Yu Darvish, Ichiro vs. Pete Rose, Shohei Ohtani & Japan's Place in the Hall of Fame

When evaluating the Hall of Fame worthiness of Japanese stars like Yu Darvish, their contributions on the other side of the Pacific deserve consideration.

Amid a record-tying deluge of Padres home runs, Jurickson Profar’s heated response to Dodger Stadium patrons throwing a baseball onto the field and bottles into the dugout, and the Jack Flaherty-Manny Machado shouting match, Yu Darvish’s NLDS Game 2 performance could easily be overlooked.

And maybe that’s an appropriate metaphor for Darvish’s career. He’s a five-time Major League All-Star with two runner-up finishes in Cy Young Award voting occurring seven years apart, but he’s not necessarily someone who immediately comes to mind when rattling off the best starting pitchers of the past decade.

Then comes the big question I have seen kicked around a few times this season: Is Yu Darvish a Hall of Famer?

His Game 2 performance was certainly the stuff of Cooperstown. By limiting the Dodgers to a single run over seven innings, Darvish kept winners of four combined Most Valuable Player awards—soon to be five MVPs—off the base paths entirely. While the fighting and subsequent avalanche of Padres runs were the story of the game, Darvish’s dominance against Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Shohei Ohtani provided the necessary ingredients for a San Diego win.

Ohtani going 0-for-3 against Darvish proved especially significant, given it was Ohtani who completely erased an early 3-0 Padres lead in Game 1 and turned the tide in Los Angeles’ favor. There could not have been a more fitting introduction to postseason baseball than the splash Ohtani made in his playoff debut—a player who is fast establishing himself as the premier talent of a generation doing the unimaginable.

Shohei’s performance both in Game 1 and in his incredible Major League career to date is relevant to this topic, but more on that momentarily. One playoff start hardly makes a Hall of Fame career, but it does provide the jumping-off point for a broader discussion about Darvish—and Major League Baseball’s Japanese imports in general.

In 12 MLB seasons, Darvish is 110-88, for a winning percentage of 55.6, the latter statistic putting him in the same territory as Don Drysdale. This season, he became just the 90th pitcher in league history to reach 2,000 strikeouts.   

These are milestones that, on their own, warrant Darvish at least being prominently in the Hall of Fame conversation when that time comes. That may not be for a while, as he’s piled up more notations to strengthen his case. His NLDS Game 2 performance suggests Darvish has plenty left in the tank.

At the same time, Baseball Hall of Fame voters are notoriously fickle and stingy. Personally, I prefer the Basketball Hall of Fame’s approach to enshrinement, which feels more like a celebration of the sport’s greatness than a Draconian exercise rivaling the Catholic Church’s selection of a pope.

Three thousand hits for batters, 200 wins for pitchers? White smoke! You’re in! Unless, of course, the moral arbiters responsible for the balloting decide otherwise.

Barry Bonds is one of the two most incredible batters of my lifetime and will not be inducted into the Hall of Fame because of suspicions that he used PEDs. Keep in mind, Bonds was never suspended for PED usage during his Major League career.

The other most exciting batter I’ve ever watched is Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani’s on a trajectory toward a home-run enshrinement in Cooperstown, and in his presumptive road to the Hall of Fame lies an argument I would make to advocate for Yu Darvish: MLB stars from Japan deserve consideration of their stats from the other side of the Pacific.

For Ohtani, this is much less of a consideration than it is for Darvish. A young Ohtani didn’t rack up eye-popping numbers with the Nippon Ham Fighters, the same club for which Darvish shined in seven seasons prior to joining the Texas Rangers.

Ohtani coming stateside and dominating does, however, add to the case for the quality of Japanese baseball. The best all-around hitter and a once-in-a-century two-way standout came from Japan. The most consistent hitter of the 21st century, and maybe ever in baseball history—Ichiro Suzuki—initially starred for the Orix Blue Wave. Japan has won three of the five World Baseball Classics ever staged, including the most recent and arguably most competitive in terms of the talent assembled for each roster.

Japanese baseball has repeatedly proven its value on an American stage for the last two decades, especially in this era since Darvish came to MLB.

In Darvish’s case, his time with the Nippon Ham Fighters tells an important part of the story. He was absolutely dominant with a 93-38 mark and an overall ERA of 1.99. He struck out 1,250 in Japan, which, combined with his 2,007 in MLB, puts him well past the Cooperstown golden ticket of 3,000 Ks.

He’s also beyond the 200-win threshold when combining his MLB and NPB victories.

Citing stats from NPB has been a hot-button issue before. When Ichiro Suzuki surpassed Pete Rose’s 4,256 career base hits by combining Ichiro’s knocks from NPB and MLB, it was easily scoffed at and dismissed at the time, perhaps in part because Ichiro’s hits in Japan are of less consequence in reaching Hall of Fame voters’ hallowed metrics. Ichiro reached 3,000 hits in his Major League career, one of the most surefire benchmarks for an invite to Cooperstown.

For Darvish, however, the difference between his statistics with and without his NPB production is the difference between smashing the Hall of Fame’s unofficial benchmarks and having a strong but not easily overlooked argument otherwise.

The caveat I default to is that the Baseball Hall of Fame isn’t specifically the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Not in a capacity any more official than 3,000 hits or 200 wins guaranteeing a candidate entry, anyway. This is a point about which I feel strongly regarding Negro League stars, and I was heartened when MLB officially recognized Negro League stats earlier this year.

And, in the case of the best Japanese players to come to MLB, I advocate for their NPB numbers to factor into their Hall of Fame candidacy.