This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
In 2004, Pang Cheng-ming of the Brother Elephants took the batting title with a whopping .376 batting average. The Bulls' Chang Tai-shan finished second with at .337. However, Chang led the league with 21 home runs with Pang second at 18. Chang was way ahead of the rest of the field when it came to RBIs as he had 94 compared to Hsieh Jia-hsian of the Makoto Cobras who finished with 67. Cheng Jau-hau had 31 stolen bases.
Two youngsters stole the show in terms of pitching. Rookie Lin Ying-jie led the league with a 1.73 ERA and 203 strikeouts in 187 innings. Yang Chien-fu was second with a 1.77 ERA. Lee Ming-chin had a breakout sophomore year as he finished with a 1.87 earned run average. Pan Wei-luen and Kleber Ojima rounded out the top five with marks of 2.14 and 2.19 respectively. American veteran Jonathan Hurst led the CPBL with 17 victories. Michael Garcia had 33 saves and a 0.71 ERA as a closer.