771 replies to this topic

[AndreaDL]

TeamAce i agree with most of your thougths, but i believe Furuya performance will be not so great.
Furuya will do well the first 3 innings and then he should start having problems.
I do not think it lasts longer than 5 innings.
With the injury in mind, I hope Terajima will not give him even better resistance.
If things go as I hope, Furuya without Miyuki should self-destruct in 3-4 innings and have a further reality check. At that point, I hope the same happens to the faithful team of the Furuya's  myth.
 

[GodamfireV]

We shouldn't be too hasty to jump into conclusion about Furuya going deep in this game though. It certainly feels like that's what Terajima is intending with the implication from Sawamura's "challenge" to Furuya, almost saying "let's see if you can actually pitch deep innings and not blowing up", Furuya will try to live up to that challenge. Knowing Terajima's drama loving tendency, and the fact that he explicitly said he wants to feature Sawamura and Furuya's Ace race into a climax (or one of the climax) of Act 2, he will use every possible opportunity to make Furuya recover in some way or another kind of in time  to make a last stand on the Ace race. Even if Furuya pitches 3-4 nice innings and losing only 1 run, in-universe characters and probably Furuya-cult will loses their mind over him again stating he's already back and better than before. However, for Terajima and for the sake of the flow of the story, it wouldn't be good to disrupt Sawamura's momentum at this point so he'll have to make Sawamura pitches a complete game shutout or losing just 1-2 runs and then the comparison will still rages on with all sort hypothetical questions like always. The bottom line is, if Terajima wants to make Furuya pitches well on this upcoming match, he'll have to make Sawamura pitches just as good or better to offset the double standards comparison that will always downplay Sawamura's achievements compare to Furuya from Seidou.

 

There is another scenario, which is unlikely admittedly but, that entails Furuya pitching for 5 innings and like usual, he'll make a good impression against a team who's not faced him before but will crumble near the mid-game will get switched out. This will be most realistic and it'll follow the flow of the story most accurately because Furuya is definitely in no position to pitch a complete game as it's only his 2nd game from his injury break and secondly on top of that fact, he's pitching against a Koshien-level team. If this team can't exploit Furuya's weaknesses on top of his puny condition just coming back from injury then it would be hugely disappointing as it would demonstrate Koshien level is not all that impressive and completely kills the hype of this team Terajima has kind of built since the beginning of Act 2. 

Edited by GodamfireV, 14 December 2017 - 06:22 AM.

[Gunden]

I don’t know why Furuya would be any better than he was during golden week, he has just improved his form to prevent injury, he hasn’t practiced his accuracy with new form a lot that we could tell, and it doesn’t replace real life game situations. I expect 5 innings 3 runs lost. 1 given up from runner left on base.

[pepbut]

Yeah I agree with GDF, Furuya has to do at least well enough to make the ace race somewhat contested.

 

Also don't forget that we're about to get at least 1-2 chapters full of hyping up Mei after he gets fired up vs. high school Randy Johnson.

 

I wouldn't even be surprised if we get Mei and Furuya dominating back to back - Mei going all out to show all his growth and cement Inajitsu as the favourite this summer, and Furuya dominating alongside him because he's the magical genius that fully recovers super fast without trying for some reason. This then puts intense pressure on Sawamura's next start, obviously he has to show them up. Which he probably will do just to show that with his control and pitch variety now he can easily overcome his main weakness of the past, power hitters.

[RoKrish]

@GodamfireV:

I can't see him lasting for more than five innings, despite what he wants to do. Going deep in games to use one of Furuya's greatest supporters statements, "to safely pull through long innings breaking balls capable of throwing off the batters are a must." He doesn't have a reliably good breaking pitches. If he goes through 5 innings and is hooked as a safety precaution against injury I think that would be enough for him to make a comeback. If the relay is executed perfectly, I would like to see him get lit up in the 6th inning, so that Koshien caliber teams can be seen to be good enough.  

 

Also @Team Ace:

The funny thing is Randy Johnson (at least early in his career) really, and I mean really, sucked with his control (as shown in the gif I used earlier, when he killed the bird). He decided that he would work at it and got better at controlling his fastball, which made his wipeout slider just that much better. This J. Conrad guy, seems to be even better than Johnson was at his age since he's hitting his spots at velocity. 

 

Spoiler for real life baseball:

Spoiler

the Marlins just released a pitcher Ederson Volquez who threw them a No-Hitter. That has got to be the dumbest thing any team will do this pre-season.

Edited by RoKrish, 14 December 2017 - 06:46 AM.

[Arz3nL24]

I've been following this forum since it only had 16 pages and I even read the discussions you guys had before that, is there other topics you guys have had before you moved it to batoto? I find it a good read and I was just wondering if you talked about other topics about diamond no ace that isn't in here.

[Gunden]

I've been following this forum since it only had 16 pages and I even read the discussions you guys had before that, is there other topics you guys have had before you moved it to batoto? I find it a good read and I was just wondering if you talked about other topics about diamond no ace that isn't in here.

Probably anything imaginable when it comes to DnA. Here’s one thing, the stats of seido pitchers. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IGc_ZW5vLkwcjFPpVSWxsDhnFnLJxUZOPtX2QF1ziD8/htmlview#gid=1098637382

Edited by Gunden, 15 December 2017 - 08:38 PM.

[pepbut]

I've been following this forum since it only had 16 pages and I even read the discussions you guys had before that, is there other topics you guys have had before you moved it to batoto? I find it a good read and I was just wondering if you talked about other topics about diamond no ace that isn't in here.

Just out of curiosity I went and checked, and it looks like 400 or so out of the ~1500 original thread pages were archived. Link for anyone curious or insane enough to read through them

 

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://forums.mangafox.me/threads/492300-Spoilers-thread/*

[Zelivia]

It's shame that those conversations about sports psychology (as related to how inappropriate Eijun's treatment overall is and especially during the Yips-arc) disappeared with the old thread. I really enjoyed reading those. Btw, checked few of those web archive links and most of them were error report. Oh well...

 

How did it go again? This week is a break, there's a chapter next week and the week after there is an another break? (Holidays sucks manga-wise )

Edited by Zelivia, 20 December 2017 - 06:48 AM.

[GodamfireV]

It's shame that those conversations about sports psychology (as related to how inappropriate Eijun's treatment overall is and especially during the Yips-arc) disappeared with the old thread. I really enjoyed reading those. Btw, checked few of those web archive links and most of them were error report. Oh well...

 

How did it go again? This week is a break, there's a chapter next week and the week after there is an another break? (Holidays sucks manga-wise )

 

I can't recall if those conversations/discussion were about sport psychology or not but Seidou as a whole practices double standard and at a blatant level. However, I do remember that I did stress again and again that doesn't matter how nice in-universe characters want to sugar coat Furuya's performance because he's the Ace or because he has a physical advantage over Sawamura (mainly on height and as a result velocity), as long as Furuya's stats do not back up those belief, it means jack whatever they say. Self-awareness of the Ace? Responsibility he feels? all that means jack when he goes up on the mound and average 4-5 runs per 6-8 innings. In addition, Furuya exploits his position and the fact that he's strongly favoured by the coach and the team to no ends and has no shame whatsoever when he does so, butt in between conversations, jump the line in practice, asks to pitch more, very toxic communication with his teammates that the team just somehow selectively chooses to ignore while at the same time selectively strict with whatever out of bound behaviors or words Sawamura would say. All of these behaviors regardless Furuya is the Ace or not, should not be tolerated by the fact that his performance has not been vastly better than Sawamura if not the opposite, long term average performance result ERA indicates Sawamura is(almost 2 times) better and more consistent. There are certainly some real life organization/club like the Yankees or the Mets that tends to nurture a competitive and self-centered behaviors like Furuya display but that's as long as the players perform well and historically they have earned that rights to brag which arguably Furuya hasn't done much to prove himself aside from 2 notable starting pitching performance against Seikou in Fall Tourney and Komadai in Senbatsu. Let's be straight, for a supposed Ace or in order words, permanent starting pitcher of the team to only has 2 notable performance to his name, that's a failure Ace material. Oh, did I forget to mention he comes with bonus drawbacks such as high maintenance fee thanks to injury prone weak physical body​ due to lack of physical training, and toxic mind set that's prone to cause him to self-destruct for no reason.

 

I'm not claiming Furuya is a complete train wreck that'll never reach his potential but in sport, you gotta be realistic and choose the right person at the right time. Who cares if Kanemaru has HR potential in him if he can't even bunt right, who cares if Masashi is a 3 true outcome batter with high ceiling potential if he can't touch the ball 95% of his at bat. Feelings or expectation for a player is not inherently bad but realistically, Sawamura has constantly been the better pitcher than Furuya 90% of the time, there is really no reason not to choose him as the Summer's Ace over ​clinging on the hope that MAYBE ​Furuya will be able to pitch like back in Senbatsu 24/7 in Summer. 

 

Yeah, this week will be a break and chapter will resume next week. They may have a new year break the week after that so your estimation of releases is probably right. 

[Zelivia]

There was this conversation about how no real life team would tolerate (at least on high school level) Furuya's behaviour, given how toxic it's and how nasty he is to Eijun. That is partially why the previous chapter was so tragicomic. There has been absolutely no defense for Eijun from others whenever Furuya has decided to act like a douche, but as soon as Eijun does his usual in-your-face-style pep-talk/check-up on Furuya, he gets instantly questioned. In particularly Okumura's part was sad since it's quite clear that kid sympathizes with Furuya, and is apparently imagining Eijun to be the bad one (since he's so blunt in his manner.) Besides, the team like Seidou is very demotivating for the players and the team spirit. By allowing Furuya to do whatever Miyuki and others effectively poison the mood of the whole team. It after all sends message that regulars and especially the Ace is allowed to do what ever he wants, regardless how awful it is, and others are meaningless to the team... Which makes pure mockery out of the previous year's senpais (who were so strong because they had such a good team spirit.)

 

Then there was this debate about how in real life people would go about healing Yips, and how Kataoka's method could actually be counterproductive (+how unrealistically fast Eijun recovered anyway...) Kataoka's "coaching" methods were quite widely criticized since apparently there are some studies which point out that overly harsh treatment like what Eijun receives would more likely crush the player, especially the lack of positive feedback, rather then drive them to do their best. Also, some people rightly pointed out that at its worst Kuramochi's way to treat Eijun isn't anymore rough-housing by socially awkward ex-yankee but rather flat out bullying, so there's that too.

[SP_Pheonix]

The way Sawamura is treated is utterly reprehensible. It's amazing that he hasn't gotten PTSD or some kind of trauma for all the verbal, emotional and physical abuse he has gotten. It's like this team has made it their mission to destroy him in every way possible. I mean, I would somewhat be able to swallow the difference in treatment it if his rival was Mei or Amahisa or even Mukai, but Furuya is literally a joke. He is selfish, emotionally stunted, never takes the initiative or thinks for himself. Took essays from Kataoka for him to finally realize his mistakes. And worst of all, the only thing he's got over Sawamura is literally his speed. 

 

Sawamura is his diametric opposite in every way possible. He is keenly aware of the responsibilties of an ace more the former ace himself. He knows that this is a team sport and that he shouldn't be fighting just for himself. He is always thinking of ways to improve himself, is critical of himself and is level-headed in crucial moments. He is very adaptable and can think on his feet. He is inspiring, charasmatic and is a born leader. It's honestly such a waste that is he is stuck in a team like Seidou that have a very twisted concept of what an ace should be. And it's mind boggling because Sawamura embodies Japan's collectivistic culture while Furuya goes against it. Furuya is seriously what they deserve, and they can get thrashed by powerhouses al a the Ichidai game. Sawamura is too good for this toxic team. 

 

The thing I noticed though, with mental problems in this manga is that the player is expected to overcome it himself. Which is a faulty approach, considering how they are only high schoolers and need effective guidance, but maybe it's a cultrual thing. The reason I say this is because it's not like Furuya's mental block was handled any differently.  Not even Furuya's doormat and armor aka Miyuki did anything for him to guide him other than spew nonsense about him. In the end he was expected to overcome it himself. The difference is that Furuya brought this upon himself, while Sawamura was traumatized and his team (epscially Miyuki and Kataoka) put the nail in the coffin. 

 

Btw, I've recently read Terajima's previous manga, Giant Step, and the protagonist looks exactly like Sawamura but he's insanely OP. I also read in an interview for him that he was depressed because this manga didn't do so well and had to be cancelled. My theory is that Sawamura reminds him of his previous MC, and by extension, his failed attempted as a mangaka and so he decided to take it out on him and make Sawamura's journey to the ace number hell on earth. It's no excuse for his vehement passions towards Sawamura though and his tendencies to go out of his way to crush him, and I hope he seriously gets over it. 

Edited by SP_Pheonix, 21 December 2017 - 09:12 AM.

[RoKrish]

I can't recall if those conversations/discussion were about sport psychology or not but Seidou as a whole practices double standard and at a blatant level. However, I do remember that I did stress again and again that doesn't matter how nice in-universe characters want to sugar coat Furuya's performance because he's the Ace or because he has a physical advantage over Sawamura (mainly on height and as a result velocity), as long as Furuya's stats do not back up those belief, it means jack whatever they say. Self-awareness of the Ace? Responsibility he feels? all that means jack when he goes up on the mound and average 4-5 runs per 6-8 innings. In addition, Furuya exploits his position and the fact that he's strongly favoured by the coach and the team to no ends and has no shame whatsoever when he does so, butt in between conversations, jump the line in practice, asks to pitch more, very toxic communication with his teammates that the team just somehow selectively chooses to ignore while at the same time selectively strict with whatever out of bound behaviors or words Sawamura would say. All of these behaviors regardless Furuya is the Ace or not, should not be tolerated by the fact that his performance has not been vastly better than Sawamura if not the opposite, long term average performance result ERA indicates Sawamura is(almost 2 times) better and more consistent. There are certainly some real life organization/club like the Yankees or the Mets that tends to nurture a competitive and self-centered behaviors like Furuya display but that's as long as the players perform well and historically they have earned that rights to brag which arguably Furuya hasn't done much to prove himself aside from 2 notable starting pitching performance against Seikou in Fall Tourney and Komadai in Senbatsu. Let's be straight, for a supposed Ace or in order words, permanent starting pitcher of the team to only has 2 notable performance to his name, that's a failure Ace material. Oh, did I forget to mention he comes with bonus drawbacks such as high maintenance fee thanks to injury prone weak physical body​ due to lack of physical training, and toxic mind set that's prone to cause him to self-destruct for no reason.

 

I'm not claiming Furuya is a complete train wreck that'll never reach his potential but in sport, you gotta be realistic and choose the right person at the right time. Who cares if Kanemaru has HR potential in him if he can't even bunt right, who cares if Masashi is a 3 true outcome batter with high ceiling potential if he can't touch the ball 95% of his at bat. Feelings or expectation for a player is not inherently bad but realistically, Sawamura has constantly been the better pitcher than Furuya 90% of the time, there is really no reason not to choose him as the Summer's Ace over ​clinging on the hope that MAYBE ​Furuya will be able to pitch like back in Senbatsu 24/7 in Summer. 

 

Yeah, this week will be a break and chapter will resume next week. They may have a new year break the week after that so your estimation of releases is probably right. 

 

@GodamfireV,

Yeah, I actually remember something on one of those threads about Moeen Ali (English Cricketer, funny dude) who has been struggling recently with England in the Ashes. Plus that entire idea that seidou has about what makes a good ace is just dumb. That said, its not that big a deal that Kanemaru can't bunt, if he has the pop and the eye (he can hit the ball in play) he will be fine without being able to bunt well. Masashi is basically the epitome of all that is wrong with the three outcome hitters, he doesn't even attempt to work the count, even true outcome hitters, like Judge work the count really well (I believe he led the league on full counts). In any case Furuya  doesn't even compare to Sawamura's ERA, its like asking the difference between Kershaw and Strasburg or Syndergaard. Thor's a good Furuya analog, bags of natural talent, with an unfortunate penchant for getting  good and all, but Kershaw is a totally different beast to deal with. Thor is probably the best analog for Furuya, except Thor has pretty good control and breaking pitches so his stat lines are more inline with Strasburg, great velocity, but struggles with control, but when he is on, he can be a marvel to watch pitch. Sawamura is more like Kyle Hendricks or Kershaw, using less gas, but getting the ball to move all over the place and setting you up to fail every time you come up to bat. 

 

There was this conversation about how no real life team would tolerate (at least on high school level) Furuya's behaviour, given how toxic it's and how nasty he is to Eijun. That is partially why the previous chapter was so tragicomic. There has been absolutely no defense for Eijun from others whenever Furuya has decided to act like a douche, but as soon as Eijun does his usual in-your-face-style pep-talk/check-up on Furuya, he gets instantly questioned. In particularly Okumura's part was sad since it's quite clear that kid sympathizes with Furuya, and is apparently imagining Eijun to be the bad one (since he's so blunt in his manner.) Besides, the team like Seidou is very demotivating for the players and the team spirit. By allowing Furuya to do whatever Miyuki and others effectively poison the mood of the whole team. It after all sends message that regulars and especially the Ace is allowed to do what ever he wants, regardless how awful it is, and others are meaningless to the team... Which makes pure mockery out of the previous year's senpais (who were so strong because they had such a good team spirit.)

 

Then there was this debate about how in real life people would go about healing Yips, and how Kataoka's method could actually be counterproductive (+how unrealistically fast Eijun recovered anyway...) Kataoka's "coaching" methods were quite widely criticized since apparently there are some studies which point out that overly harsh treatment like what Eijun receives would more likely crush the player, especially the lack of positive feedback, rather then drive them to do their best. Also, some people rightly pointed out that at its worst Kuramochi's way to treat Eijun isn't anymore rough-housing by socially awkward ex-yankee but rather flat out bullying, so there's that too.

@Zelivia, 

Yeah, but I wouldn't really consider what sawamura had as Yips (Yips generally has little to do with emotional distress, which is what Sawamura was really dealing with). I would more likely describe it as a depression induced temporary loss of motor skills. Eijun probably started showing these signs pretty early and someone (probably Miyuki, but any of the coaching staff should have been able to realize it). The method that Katoaka used is good... if you are trying to get a player to realize his mistakes. Sawamura knew what his problem was, his control was not good enough, and was actively trying to fix it, but authority figures (i.e. Captain, Catcher, upperclassmen, Coaches) kept berating him on it, and making it out like he was the sole reason that their team had lost, not the fact that they couldn't give him the run support he needed to win, nor the fact that the rest of the team deserved at least partial blame for the fact that they didn't limit the runs given up in the final (if I remember correctly not a single run came of a homer something that a fielder can't really do much about).

 

@Sp_Pheonix:

I really don't blame Furuya for his problems, I blame his enablers. Katoaka is kind of oblivious to how the situation within the team itself has been unfolding, Oichai actively attempts to sabotage Sawamura, and Miyuki, is well, miyuki.  Miyuki, for all that he is made out to be a great catcher, is not all that great, except in that he somehow conjures winning records out of a crap (relatively speaking) pitcher in Furuya. If that makes him a genius, then Sawamura must be a prodigy, Mei and Hongou must be gods, Kousei must be beyond understanding, and Mukai must be one of the best pitchers in the series. I haven't really seen all that much out of him regarding pitch framing (turning balls into strikes), which is one of a catchers most important jobs especially when it comes to best using pitchers like Nori and Sawamura who want to expand the zone horizontally. Miyuki is constantly surprised that the guy who has the third best stats and Win Loss record in the series is good. I mean what do you expect? That he is a scrub? The dude has a ridiculous ERA of 1.17 in his sophmore year, to put that in context, all but two Pitchers in the MLB had ERA's at least twice as large this season including this seasons NL Cy Young, the two guys with lower ERA's are the AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber, and the best pitcher of his generation Kershaw. Sawamura right now is a monster. Miyuki if he wasn't blinded by his need to play with his new flame throwing toy would have realized by now what kind of monster he has on his hands. 

Sawamura's attitude is that of a gentleman as a ballplayer, he doesn't get visibly mad on the mound or look to start fights. I don't see him as a guy who would plunk another player because he looked at him wrong, or did not show enough "respect". He wants to win, and will stretch and bend the rules to his advantage if he can get them to, but he won't cheat, or intentionally injure a player to win or prove his toughness.

There also was a tumblr post about the fact that Sawamura probably has deeper psychological scars than he lets on I'll link it here: https://xstonehill.tumblr.com/post/152213715383/sawamura-eijun-character-analysis. Its quite interesting and quite disturbing,

[pepbut]

@RoKrish really great post, I mostly agree across the board. Just a few things I feel like playing devil's advocate for:

 

-Personally I wouldn't knock Masashi too hard; he might look 40, but the kid's still barely in grade 10. Plate discipline does take some natural skill, but I fully expect him to improve there quite a bit. But yeah he's pretty useless now, only reason he gets game time is to give him experience for later.

 

-I don't really remember at all the team being harsh on Sawamura for losing in summer, they seemed pretty sympathetic to him as far as I can recall.

 

-Absolutely they could have been more supportive of him during the "yips" phase, but I'd argue that there's quite a bit of the Japanese trait there of making the kids work their asses off constantly, but being mostly hands off other than that and letting them work things out for themselves. It's very much a cultural trait. I'd also argue that Kataoka probably noticed that Sawamura is definitely the headstrong type that works better when he isn't coddled. Would the treatment have destroyed a weaker willed pitcher? Possibly, but again that's kinda the Japanese attitude of perseverance and survival of the fittest. Maybe they didn't even care if it ruined Sawamura, because if it did then he wasn't cut out for pro baseball in the first place. (Not saying this is a healthy philosophy by any means, but it fits with the culture of the team)

 

-Of course this is also exasperated by the fact that, like Ochiai mentioned, the team really has way too many players, making the subtle hands off coaching approach really the only viable method time-wise. The counter-point to this is that Kataoka is clearly aware of Sawamura's high potential, and thus realistically should have a responsibility to develop him properly for a life of baseball. But again goes it back to Kataoka's, and to a lesser extent the Japanese belief in a tough luck hands-off approach. Honestly it's just very lucky for Sawamura that he happens to thrive in that kind of environment. This also gives Kataoka himself some room for character development in the future.

 

-Which leads to the next point, that this is fundamentally a manga about overcoming adversity. It's very much intentional that the authority figures in the story don't coddle Sawamura and hold his hand every step of the way.  It's really a story about his perseverance under not the greatest circumstances, overcoming it with sheer determination and coming out all the better for it. Look at Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds (for all the cheating he's still a spectacular baseball player), etc., Plus it would honestly be a really boring story if Sawamura's road was that easy. Kataoka and co. aren't  completely incompetent by any means, but a flawless coaching staff doesn't make for a very compelling narrative.

 

-Regarding Miyuki's skill, you have to realize how rare it is for a catcher to be able to hit that well, field that well, and catch that well all at the same time. Obviously he's not flawless, but I think if he was any more skilled it would be far fetched enough to seriously detract from the story. Also there has been some mention of pitch framing in the story (I forget if it was Miyuki or Ono), but it's just something very hard to depict in a manga. Plus is it really that important of a skill? How often are you actually going to fool the umpire as opposed to being too obvious and pissing him off? From my experience it seems that most umpires very much have their own ideas of what are balls and strikes, and there's not too much you can do to change their mind.

 

-I wouldn't put too much stock in the 1.17 era either, sure it's amazing but it's still mostly against quite inferior teams. Completely incomparable to a 1.17 era in the MLB where the teams are pretty equal and every batter is great. For example I highly doubt Mei's ERA is above 0.5. I think the greatest trait of Sawamura as far as Koshien is concerned is his sheer consistency. Other than the yips stage there was really no point at all where he was off his game. It's very nearly unbelievable the point to which you can depend on this kid to excel under pressure every single time. In a season where one loss means elimination, that's an an insanely good trait to have.

 

-(Unrelated) The greatest pitcher of all time is Satchel Paige, fight me.

Edited by pepbut, 23 December 2017 - 01:23 AM.

[GodamfireV]

-I wouldn't put too much stock in the 1.17 era either, sure it's amazing but it's still mostly against quite inferior teams. Completely incomparable to a 1.17 era in the MLB where the teams are pretty equal and every batter is great. For example I highly doubt Mei's ERA is above 0.5. I think the greatest trait of Sawamura as far as Koshien is concerned is his sheer consistency. Other than the yips stage there was really no point at all where he was off his game. It's very nearly unbelievable the point to which you can depend on this kid to excel under pressure every single time. In a season where one loss means elimination, that's an an insanely good trait to have.

 

-(Unrelated) The greatest pitcher of all time is Satchel Paige, fight me.

 

I agree with Pepbut ​here on this point. Sawamura's ERA is only comparable to the pitchers in-universe and should not be used for comparison with the MLB's benchmark, the level is totally different. What Sawamura's ERA does clearly indicate however is that he's better than Furuya and the rest of the pitchers on his team and that's not a hypothesis. However, it would be farfetched to say his ERA indicates he's somehow as good as Kershaw in the MLB, that's a bit too remote. And yes, consistency is what I've been stressing all the time. Doesn't matter if Furuya goes up on one or 2 days and out of the blue gets 2-runs over 9 innings and lands Triple or HR or whatever on the National Stage if 90% of the time he still gets his ass handled to him by weaker Provincial teams. Terajima through Kataoka said a good phrase, the Ace is supposed to be the pitcher who can always give his team the W regardless if he's off or on aka the most consistent pitcher on the team and I'm going to make Terajima hold on to that statement when the Ace title is decided.

 

On another note, the greatest pitcher of all time for me is Greg Maddux and I'm not going to fight you for it so don't you fight me XD 

[Gunden]

Steve Carlton is the best pitcher for me. Just take a look at his slider. Was coined “the unhittable pitch.” Neither righties or lefties could hit that thing, which is a rare thing. Combined with a fastball in the high 90s and pin point accuracy, there was certainly a reason he was the leader in strikeouts for a while. And the amazing consistency he showed for 19 years, no season above a 4.0 era, with 8 under 3.0 and 1 under 2.0 is incredible. 4 cy youngs (should’ve been more).

We need to move on to the summer draw, I want to find out what the brackets going to look like, if seidou is going to have to show a highlight reel of games against all of the good teams so we can see the matchups, and Inashiro breeze into the finals like in the summer, or if since we are familiar with all the good teams, some will fade off against Inashiro whole seidou just plays 2. However I’m sure we will see see seidou facing at least 3 teams from the “elite” department, (including Inashiro in the finals which is almost a guarantee, I don’t see it being the semifinals).

Edited by Gunden, 23 December 2017 - 11:19 AM.

[GodamfireV]

We need to move on to the summer draw, I want to find out what the brackets going to look like, if seidou is going to have to show a highlight reel of games against all of the good teams so we can see the matchups, and Inashiro breeze into the finals like in the summer, or if since we are familiar with all the good teams, some will fade off against Inashiro whole seidou just plays 2. However I’m sure we will see see seidou facing at least 3 teams from the “elite” department, (including Inashiro in the finals which is almost a guarantee, I don’t see it being the semifinals).

 

We're currently at the beginning of June in-universe. If you look at the story recap, the Qualifier draws will be conducted by mid-June. On that same page, Terajima did states that the story from now on is "going to feature the fateful jersey number distribution and the lottery draw". There is a little hint that the jersey number will be decided before the Tournament draw takes place (which makes sense because you need to have a new captain and vice captains to represent the team officially to go do the draw). So there's about 1.5 week left if not less to finalize the jersey number and end the Ace race. There is really no time left to play practice matches between now until July because there'll be a Summer camp for physical and extended stamina training before summer and then 1 week of rest for the players to recover and recharge that stamina. These matches with Miyuki away from the team will probably decide the Ace race some what, granted Sawamura doesn't do worse than Furuya, he's got this in the bag because he's been consistently in top-form since Spring. There may be perhaps 1-2 additional matches in the following week with Miyuki as the catcher for both of them again for the final feedback to the coach. I expect everything to move quite fast from now on because in Terajima's mind, this year would be the real deal ​for him to seal another anime adaptation. The best scenario would be to time Seidou vs. Inajitsu Final right at the time where real-life Koshien starts and that will create huge interests as the nation gets into the Summer Baseball mode. If he can execute the match nicely with Seidou coming out on top, the 3rd anime adaptation is probably guaranteed in fact if Sawamura becomes the Ace and if he builds enough momentum for the story in the Summer Qualifier arc, the anime project may even starts before they reach the Final against Inajitsu.

 

As for the opponents, we already have a pretty clear idea which team would be up at which stage by now since almost all the teams in the Tokyo Prefecture have been shown.

- Finals: Inajitsu (almost guaranteed, revenge match)

- Semi Final: I'm going to be ballsy and predict a new dark horse, Yura High to appear here on this stage. This will serve as the Mentor vs. Disciple match for Kataoka and once Seidou wins, Sasaki will encourage Kataoka to live up to his team's hope and wish him luck for the final, this will serve as the final push for Seidou to get the win over Inajitsu

- Quarter Final: Most likely Ichidaisan. Another revenge match for a man on a mission Sawamura, with the Ace position to prove his worth over his rival Furuya. Different from last time, Sawamura won't fail and Furuya will have to play the closer for this match. Solidifying the new status quo in the team.

 

Seidou may meet Yakushi on an earlier rounds but to be honest, they have a higher chance of playing a practice match with Seidou before Summer than actually playing them in Summer. I know Yakushi is the second most developed team story-wise in DNA but this matchup is way too old already and a team that only has 2 key players, namely Raichi and Sanada (MIshima sometimes gets lucky hits here and there but still meh) that can legitimately threaten Seidou's pitchers at this point so Yakushi will become a fodder, and sine this matchup is the most played matchup in the story, it's boring to see it again. I'm begging Terajima to just let this go and make Yakushi become prey to Yura to pass on the dark horse torch. Sawamura vs. Raichi (Babe Ruth) rivalry can continues in Sawamura's 3rd year, if there are any chance that will happen. 

Edited by GodamfireV, 23 December 2017 - 12:10 PM.

[cameltr]

Good reads by @GodamfireV and @pepbut. Thx!

 

I am not sure what's your take on the transform that the pitchers of Seidou might have when they got autonomy by getting a chance of long innings when Miyuki away. Especially Eijun got strong when they have their eyes on him all the time, yet Eijun surprised everyone. I think those Miyuki-less couple days gonna make both of them psychologically sound. Sawamura might turn into a real ace in his peers' eyes. the very next game he could give Miyuki the shivers. Furuya might see the merit of his new role. Lots of possibilities if Terajima goes this way.  It's not far-fetched to think they develop within this short frame of time. 

Edited by cameltr, 23 December 2017 - 04:22 PM.

[elsa16]

Raw chapter 106
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5491344008?lp=home_main_thread_pb&mo_device=1&pn=0&
Merry Christmas 🎄

[RoKrish]

@pepbut:

-yeah I can get that masashi needs to learn some plate discipline, and I get that it comes with time, but Amahisa said that he was basically an easy out because he would swing at anything, I, right now, would not trust him in the clutch.

-If I remember correctly Jun basically told him to go away, and Miyuki said something like "they were all expecting him to win the game"

-Yeah the team is pretty big, but in a sense that puts pressure on the first string to produce, and since Seidou is a private they can probably afford to hire more than one coach to help with the team, they have 3 right now but Rei seems to be focused on recruitment. Honestly it would do for them to get a hitting coach, that would help them to score.

-I understand that this is a Shounen manga, and is definitionaly about overcoming adversity, but if that was really the case, shouldn't every character in the series have to overcome significant adversity. I don't exactly see Furuya overcoming adversity, in the same way that Sawamura, Mei, Kosei, or Raichi, for example have had to. And for the real life examples, Cobb had a pretty good childhood until his mom accidentally shot and killed his dad which happened the year he made the Tigers and probably contributed to his lowest season BA .240, Ruth, I'll give you had a tough life, but was a once in a century talent both as a pitcher and as hitter, and Bonds had a comparatively great childhood, he was basically taught how to play by the greatest all-round player ever, Willy Mays (his godfather), and his dad was a big league ball player in his own right. The only reason why he had it tough was that he was very antagonistic towards the press. That being said having to deal with a crippling mental issue, is something that no player or person should have to deal with, especially if that person is a kid.

-Framing is actually one of a catchers most important jobs. It goes, in order of importance, catching the ball, helping decide what pitch should be thrown, framing, fielding the ball, helping the pitcher relax and pitch with ease on the mound, runner management, tagging out runners coming home, coordinating shifts, and finally hitting. Framing is why Gary Sanchez, whom is great hitting catcher is an above average defensive catcher. Also Umps know that the catcher is framing the ball, and take that into account, they might warn the catcher if they are overdoing the framing, but most of the time the ump can't see the exact course of the ball into the zone, since its pretty much impossible for the human eye to track the ball at velocity at that distance, so they instead rely on framing and their estimation of the balls course to call strikes and balls.

-On the other hand I can agree with you and @godamfireV that I probably should not have used ERA, as that statistic is only good comparing pitchers playing a similar quality opposition, I probably should have used something like ERA+, but unfortunately we don't really have the data to make such an analysis. 

 

Also if you are asking who the Greatest pitcher of all time for lefties is peak Sandy Koufax. The guy was unstoppable when he was on apparently, and he was doing it with a busted up arm. Don't Fight me on this, if he had the injury record of say, Nolan Ryan, he would have been unstoppable for way longer than he was. Those final 6 years of his career were ridiculous. For Righties it has to be either Cy Young for the dead ball era, or Pedro Martinez for the modern era, Young because they named the award for him and statistics make it seem that he would have won at least 4 definite and probably 5 Cy Youngs, maybe even 6 with one of the most ridiculous seasons to never have led the league in any category at the age of 41, Martinez is one of the modern greats, and I put just slightly over Maddux, because Martinez threw no-hitters, and I just like the attitude he had towards the game which was just to dominate with every tool in the box. Plus its funnier when you realize that Dodgers did a dumb thing a traded him away as a prospect because he didn't "look like a pitcher", much like a certain pair of pitchers in DnA (i'm talking about Sawamura and Mei who are both pretty small for pitchers in case anyone didn't get it)

 

Also @godamfireV:

Here is what I think the tokyo tournament should look like:

QF: Yura or Sensen (If yura is a dark horse they would have to knock out one of West Tokyo's 5 big teams and Seidou and Inajitsu are untouchable, Yakushi for the sake of plot should play against Mei, Ichidaisan could play them, but they are the number 3 team in tokyo, and more importantly they have been nerfed repeatedly so that leaves Sensen)

SF: Ichidaisan (Revenge match, good lead up to the finals)

F: Inajitsu (they would have had to beat either Sensen and Yakushi, or just Yakushi, this balances the bracket pretty well I think)

 

also @Elsa16:

Thanks for the spoiler! It looks like what I was saying regarding the true quality of the American Team is coming out. The bullpen arm looks good, the hitting came back and adapted to the zone, and they are beating Tokyo pretty significantly since the switch. Mei seems to be entering the game and looks pretty angry about the situation and does a "Sawamura" and K's the batters after the switch.