Japan Professional Baseball (NPB) slugger Munetaka Murakami (23-Yakult Swallows), who won the batting triple crown last year with 56 home runs, has suffered the humiliation of not being selected to play in the All-Star Game.
The NPB announced on Thursday, “The results of the ‘Plus One’ vote to select the last player to play in the 2023 All-Star Game were Trevor Bauer (Yokohama DeNA Basestars) in the Central League and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Oryx Buffaloes) in the Pacific League,” the organization said.
The “Plus-One” ballot is NPB’s unique all-star selection system that uses fan voting, player-to-player voting, and manager nominations to determine the players in each division, followed by another fan vote for the final spot. 메이저놀이터 추천
This year’s “plus-one” voters are NPB’s “ace” Yamamoto and “bad boy” Bauer. Yamamoto is 8-3 with a 1.79 ERA this season, leading the Pacific League in wins and second in ERA. However, he was overlooked by the “Monster” Roki Sasaki (22, Chiba Lotte Marines) in the All-Star voting, and was selected via the Plus-One ballot.
In his first year in NPB, the much-hyped former Cy Young Award winner has been somewhat mediocre this season, going 6-2 with a 3.67 ERA in a league where he is a pitcher. However, he showed that he has adjusted well in June, going 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA in four starts and earning monthly MVP honors. Upon receiving the “Plus One” nomination, Bauer took to Twitter to encourage fans to vote for him, expressing his desire to play in the All-Star Game.
With Bauer taking the final “plus one” ticket, Murakami, who was nominated alongside him, was denied a spot in the All-Star Game. Murakami became one of the best hitters in the league last year, hitting .318 with 56 home runs, 134 RBIs and an OPS of 1.168 to become the youngest player to win the Triple Crown (batting average, home runs and RBIs). Murakami, who set the record for most home runs in a season by a Japanese hitter, signed a massive three-year, 1.8 billion yen contract after last season, even though he wasn’t a free agent.
But his performance this season hasn’t lived up to his record-breaking salary and fan expectations. Through 14 days and 80 games, he is batting .233 with 15 home runs, 44 RBIs, and an OPS of .793. Murakami suffered the humiliation of finishing fourth out of five candidates in fan voting for the All-Star Game, with a paltry 32,818 votes in the “plus-one” ballot, nearly 330,000 votes behind Bauer, who received 369,446 votes. The nearly 11-fold difference in votes is humiliating for Murakami, who is considered one of Japan’s top guns.