This week, the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) League in Japan made a major decision regarding the Sawamura Award, given to the best starting pitcher in the league. For the first time since 2019, no player will be receiving the award this season.
The selection committee, which is made up of five people, did narrow the field down to two pitchers. Shosei Togo from the Yomiuri Giants was one of those two final candidates. He finished the season with a 12-8 record and a 1.95 ERA over 180 innings of pitching. He also gave up just 44 walks out of 703 batters faced during this season.
The other candidate was Kohei Arihara from the SoftBank Hawks. He had a 14-7 record with a 2.36 ERA throughout 182.2 innings of work. He only walked 37 batters out of 718 faced during this season.
According to the selection committee, other pitchers considered were Hiromi Ito from the Nippon-Ham Fighters and Yomiuri’s Tomoyuki Sugano. However, both were not as appealing to them as opposed to the top two they ultimately considered.
So, why exactly could they not decide between Togo and Arihara? Well, the selection committee looks for the Sawamura Award winner to fit seven criteria to win it. The requirements include 15 wins, 150 strikeouts, ten complete games, an ERA of 2.50 or less, 200 innings pitched, 25 games started, and a winning percentage of .600.
The top two candidates from this season did not fit all of the criteria, only some. Togo only matched with four of the seven criteria, and Arihara only matched with three of the things the committee looks for.
Thus, the committee decided to hold off on awarding the Sawamura Award to someone. Before this season, Yoshinobu Yamamoto won the award for three straight seasons from 2021-2023.
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WBN Japan: https://worldbaseball.com/league/japan/
