This has been a topic that I’ve had on my list of things that I wanted to write about, that I just haven’t really been able to bring to fruition. Either I burn myself out on writing about high school tryhards applying to every school under the sun, or I just don’t feel like I have sufficient time to write about it, but it’s definitely a topic that I feel like I could go off about, but for whatever reason, I just haven’t had the chance to do so until now.
But it’s been something that’s been brewing over the last few years, and this year it’s definitely come to a boiling point about just how cringey MLB has become when it comes to their obvious opinion and feelings when it comes to Japanese players.
Sure, Shohei Ohtani is an incredible specimen of a baseball player, and I do think there is legitimate argument that we might be able to call him the best player of all time (for this generation), and that he’s more impressive than Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols, combined. Statistically he does bring a lot to the table, but one thing that he does not bring to the table that MLB insists that he does, is the fact that he is, Japanese.
His ethnicity has nothing to add to any argument over his place in baseball history, but MLB is so rapid quick when it comes to injecting it into the narrative, and it’s not like those who follow baseball aren’t already aware that Japan is the de facto #1 country in the world when it comes to baseball talent, seeing as how they’ve won the vast majority of Olympic golds and World Baseball Classics when it comes to international competition over the last 20 years.
But MLB does it anyway, because for whatever reason, over the last 20 years, they’ve become an organization that is definitely going through a serious weeaboo phase in their history where Japan = #1, and everything, including their own assets are inferior in comparison. Ohtani is definitely a worthy blue pill to cause this phenomenon within the organization, but the ensuing trickle-down effect when it comes to the yearly migration of a handful of Japanese players and the hype and fanfare they get when they come to America is downright cringey.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto making more money than Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan ever made in their careers, combined is an egregious overpay and fellating sign of kowtowing to their Japanese overlords.
Everytime Shota Imanaga throws another scoreless inning, bean counters for Elias and MLB blow their loads at being able to throw out another tweet about how low his ERA is, seemingly completely ignorant to how the league will adjust on him harder than the stock market once the scouting report on him is complete.
Seiya Suzuki is by-and-large a perfectly good, above average player, but the way MLB expounds his occasional positive contributions is like they’re talking about the second-coming of Ichiro.
The season is barely a quarter of the way through, and there’s already talks about the next Japanese overlord, some guy named Munetaka Murakami. But few outside of the diehard fans of their respective teams are bothering to get excited over any prospects on their own farms.
The point of all this is that it’s extremely clear that MLB has a pretty raging boner fetish on Japanese players right now. I can practically hear the gong and racist Asian theme in my head every time I see an MLB channel or MLB beat writer lose their shit over something a Japanese player does, as if their mythical powers from the magic Orient were why Yamamoto had a 5.2 inning outing where he gave up no runs, while Max Fried throws a complete game shutout in the middle of an era where complete games are becoming as scarce as no-hitters.
Much has been made of Ohtani’s 2024, and how because he doesn’t have to worry about doing any pitching at all, he can focus on being the demigod of hitting he’s believed to be. Every single home run he hits, is answered by some god-awful MLB tweet fellating him for doing what he’s going be paid $700 million dollars to do; meanwhile, Marcell Ozuna of the Braves is leading the majors in home runs currently, when just a year ago, fans were clamoring for him to be cut from the team and eat the salary hit, and MLB barely takes notice when he maintains his home run lead.
It’s just funny how an entire organization like Major League Baseball becomes no different than myself and lots of my nerdier friends in my life have been at certain points of their lives, when it comes to going through a Japan #1 phase. I look back at that time of my life with rolled eyes and a little bit of embarrassment, but the difference is that I’m not a publicly known, forward facing, billions of dollars organization, looking like a collective cringey weeb in front of the rest of the world, and I look forward to the day when MLB grows out of it, because it’s really fucking embarrassing watching them spooge all over themselves over Japanese players.
