The early 2020s will be remembered as a very unusual time in Nippon Professional Baseball history. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 marked the fewest games played in a season since 1950 (though the 120-game schedule still doubled what Major League Baseball could muster). In 2021, NPB returned to a full 143-game schedule, but extra innings were eliminated, leading to the most ties in NPB history. If that weren’t weird enough, league-wide offense has plummeted to all-time lows.
2022 was the first year of the new “dead ball era,” but the trend goes back longer. 2024 will be the sixth straight year with a decline in home run rate and the fourth straight year with a league OPS below .700. Make no mistake: this decade’s run environment so far resembles the 1960s. The ball is truly dead.
But a few outlier players have displayed hitting excellence against all odds. These are the top ten qualified seasons by OPS+ since 2020:
Year | Player | OPS+ |
|---|---|---|
2022 | Munetaka Murakami | 230 |
2021 | Seiya Suzuki | 216 |
2022 | Masataka Yoshida | 205 |
2020 | Yuki Yanagita | 202 |
2021 | Masataka Yoshida | 192 |
2024 | Kensuke Kondoh | 192 |
2023 | Kensuke Kondoh | 186 |
2023 | Kazuma Okamoto | 183 |
2022 | Hotaka Yamakawa | 178 |
2020 | Masataka Yoshida | 177 |
100 is always league-average, allowing us to place hitters in the context of their low-scoring environment. An OPS+ of 200 is effectively twice as good as the average player. Immediately, Munetaka Murakami’s record-setting 2022 season stands out. The Yakult Swallows superstar set the Japanese-born home run record with 56 while batting .318/.458/.710 in 141 games en route to the traditional and slash line Triple Crown. If it weren’t for a late-season slump, he was on his way to becoming one of just five players in NPB history to put up a .400+ ISO. He had to “settle” for a .392 ISO instead. Simply put, it was the best offensive output ever by a domestic player not named Sadaharu Oh or Shigeo Nagashima.
But Seiya Suzuki’s 2021 campaign isn’t too far behind. The Hiroshima Carp slugger set the world on fire with a .317/.433/.639 line and 38 homers in 132 contests, all while maintaining a strikeout rate of just 16.5%. Suzuki had showcased several MVP-caliber seasons before – including a 25/25 season in 2019 – but this was his peak at the plate, almost single-handedly keeping Hiroshima relevant in the playoff race. It was a perfect send-off to MLB, where he’s posted a very solid 125 OPS+ in three seasons.
Only one player appears in the top five multiple times, and that’s Masataka Yoshida. “Macho Man” did his best Ichiro impression over seven NPB seasons with the Orix Buffaloes, slashing .327/.421/.539 with an astounding 1.40 BB/K. He was the definition of reliability and consistency — the ideal .300/.400/.500 slash line in every full season of his career — culminating in his final two campaigns with a 192 and 205 OPS+, respectively, and a strikeout rate below 7% across nearly 1,000 PA. The outfielder/DH took his talents to Boston, where he’s managed a .290 AVG and .787 OPS in two seasons.
Of course, no leaderboard would be complete without Yuki Yanagita. “Gita” has been a generation-defining player with over 1500 hits, 250 home runs, and 150 stolen bases dating back to 2011. He’s the Japanese Mike Trout. From 2015 to 2021, his OPS never fell below .929. He hit .342/.449/.623 with 29 homers in 119 games during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, in what turned out to be the final year of the SoftBank Hawks dynasty that included six Japan Series championships in seven years.
Yanagita’s teammate, Kensuke Kondoh, also finds himself in the top ten for his spectacular debut season with the Hawks in 2023 and the ongoing 2024 campaign. Since breaking out in 2015 with the Nippon-Ham Fighters, Kondoh has always been renowned as one of the best pure hitters and on-base machines in the nation alongside Masataka Yoshida, but a trip to Driveline over the 2022-2023 offseason took his game to the next level. He increased his career-high in homers from 11 to 26 and his ISO from .174 to .226, adding a bit more swing and miss to his game in exchange for higher exit velocities and balls in the air. According to SIS Baseball, he’s also been one of the best fielders in NPB, with 34 defense runs saved in left field since 2023, despite being on the wrong side of 30.
Other players in the top ten include 2023 Kazuma Okamoto and 2022 Hotaka Yamakawa. Okamoto hit 41 bombs en route to the home run title, marking his sixth consecutive season with 30+ homers. The Yomiuri Giants star also led NPB with a .306 ISO. The next closest was Munetaka Murakami at .244. Yamakawa was overshadowed by Murakami and Yoshida in 2022, but he was the only hitter orbiting the same planet as those two superstars. His 178 OPS+ placed him third in NPB, and he did it with little to no protection in the Seibu lineup. The fourth-best hitter only had a 151 OPS+.
Toshiro Miyazaki’s 2023 just missed the cut with a 176 OPS+. The DeNA BayStars veteran started the year on a tear before cooling down in the second half but still finished with a .326 AVG, .934 OPS, and a strikeout rate below 10%, which he’s done in every full season of his career.
It’s important to recognize hitters pushing the limits and reaching incredible heights, especially in an era where surface-level offensive numbers are nerfed across the board. These players don’t grow on trees.
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