Catching wasn’t the Mariners’ greatest need for 2006 but, after what they experienced behind the plate last year, it couldn’t be an afterthought, either.
The Mariners used seven different catchers in 2005 and they went into the offseason longing for the stability behind the plate that Dan Wilson gave them for so many years.
Wilson, the Mariners’ last connection with their first division championship in 1995, is retired now. In his place, the team believes Kenji Johjima will solidify the position and become a leader of the pitching staff.
His challenge is immense.
Johjima played 11 years for the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League and, after signing a three-year, $16.5 million contract with the Mariners, will become the first Japanese catcher to play in the major leagues.
He’s a career .299 hitter who hit 36 home runs for Fukuoka in 2004. He also won seven Gold Gloves and led the league in caught-stealing percentage four straight years.
How will Johjima’s game in Japan translate in the major leagues?
Despite the Gold Gloves, scouts and major league catching experts say Johjima must make some significant adjustments in how he receives, blocks, throws and calls a game in order to become a standout catcher in the U.S.
Johjima has devoted considerable hours not only getting his body ready for his first major league season, but also his mind. At spring training, he often was one of the first to arrive in the clubhouse and the last to leave.
“This kid is dying to succeed,” said Roger Hansen, the Mariners’ minor league catching coordinator who worked in Japan from 1998-2001 as a roving instructor for the Orix Blue Wave. “He wants to block balls, he wants to throw, he wants to work because it drives him insane not to.
“That’s the way they are in Japan. We practiced every day for three years, and one day I said, ‘OK, nothing today. The whole team is off.’ They still showed up to practice because it didn’t matter how much they had worked already, they didn’t feel good about themselves. You can’t go home until you’ve worked almost to exhaustion.”
In the six weeks since spring training began, Johjima has worked hard at all phases of his game. Here are the major issues he will face as a major leaguer:
Communication
It’s definitely a factor but, according to manager Mike Hargrove and the pitchers who worked with Johjima in spring training, it’s not a concern. Johjima understands baseball, most of all, and he has been taking English lessons since he signed in November.
“Baseball is baseball, no matter where it’s played,” Hargrove said.
The only apparent communication problem in spring training occurred when Joel Pineiro gave up a home run when he and Johjima got crossed up on a pitch call. Pineiro took the blame for that, saying Johjima called the right pitch and he mistakenly threw something different.
Johjima spent considerable time after each bullpen session and every inning talking with the pitchers, and he seldom used an interpreter after the early days of spring training.
Throwing
Johjima doesn’t throw absolute rockets to second base, but he has an extremely quick release that gets the ball there quickly. He easily threw out the Angels’ Chone Figgins during an exhibition game last month.
Even with that arm, Johjima has adjustments to make. He tends to drop his arm angle as he throws, likely the product of a drill that is popular among catchers in Japan.
“A lot of them are taught like infielders,” Hansen said. “They’ll do a fungo drill before the game, mostly for exercise, where they’ll field the ball and throw it.”
The problem with that drill, Hansen found, was that catchers tended to drop their arms and throw like infielders. Johjima has improved, but still has a tendency to drop his arm or take a quick step back before he throws, instead of stepping forward to bring more consistency to his throws.
Blocking
Catchers in Japan tend to be more flat-footed and struggle with side-to-side movement when they need to block a ball in the dirt. For the most part, Johjima performed well in spring training, although there was one play in which he flung his legs almost like a hockey goalie to block a ball.
Japanese catchers work on stopping balls in the dirt with a rapid-blocking drill that improves conditioning but doesn’t allow them to establish good footwork.
On the plus side, Johjima is like most Japanese players in that their bodies are flexible and they are willing to work hard.
“When I was over there, I was quite surprised with how fast they adjusted because of their flexibility and their feet,” Hansen said. “I never saw a kid in pro ball with bad feet or bad hands. If you’ve got that, you can adjust from there.”
Calling pitches
The Mariners got a first-hand lesson in Japanese pitching when they played an exhibition game early last month against Japan’s World Baseball Classic team.
The Mariners’ hitters struggled because the Japanese go to more breaking balls in fastball counts, and vice-versa, than major leaguers. In general, the Japanese throw more forkballs and split-finger pitches, and more four-seam fastballs instead of sinking two-seamers that are more prevalent in the major leagues
Johjima must make that adjustment, but so far it has been smooth. He talked constantly with the Mariners’ pitchers at spring training and kept notes on each of them in a small book. It helped him learn such things as pitch movement, keys to their mechanics and what pitches they prefer to throw in certain situations.
Japanese catchers take tremendous responsibility for a pitcher’s performance, so much that, “over there, it’s the catcher who gets taken out of the game, not the pitcher,” Hansen said. “It’s taken extremely seriously.”
Johjima may have a more difficult time setting up hitters or making adjustments when a pitcher is struggling with a certain pitch.
“That’s really the art of catching,” Hansen said. “There may be a game plan when they walk out of the clubhouse, but that plan may change before the game. If this pitch or that pitch isn’t working for a pitcher, the catcher has to know how to adapt.
“Johjima is an extremely smart guy. I saw him for three years there and he was very good at calling a game. You could tell he really took pride in it.”
Major league life
Johjima became popular in the Mariners’ clubhouse almost instantly because of his work ethic and outgoing personality.
Relief pitcher Eddie Guardado twisted his nickname – “Joh” – by calling him “Joh-mama” and orchestrated a three-man-lift prank in which Johjima and his two interpreters were tricked into thinking Guardado could lift the three of them at once. Instead, they were dumped with ice, water and food remnants from the dining room.
Johjima took it well.
“I feel like part of the team now,” he said.
Major league players may take the game seriously, but they also learn in a 162-game season not to get too high after the victories or too low after the losses.
Johjima must adjust to that.
Japanese players, particularly catchers who are held responsible for so much of what happens in a game, treat every game as seriously as the seventh game of the World Series.
“When you lose a game there, nobody thinks, ‘Oh well, we lost,’ like you see over here,” Hansen said. “You’re going to study it afterward and you might even practice afterward. Losing is not accepted and there are no excuses. The pressure for these guys here is nothing compared with those guys over there.”
At a glance
Age: 29
Born: June 8, 1976 in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan.
Acquired: Signed as a free agent on Nov. 21, 2005
Contract status: Signed through the 2008 season.
Personal: He becomes the first Japanese catcher to reach the major leagues. He batted .299 with 211 home runs and 699 RBI in 11 seasons with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League. He won seven Gold Gloves in Japan and led the league in caught-stealing percentage four straight years. Johjima and his wife, Maki, have two children, 4-year-old son Yuta and 2-year-old daughter Miu.
Behind Johjima: Rene Rivera
* From a skinny 17-year-old with the Class A Everett AquaSox in 2001, Rivera has grown into a well-regarded major league prospect. He has improved steadily as a defensive catcher over the years and, last year, climbed two levels to reach the Mariners.
After playing with Class AA San Antonio and Class AAA Tacoma, Rivera played 16 games with the Mariners in 2005, batting .396 with one home run and six RBI. He had a chance to become the Mariners’ starting catcher this year before the team signed Johjima.
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