funded crosstown rivals.

4. Tokyo vs Chunichi Game 5 – Climax Series 2nd Stage

Garrett wrote the season-ending game report after the team’s loss to eventual Japan Series Runner-up, Chunichi. The comments at the end of this post were very much appreciated by all of us here at the site.

3. Online Yakyu Writer Insights: 2011 Tokyo Swallows

For this article, I interviewed Yakyu Baka’s Gen Sueyoshi, NPB Tracker’s Patrick Newman, and Jason Coskrey from the Japan Times to see what they thought about Tokyo’s chances in 2011. It’s interesting to re-read this article nearly a year later and see how things actually panned out. I, for one, was completely off on Aoki having a career-best year. Seems the new baseball was the monkey wrench on that one.

2. 2011 Japan Series – Chunichi vs Fukuoka

This is the youngest of the entrants on this short list of popular posts, but it makes sense that it made the cut because it’s essentially seven game reports wrapped into one. Game seven, in which I included play-by-play coverage of how the Hawks finally defeated the Dragons, helped attract a lot of real-time attention to that post.

1. Wishful Thinking (2011 version)

Ah, yes. The annual ritual of putting our foolish hopes and dreams in writing. It’s almost like a belated Christmas Wish List. I swung and missed on most of mine last year. How did you end up doing?

Thanks to everyone who visited Tsubamegun last season! Keep watching this space for an upcoming Wishful Thinking post that we’ll appreciate your feedback on. 

Enjoy the rest of the New Year’s holiday!

Jason Coskrey, writer for the Japan Times, summarized game one of the Central League Climax Series First Stage thusly:

“The Tokyo Yakult Swallows came out on top in their season series against the Yomiuri Giants this year. Now they’re halfway to a triumph that may be even more satisfying.”

You can read the rest of his observations on game one here. Incidentally, Coskrey featured in an interview of baseball writers that was published on this site all the way back in January. It’s very interesting to read their Central League predictions now!

Rob Smaal, who writes a lot about baseball for the Asahi, started his game report with:

“Shohei Tateyama and Kyohei Muranaka provided a right-left combination Oct. 29 at Jingu Stadium that left the visiting Yomiuri Giants reeling and on the ropes.”

Smaal actually visited us not too long ago in the right field stands and penned this about our revelry at Jingu Stadium.

And for a very detailed, by the numbers, look at what went down in that crucial game last night, look no further than Gen Sueyoshi’s inimitable Yakyu Baka website.

Sueyoshi reminded us that:

“The Swallows can wrap this up with either victory or a tie on Sunday. … Muranaka got the win in relief and is now 1-0. … Lim saved his first game of the postseason.  He also became the first pitcher in Climax Series history to record a save with just 1 pitch.”

Read the entire post here.

Click here for part one: OYWI: NPB Moving Forward?

After a detailed trip through some of the prevailing wisdom on NPB in general, which we’ll return to in the next edition of this interview series, it seemed like the right time to focus exclusively on the birds for a bit. That’s what part two is all about.

The 2010 season, as you’ll recall, was quite the ride! And if the Central League had been more like the 2009 edition, then the birds would have easily walked into the playoffs in second place with home field advantage for the first stage of the Climax Series.

However, 2010 saw three teams put together solid full-season performances while Tokyo didn’t get its act together until June. Even though they were the winningest team in the league from July to the end of the season, it wasn’t enough to overtake the coasting Yomiuri Giants.

The big question now is whether this whole coming-up-short act is going to continue. As the Japan Times’ Jason Coskrey aptly told us, Tokyo “is the Houston Texans of the NPB. They have the pieces, they just seem to underachieve.”

Credit where credit is due though. The Tokyo Swallows finished the 2010 season at 72-68-4 even though they were in 6th place with a record of 13-32-1 on May 26th when former manager Shigeru Takada finally stepped down.

The post-Takada turnaround, as we’ve said many times before, was other-worldly when considering how badly the team was playing just a week prior to Takada’s throwing in the towel (check here for the mid-May, Takada-inspired offensive stats).

My routine pouting about sacrifice bunting notwithstanding, Tokyo fans were afforded many reasons to be excited about baseball last season, and they are desperate for the good times to continue!

The pitching, of course, looks pretty good for 2011. The birds just re-signed Tony Barnette, the right-handed starter who showed flashes of dependability last season, and Lim inked a nest egg for his great-great-grandchildren during the off-season to ensure that we have a fearsome closer in the bullpen.

Teamed with the Daisuke Araki-guided rotation and middle relief, the Swallows look to have the makings of another solid pitching corps.

The offense, on the other hand, is a little bit more of a question mark. Guiel and Whitesell will be back, but D’Antona was unfortunately let loose. He had a rough season last year, but then again he was never given the day-to-day starts that helped him earn July MVP honors in 2009. Whoever picks him up will be getting a bargain.

An unknown quantity in the form of Wladimir Balentien has joined the squad

Balentien has spent time with Seattle and Cincinnati.

to compete with Guiel for a spot in the outfield, but no matter how that works out, expect big things from their neighbor in center, Norichika Aoki.

Barring major injury or posting system foolishness, Aoki will be playing in North America in 2012, so don’t be shocked if he puts up career-best numbers this season.

Iihara, Hatakeyama and Tanaka should continue to make their presence felt this year, and the competition for the starting spot at short should be fun to watch.

If Miyamoto and Aikawa can stay off IR (hey, can we get the deep-muscle-massage crew that keeps all the old guys on the Phoenix Suns roster healthy?!), then there’s definitely sustainable hope for the offense. Third place in the Central is what I’m thinking for 2011.

But that’s just my opinion.

Apparently, I don’t have a whole lot of company.

The general consensus seems to be that the birds will finish fourth. Gen Sueyoshi from Yakyu Baka and Patrick Newman from NPB Tracker explain that the top three teams from 2010 are still too strong for Tokyo to easily make a move into the playoffs.

“[Tokyo] obviously has some top-notch talent, but they have challenges in that they won’t score as much as Yomiuri or Hanshin, and they’re looking up at Chunichi in terms of run prevention.

“Yakult has great rotation depth and a pretty good bullpen though, so if they can hit a little more consistently and one of Yomiuri/Hanshin/Chunichi falters, they have a shot at a playoff spot,” said Newman.

Sueyoshi largely agreed that the Swallows are likely destined for fourth place this year due to the relative strength of the wealthier clubs that finished ahead of them last season.

Maybe Tokyo can use these guys as the second farm team?

At the same time, he pointed to the young talent that all three of 2010′s B-class teams have waiting in the wings as a source of excitement for the next few seasons.

“The Swallows have a fairly solid core of young players and might be poised to make some noise in the near future.

“But I also think that Yokohama and Hiroshima have a fairly solid core group of young players and things could get interesting in the CL over the new few years,” he said.

Good point. Especially as far as Tokyo is concerned. The Swallows haven’t got short figured out yet, but there are three or four very interesting young players who could easily keep veterans Fujimoto and Kawashima on the bench in 2011.

Kawabata (23), Morioka (26) and Onizaki (27) are three players who showed promise last year, and Tokyo’s first round draft pick, Tetsuto Yamada, should also get a decent shot at playing between Miyamoto and Tanaka in Tokyo’s infield.

Accordingly, another reason for Tokyo fans to be optimistic, at least over the medium to long-term, is the fact that Chunichi, Hanshin and Yomiuri’s lineups are a bit ass-heavy with aging superstars.

Sueyoshi pointed to Yomiuri as a case in point: “While they’re putting a lot of effort into growing their farm system, I don’t know if/when they’ll be able to replace stars like Michihiro Ogasawara, Alex Ramirez, and Shinnosuke Abe.”

It should be very interesting to see if homegrown stars such as Sakamoto and Yamaguchi can live up to the expectations that have been placed on them by the Yomiuri organization and their fans.

At any rate, even if they can’t plug those holes with talent from their farm team, I think we can be confident that Yomiuri will just buy an all-star from another team as they did with Ogasawara and Ramirez.

And Tani.

And Kroon, Greisinger and Lee.

Coskrey was just slightly more optimistic about Tokyo’s chances when he talked to us.

“If they can convince themselves they can compete, then they will. Which is why I like Ogawa as their manager. He’s a good influence in the clubhouse.

“The new ball may keep more balls in the park and could be a great equalizer for their pitchers.

“The top three are going to be tough to beat. The team’s cheap ways of the past, losing Seth and Rami for instance, I think will keep them fourth, but I wouldn’t be that surprised to see them finish third.”

Well, the good news is that nobody, including us, has the team pegged to get run into the ground this season.

But the outlook for 2011 is not entirely rosy if you listen (as we do) to the opinions of Coskrey, Sueyoshi and Newman, three of the most attentive NPB writers you’ll find in English on the Internet.

In part three of this series we will return our focus to the general state of affairs in NPB and myriad minor details such as the value of Japanese print, TV and Internet media baseball coverage.

Valid points abound in the article, all of which are in lockstep with what has been uttered on this website and elsewhere. Here’s one choice tidbit referring to the front office’s pledge of support for Tokyo’s beloved number 88:

“To have to give Takada a vote of confidence at this point — 45 games into a 144-game season — is to basically admit he’s not getting the job done.”

All of this is, of course, ignoring the fact, temporarily at least, that there’s no new-age manager with a proven track record currently available (or affordable enough) to take over, but many will agree that any manager who simply lets the players play can help lead this team out of sixth place in the Central.

More from the team on this point:

“Forcing people out of jobs is not the Yakult group’s business structure,” [team president] Suzuki told Kyodo News last week. “We want him [Takada] to serve out the [last year of his three-year] term.”

Well, it’s happened to Yakult managers six times in the past, so why not now?

Read Coskrey’s article here.

Kato (right) at a press conference after Japan won the 2009 WBC.

Ryozo Kato, NPB commissioner and former Japanese ambassador to the United States (2001-08), is thinking big about the future of Japanese baseball, the dominance of the US in the baseball world, and how to grow baseball as a worldwide sport.

Japan Times sports writer, Jason Coskrey, fills us in on what was said at a recent Foreign Sportswriters of Japan meeting that Kato attended.

The following are a couple of choice cuts from Coskrey’s article.

Regarding a true world series:

The issue at the forefront of Kato’s plans is the prospect of a global world series between the champions of the NPB and MLB.

“Actually, that was not something I initiated,” Kato said. “(MLB) commissioner Bud Selig, he raised this topic in New York. It was on the fifth of January. As soon as I was ushered into his office, he opened up the conversation by saying ‘Let’s have a world series.’ “

And his thoughts on adding more teams to the current twelve:

“My personal hope is that we go in that direction,” Kato said. “Niigata is one, Matsuyama is another and maybe one more team or so in Kyushu,” he added, thinking in terms of possible destinations for an expansion. It is very difficult for me to tell you what are exact plans are, but I am for expansion.”

Read the rest here.

Both Fukuchi and Guiel are quoted in the piece. The main themes are: a) we surprise everyone by making the playoffs last year, b) we need to step it up this year, and c) we have a lot of capable young players on the team.

Here’s a little tidbit from the article:

“I think a lot of these younger players, when they get into the dome, they get a little overwhelmed,” Guiel said. “The aura of the Giants, the atmosphere of the Tokyo Dome, there’s a lot of pressure there.”

Read the article in its entirety here.

High five for Coskrey for bothering to cover the birds at all.