‘Rakedown’ Sandro Fabian & Ryōma Nishikawa | NPB June MVPs | “His plate coverage is unbelievable”

‘Rakedown’ Sandro Fabian & Ryōma Nishikawa | NPB June MVPs | “His plate coverage is unbelievable”

David McKinnon. David McKinnon. [Applause] [Music] So, we’re doing something slightly different today, which is extremely dangerous cuz we don’t even know what we’re normally doing. A good point. But the MPB just announced their June MVPs, and I realized something as I saw these images and players names come by. American and and probably all baseball fans have no idea who these guys are, which is a problem. You know, I’m Dave McKinnon, former international superstar. Used to hit homers over there. Used to hit couple singles and doubles. I struck out a whole lot over there, you know, in the MPB and KBO. There’s the humble major back in the game. There it is. Uh, and I’m Jasper Panger, a journalist and filmmaker, big baseball fan, and finding out constantly and learning every day that baseball is a way more global game than probably most people think. Uh, today we’re breaking down Sandra Fabian from the Hiroshima Karp and Riyoma Nishikawa from the Orex Buffaloos, June MPB MVPs. So, welcome to Pacific Swings, where we bring you inside stories from baseball’s global stage. And today’s story is about two hitters who are absolutely raking but you’ve probably never heard of which is a shame because they flat out rake just like Dave. So again like two these guys probably not household names in America or anywhere else maybe just in Japan which makes it perfect. We’ve just mentioned them Sandra Fab and Rio Manishawa both had incredible months uh for their respective teams. So let’s sort of dive into who they are. Now I got the sort of inside scoop if you if we can put it that way on Sandro Fabian. I was in Japan in the month of May and I saw him play against the Yokohama Basars was it was Trevor Barrow pitching that day and Sandro Fabin was probably if if I had I don’t know a notepad with me that day and if I had to write down two names that impressed me it would have been Morishita the pitcher for the car but on the hitting side Fabian for sure. I think he hit fifth that day, but he’s been hitting cleanup most of the season for the carp. But we thought it’d be a fun idea uh to just sort of have the the swing doctor himself, David McKinnon, look at these guys and sort of give you some insights. No pressure. Um that you might not have seen yourself or certainly I haven’t seen myself. I know the guy’s impressive, but maybe it’s nice to sort of dive into why that is exactly. Before I even want to dive in, I just want to kind of talk. I was a foreign hitter. Obviously, Fabian’s a foreign hitter. So, like just to dive into the thoughts, like the first month or so of the season as a foreign hitter, you’re trying to like kind of see the pitchers you’re facing. You’re trying to see as many pitches as you can form approaches, see how they’re trying to get you out. Um, there’s two options here. You go off because they don’t know how to pitch you at the beginning or the opposite where you’re having to adjust and you’re not going off. you’re doing the opposite, like you’re struggling hard, you know, which happens. It does happen. It’s both, you know, some guys go off and some guys struggle and then they adjust and then they go off a little bit or you just never figure it out. Um, so Fabian’s done a great job of kind of figuring it out pretty good. But like the non-negotiables, if you’re going to have success over there as a foreign hitter, you have to number one control the strike zone. You can’t be chasing the junk because those guys are unbelievable at manipulating the pitch to look like a strike and just just get off the plate. So, you need to check off on those like, “All right, ball. I need to stay in the happy zone.” Even if they execute a pitch on a corner, maybe I don’t swing at it because I can’t do anything with that pitch until two strikes and we got to protect a little bit. Number two, body control and just like efficient swing. You have to control your body. Can’t be out front. You have to stay back. You can’t commit to swinging too early because you need to control. That’s the difference between the MLB and um the NPV. You have to control different velocities much better. So a guy might throw like an EIS curveball at 65 miles per hour, but then he also throws a 94 m hour fast, you know. So you have to be able to land, hold the ground, and then not commit too early, you know? So you need to be able to control almost 30 miles per hour difference in speed where in MLB might maybe you’re only controlling 12 to 15 miles per hour, you know. So it’s a huge it’s a huge difference and guys that can’t can’t control their body and wait to commit to swinging struggle. What was that like the first month of the season though? cuz you you just talked about that sort of transition phase where you just can’t do certain things and you have to make sure that I don’t know you’re a little bit behind and you’re not trying to get in front of every pitch because it’s just once you do that you’re screwed, right? Yeah. Was there any anything that really helped you either mentally or physically what you did in the first month to make sure that you you know you were successful in in in the short run but also the long run? Yeah. So, for me, the first probably the first month of season, first month and a half, I did pretty well. I think I had like maybe seven homers after the first month and a half. And but I was getting a lot of fast balls. And I’m a fast ball hitter. I hit off speed good, but I don’t usually hit it for as much power. So, I might get a single, maybe a a double, but I’m I don’t you I’m not usually depositing off speed pitches, you know? So, I was getting more fast balls. like they were kind of trying to challenge me, see what I could do with the fast ball and I was hitting the fast balls, you know. So then they adjusted. They started kind of manipulating balls. I was swinging at pitches I probably shouldn’t have swung at, getting myself out. So until I stopped doing that, which was probably end of June, I had probably had a month and a half of like me kind of trying to figure out how to adjust to the league because they had just adjusted to me. So once I figured that out and tried to just kind of see it up, I kind of was looking more to just I’m probably gonna I tried to time myself up for not the heater anymore. I tried to time myself up for like their second fastest pitch, which kind of sounds weird, but say like their fastest pitch was 92, 93. I would time myself up for maybe 86 change up, maybe that cutter change up, whatever it was. So, I could still hit the fast ball and hit it opposite field because I’m still timed up, but I’m up to hit that middle pitch because more often than not, I’m seeing the middle to slower pitches, not always the fast balls. You know, the fast balls kind of like show me or like it was a pitch where they were just trying to back me off the plate and then go back to their off speed away. So, once I kind of figured that out and raised my sights up to try to hit to get the ball over the plate a little higher, started to see the success. So, you didn’t see that many fast balls after your first month? I definitely went down. Had not seen nearly as But I also got a lot better at hitting off speed pitches for power. I started hitting homers on off speed pitches as the season went on. So, that was cool. I saw a change in that. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. Let’s delve into some of these guys. We’ve got some clips lined up. I believe this is a clip from the Hiroshima Karp against the Softbank Hawks game. We’ll play that and I guess David will just talk you through some of what he sees. Mhm. Firstly, electric fans again. You can’t even I mean, if you’re going to be a hitter here, like you got to you got to see the vibes that happen. The fans are behind you the whole time. Bang. Base is loaded. That ball’s executed slider on the outside corner and he has a good enough bat path to like that ball’s maybe not outside corner, but middle away and his bat covers the entire zone. and he’s able to catch that ball out front, which most guys can’t do that. Most guys can’t catch a pitch that’s moving away from them that’s on the outer half out front and still maintain their direction so they can lift it to left field. Like most guys are going to roll that pitch over because right here, look at it. He just stays on it. His front side stays on it. His front shoulder’s on it. His front hips on it. And then look at the celebration. Like you can’t play in the MPB and not celebrate a go-ahad grand slam. Like you have to vibe with the fans there, you know? Like you have to throw that bat down and you have to get every fan going, you know? Like let’s go. Part of the job description, right? Yeah. That’s part of the job description. You got to get the fans going, you know? Like for me, it was every time I touched second base, I was Yakaniku powering it. All the fans would run around. They’d be like, “Makin on Yakaniku power.” And I was like, “Yeah, yaka niku power.” And that’s just like you gota you got to get the fans going. He does a great job of that. But his swing like his play coverage is unbelievable. Is that is that the most impressive thing about him? The way that he’s just able to like he just everything he hits is to left field, but he hits it in the air with backspin, which is so hard to do. People don’t understand how hard it is to pull the baseball in the air with backspin. Look at that. Like he kept he caught that ball so far out front but kept it fair which is downright impressive because looking at his statistics like and we’ll go over the statistics for those people listening and not watching the episode because otherwise we’re just going to stay silent in all of this swing because this guy can hammer a baseball. So this is sort of the midway part of the season. He’s got 78 games played. So that’s uh 313 at bats. He’s currently got 96 hits, 10 home runs. 40 RBI’s hitting for an average of 307 which is just I don’t know that’s un that’s unreal in the NPB. Look at that dude. Like that ball’s that ball might be off the plate away and he still pulls it over the fence. Like that pitcher’s contemplating his life. He’s like what can I do? I just literally put that ball perfect. And that’s the thing though like Fabian’s doing this with this. It’s not just fast balls that he’s dis disposing into left field. This is literally almost reminds me of speed. Yeah, most of it is off speed. But look at that. It’s a fast ball middle away and he just stays through the zone so well. But the impressive thing is he hits that outside pitch really good over the like and it pull it up in the air. But every once in a while he get a pitch middle in or inside corner and he still can do the same thing. Usually, if you’re pulling outside pitches over the fence to left, you’re pulling them that way. When you get a pitch in, you’re going to spin it and you’re going to follow it down the left field line, right? He still stays on it. There’s one right there. That ball’s almost off the plate in almost hits him and he still hits a homer on it. Like, it’s crazy how good he is. But the question immediately beckons, though, cuz this is a guy who was in with the Texas Rangers for quite a while. He hit a lot of home runs in AAA, double A, single A. I think he had like more than a hundred minor league home runs in his career and it’s like okay, you know, maybe it doesn’t translate to MLB right away because I think he played only a handful of games with the Texas Rangers and I know you and I have talked about the limited opportunities that there are at the MLB level. Um, but you look at the guy, he’s 27, goes to Japan and just rakes just ras. I mean, this is sort of for me the hitting profile is he tracks off speed pitches so well. Yeah, he’s just he covers the plate like he just mentioned counts too like because the funny thing is most of his homers that I saw I don’t know if it’s by accident most of it is with with two outs or like two strikes and the guy just I don’t know what he does I think it says something about him that he like he shortens up a little bit like where he’s trying to put the ball in play he’s trying to help the team with two strikes if you’re not going to be efficient straight to the ball like I found sometimes I had some of my better swings when I had two strikes because all I was trying to do is go from here to there as fast as possible. When I sometimes I got two 0 counts, 3-1 counts. You try to do too much. You’re like, “Ah, it’s a homework count. Like, this is a double count. I got to I got to try to create.” But in reality, you don’t got to create. You just got to be in a good position and just go, you know? So, I think he’s done a good job of that. Like, he’s in a pretty good position. He doesn’t move too much. Like, he’s got a little leg kick, but it’s not like his moves are like huge. He’s not pumping his hands down big. It’s just kind of pick his foot up, put it down, hands go, hands go, you know, and I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he continues to have a lot of success this year. Obviously, the pitchers are going to try to honestly the best bet would be manipulate pitches to the point where like it looks like a strike and a ball. See if he can chase, you know, like get him out of the zone. That’s the best way to do it. Um because if you’re feeding balls in the zone, he he covers it. Yeah. You just don’t want to throw him strikes essentially. Yeah. And I think it’s funny though when we talk about the MPB transition and I know we’ll we’ll cover this later on with with guys that we speak to. Um that first year is just for most guys it’s a struggle. Like the first year is a struggle. I think he’s signed to a three-year deal with the Hiroshima carb. That’s sort of going to be team options every year. So he’ll he’ll probably be with Hiroshima for another year at least. But yeah, the guy’s just got crazy power. It feels like I think this this is I don’t know. You watch this and you go, “This guy should probably be playing MLB.” Like, yeah. You almost think like someone must have someone must have screwed up, you know? Like, how’d he get how’d he get there? You know, if uh if he was with the Rangers last year, it’s like what did they not see? Or did he change something? Like, did he make a change? And like the MPB and the Hiroshi McCarp are just getting a player that made an adjustment and they coached them up a little bit because dude, the coaches over there are great. like you don’t know what you’re going to learn over there cuz he he’s catching the ball really out front kind of like some of the top Japanese guys do but not with too much body rotation going left. Maybe he was just over rotating. I don’t know. I haven’t seen the the AAA swing, you know. But a lot of guys in the States rotate too much to the point where when they do catch it out front, the ball is just hammered. Foul. I mean, it’s hammered, but yeah, foul. A lot of Japanese guys, a lot of the top Japanese players, their chests and hips stay pretty square to the which I’m sure we’re going to see that with our uh Pacific League MVP. Well, that’s a nice segue by you. Pacific League MVP Orex Buffalo’s Rio Nikiawa, a 31-year-old you he lead off, I think majority of the time for the Buffalo. I think he hit his thousandth career hit the other day, which says something about the guy. Let’s play a little clip and have Dave break down this swing. This was actually against one of the This is from our guy. Am I Yeah, I think the best pitcher. I think Amaya is the best pitcher in the league. I was super impressed with him. Bang. Inside out double in the gap. I played at that field. That’s in Coobe. That’s their like alternate sight field. And that field ball does not travel particularly well at that field. So to hit a ball inside out and drive it to left center like two hop defense, one hop defense, that’s an impressive swing right there. Biggest thing that I see in his swing, hips, chest aren’t rotating too much until after contact and like he is getting his hands just inside the baseball, keeping that barrel tight to his body. And as he gets out front, the barrel gets released out front. But like his barrel is so close to his body as he’s coming right right here. His barrel is so close to his body. His hands are so close to his body. And then voom, his hands just release the barrel out front. It’s just super impressive swing. He also has just I wouldn’t say the plate. He has stupid like stupid amount of plate coverage, but he also has the adjustability that maybe a Fabon or a power hitter doesn’t. his adjustability like he can stay inside the baseball and then poke one the uh right or left field opposite field and I mean that’s part of the reason why he won MVP why he got that huge contract from Orics was his adjustability his ability to get on base his ability to hit singles and then also hit for some power too because he’s he’s hit for power in the past yeah he has yeah he’s now Oric is a big field that is a big field so it’s going to be harder to come by the power now but Like it’s a big field so he’s going to hit a lot. He’s going to get a lot of hits. That’s a big outfield. Yeah. I mean because he was he was with Hiroshima all his career like Dave just said. Then he went to Orex Buffalo in 2024. I think he signed a big contract and let’s be honest the first season was a bit disappointing. Looking at just the stats. Yeah. The guy was sort of renowned for hitting around 300. He hit 258 with the Buffaloos in his first year. Hit a few home runs seven. This year he’s picked it right back up hitting for an average midway in the season for 314. Slug 437. So I mean that’s just pretty elite top of the lineup stuff, right? But again, it’s a guy, okay, if you’re watching MPB, you’re going to be familiar with the name. A guy doesn’t just get thousand hits without people noticing. But again, I don’t think this guy is known outside of Japan, basically, which is No, I don’t think anyone would know him outside of Japan. Yeah. Um I don’t know if he was on Samurai Japan last time. uh, World Baseball Classic, but he should be this upcoming one for sure. Um, looking forward to that. That’ll be super fun because I didn’t know any of the players last time and now I know all of them. So, yeah, it’ll be super fun to watch that next one come uh and see who’s on it. And I don’t think he was. No, I don’t I don’t think he was either, which uh is interesting because he’s put up some really good numbers. Um, so that’ll be fun to watch. But yeah, no, his he’s just so good at getting the bat to the ball in any speed and like a lot of times like a hitter like say me or hitter like I don’t know just another foreign guy or just any reg like just average hitter when you’re out front you technic you usually release the barrel and then that change up kind of goes and and you roll it over and it’s just a grab out. Right. Yeah. Now he won’t roll his wrists. He’ll just keep pushing, pushing, pushing, and then he’ll be able to be super out in front, but still hit it to the opposite field, which is just a skill in itself to not be out in front and roll your your wrists over and kind of hook it for a ground ball because that’s how that’s where outs are. That’s what the pitcher is trying to make you do. So, he just doesn’t do what the pitcher is trying to make him do, and that’s why he gets so many hits. That seems as though that’s a skill that’s more prevalent in Japan than any other part of the world, but specifically MLB. You don’t see that type of the way you just alluded to Nishikawa was hitting. I don’t see that a lot at the MLB level. I see guys trying to hit home runs and fly out quite a lot or just I don’t know just whiff on balls. Like Nishikawa is not going to strike out too much. He’s going to even though the all the homers might not be there, the guy just feels like a proficient hitter. But is there anything that I don’t know MLB hitters or in general hitters can learn from that? What? Yeah, I mean ability to hit for average I think it stems from the they don’t pay you in the MLB to hit for average. Like you kind of go where the market is, right? So like if they’re going to pay for you to hit for average, then you try to start hitting for average. In the MPB they pay for average still. In the MLB they pay for ops. So sometimes maybe like well I’m just going to get like in order to hit a homer in order to hit a double you have to release that barrel you know even if you’re not on time like you still got to release it. You’re not you’re not going to like fight like this like the barrel’s got to get released. You got to create that whip in order to create that exit velocity. So if you don’t create that there’s you don’t have a chance really. But I do think you could really go a long way just a two- strike approach. you really don’t need to be doing. You don’t really need to be trying to create when you’re kind of behind the eightball against a pitcher that’s really good. Just being able to kind of have that more pushy pushy stay through the zone, stay to the opposite field, like that approach that uh Chicago has could go a long way. And just over the course of a season, you you put the ball in play 10, 15, 20 more times, probably more than that. If you put a ball in play, you cut down your strikeouts 30 strikeouts, you’re going to get a probably about 10 more hits just with cutting down your strikeouts because average on balls in play is about 300 typically. So just you hitting the ball forward is going to provide a chance for you to get a hit, right? Um so that’s nine 10 more hits. you’re going to hit 40 points higher, you know, if you just get those nine hits. So, just cutting down a strikeouts, just creating a better approach with two strikes would be huge, I think, for just MLB in general. I think it speaks testament though that sometimes we can get a bit caught up in sort of pursuing MLB to a degree where that’s the sort of image we have of baseball being played. Um, and I think that’s part of the sort of narrative we would we would like to to change um, and turn around a little bit with our podcast at least. So, this has been another episode of Pacific Swings, where we bring you the players and the stories you’re not hearing about anywhere else. I’m Dave McKinnon and I’ll be watching to see if these guys can sustain this or if their pitchers are going to make some sort of adjustments. And they’re just a cat and mouse game non-stop, you know? So, who’s gonna who’s going to get caught? Who’s going to get away, you know? Yeah, exactly. and I’m Jasper Spanard. So, next episode we’re diving into something completely different probably again, right? Cuz that’s how we do this podcast. Still figuring it out as we go. Thanks for listening to Pacific Swings. See you next time. Happy with that? Pretty good. Not bad. Not bad at all. Not bad at all. [Music]

In this RAKEDOWN episode, David MacKinnon breaks down Japan’s June MVPs Sandro Fabian (Hiroshima Carp) and Ryōma Nishikawa (Orix Buffaloes) – two hitters absolutely raking that most baseball fans have never heard of.

On Fabian: “His plate coverage is unbelievable… he’s able to catch that ball out front, which most guys can’t do.”

From Fabian’s grand slam celebrations to Nishikawa’s 1,000th career hit milestone, this is why these NPB stars deserve your attention.

Featuring swing breakdowns you won’t find anywhere else, the foreign hitter adjustment period, and why Japanese baseball develops contact skills differently than MLB.

On Nishikawa: “His barrel is so close to his body as he’s coming… and then, boom, his hands just release the barrel out front. It’s just super impressive swing.”

The plate coverage secrets, two-strike approaches, and hitting philosophies that separate NPB success from failure.

IN THIS EPISODE:

✓ Sandro Fabian’s incredible plate coverage breakdown
✓ Why most hitters can’t pull outside pitches for power
✓ Ryōma Nishikawa’s elite contact mechanics revealed
✓ The foreign hitter adjustment period reality
✓ What MLB can learn from Japanese hitting approaches
✓ Why NPB celebrates differently than American baseball

🇯🇵 Japanese:

6月のNPB MVPサンドロ・ファビアンと西川遼馬の打撃分析。なぜこの二人が注目されるべきか。

🇰🇷 Korean:

6월 NPB MVP 산드로 파비안과 니시카와 료마의 타격 분석. 왜 이 두 선수가 주목받아야 하는지.

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