Pacific League v. Central League

Welcome to the wonderful world of Pro Yakyu. I hope you have a pleasant stay.

As for your premise that "the DH produces better results," it all depends on your definition of "results." And the amount of data since inter-league started in 2005 isn't nearly enough to really attribute any meaning to what "results" there are.

For example, the yearly wins/losses by league [source - NPB BIS in Japanese] were:

Year	CL		PL
2005	104W	7T	105W
2006	107	1	108
2007	66	4	74
2008	71	0	73
2009	70	7	67

When each team played a three game series home and away against the opposite league in 2005-6, everything was pretty even. But when that was reduced to two games home and away in 2007, the smaller sample size tended to favor the PL for the first two years, then the CL last year. But that's hardly enough time to really say anything.

All five years so far a Pacific League team has won overall inter-league competition. (But interestingly, didn't fare as well against their own league more often than not.)

Regarding the designated hitter rule in Japan, what has always intrigued me has been that the DH was supposed to create more offense, but my observations have been that it's produced better pitchers. The pitchers are no longer pulled for a batter, so they can often get much more of a work out, in my view. And this has been a catalyst to producing many of the better starters in Pro Yakyu. (There are those who will argue that it also wears out arms at a quicker pace, but Nomura-kantoku had no problem doing that when he was managing the Swallows in the Central League in the 1990s.)

Anyway, I don't think that you'll find a definitive answer from looking at inter-league data for any definition of "results." There will be those teams who dominated and those who didn't, with little to do with the use of the DH.

The sample size is small, and doesn't really prove or disprove my point. When I say better results, I mean when compared to each other. When I checked the numbers between the AL and NL, the AL had won more all-star games, interleague games, and World Series since the DH was introduced. I'm interested to see if that's just coincidence, or if it is replicated in the Japanese League. Time will tell.

Anyway, the team I follow here is the Houston Astros. What would you say is the closest equivalent in the Central League? Mid level salary, never won a championship but gotten close, struggling right now, etc. I need a team to follow...