Kodai Senga pitching in eBaseball Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2021

Digital Scouting Report: Kodai Senga

This week, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks star pitcher Kodai Senga signed with the New York Mets. A couple months ago in anticipation of Senga signing in MLB, I recorded gameplay of him from the two biggest Japanese baseball video games at the moment, the realistic-styled Pro Yakyuu Spirits and the cartoon-style Powerful Pro Yakyuu, both developed by Konami.

I translated his attributes in both games and have included this below. Be aware that both games still have live rosters and regular attribute updates, and these attributes were sourced in mid-October 2022.

Attributes in eBaseball Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2021: Grand Slam

Top Velocity: 164 km/h (102 MPH)
Stamina: A 81
Fatigue Recovery: B 72
Starter aptitude: Great
Middle relief aptitude: Good
Closer aptitude: Good

Pitches:
Fastball – D stuff, C control
Cutter – B stuff, D control
Slurve – D stuff, D control
Forkball – S stuff, D control
“Supreme” (mix of splitter and two-seam) – D stuff, E control
Two Seam Fastball – F stuff, F control
Slow Slider – E stuff, D control
Curveball – F stuff, E control
Vertical Slider – D stuff, D control

Injury proneness: E
Clutch: C
Quickness to the plate: D
Versus lefties: F

Special traits:
– Sharp, breaking balls break later
– Strikeout pitcher
– “Escape Pitch,” mistakes don’t end up middle-middle
– Consistent pitch velocity
– Poor at holding runners
– Fastballs sometimes have shuuto (two seamer) spin
– Walk-prone

Attributes in eBaseball Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2022

Top velocity: 160 km/h
Control: D 58
Stamina: A 81

Pitches:
Fastball
Cutter (lv. 3)
Slurve (lv. 2)
Forkball (max level)

Clutch: C
Vs. Lefties: F
Poise: C
Injury Recovery: E
Extension: D
Quickness to the plate: D
Fatigue Recovery: B

Special traits:
– Sharp, breaking balls break later
– Strikeout pitcher
– “Escape Pitch,” mistakes don’t end up middle-middle
– Consistent pitch velocity
– Poor at holding runners
– Fastballs sometimes have shuuto (two seamer) spin
– Walk-prone
– Good in international tournaments

What I Learned

  • The “Supreme” pitch caught me off-guard. Could there really be a pitch type whose Japanese name I hadn’t heard yet? Kind of. Some research brought me to this tweet by Yu Darvish:
Translation: “When I taught Senga-kun the Supreme, he immediately threw it in a bullpen and it was nasty. I will post how to throw it soon.”

Darvish developed a mixture of a splitter and a two-seamer. In Japanese, the portmanteau of those two pitch names Darvish settled on was supuriimu, or Supreme. He taught Senga this pitch, and Senga has reportedly used it in games alongside his normal trademark forkball.

  • Pro Yakyuu Spirits has a unique philosophy among baseball video games in not limiting you to a pitcher’s normal repertoire. If this guy has ever thrown a knuckleball in a game, even just for fun in the ninth inning of a blowout, you’ll be able to throw it in-game.

    So while you can count nine pitches available to him, a look at the ratings there and the pitch repertoire in Powerful Pro Yakyuu shows he’s more like a two and a half pitch guy.

    Senga throws hard fastballs, an all-world forkball/splitter, and then he can kinda technically spice in some cutters and slurve-y sliders.

    If Senga were a prospect in MLB, I suspect writers would mention some “relief risk” due to the lack of a clear third pitch. And the Vs. Lefties rankings of F in both games back that concern up. Can Senga be a top-tier starter in MLB with just a fastball and splitter? Kevin Gausman has made it work, mostly, though it hasn’t stopped people from fretting about the two-pitch mix.
  • I was curious about “Injury Recovery” getting an E grade in both games. If you check his Baseball-Reference page, Senga averages about 140 innings per season. This seems to be about average for that league, but Senga has had some starts for the Hawks’ minor league team each year, presumably on injury rehab.

    Without more detail on Senga’s injury history this is kind of an incomplete note, but it seems like the developers believe he’s a little slow to get back to action after an injury.

Conclusion

As usual, playing through these baseball video games gave me a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the player than reading MLB reporters, who tend to focus on hyping up the incoming player.

In this case, the upside and the risk are both pretty clear: Senga has a 100+ MPH fastball and a stunning forkball that pairs perfectly with it. But without a clear third pitch, we’re aware of the streakiness that can afflict splitter-heavy pitchers like Kevin Gausman and Masahiro Tanaka in MLB. Senga definitely has the stamina for a starting role, but it remains to be seen if lefty hitters might victimize him in MLB.