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Nomura's hitting as a catcher

Discussion in the Pro Yakyu History forum
Nomura's hitting as a catcher
I heard recently someone talking about how Mike Piazza is the best hitting catcher ever, which got me thinking - how many of Nomura's 600+ HRs did he hit as a catcher?
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Re: Nomura's hitting as a catcher
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Apr 22, 2006 11:01 AM | YBS Fan ]

While the data I have doesn't break down according to home runs hit by position, I can provide games played at other positions per year with the home runs.
Year  Games   HRs  Games per Position
---- ----- ---- ------------------------------
1954 9 0 C: 8
1955 0 - ------
1956 129 7 C: 127
1957 132* 30* C: 132
1958 120 21 C: 120
1959 132 21 C: 131
1960 124 29 C: 121
1961 136 29* C: 133 1B: 1
1962 133* 44* C: 130 1B: 4 OF: 2
1963 150* 52* C: 150
1964 148 41* C: 148
1965 136 42* C: 133
1966 133* 34* C: 133
1967 133* 35* C: 133
1968 133 38* C: 133
1969 106 22 C: 104
1970 130* 42 C: 130
1971 127 29 C: 128 1B: 1 OF: 1
1972 129 35 C: 129
1973 129 28 C: 129
1974 83 12 C: 75
1975 129 28 C: 125 DH: 5
1976 119 10 C: 113 DH: 6
1977 127 16 C: 127
1978 64 3 C: 31 DH: 20
1979 74 5 C: 59
1980 52 4 C: 41 DH: 1
===== ===== ==== ==============================
Total 3,017 657 C: 2,921 1B: 6 OF: 3 DH: 32
* Denotes league leader.

As you can see, he was overwhelmingly working as a catcher throughout his career. I imagine you can work out the number of pinch hits by subtracting games per position from games played, however, he may have played multiple positions in a single game (getting counted twice), and may have appeared in games as a pinch runner (unlikely - but possible), so any such number would have a margin of error.

I'm afraid that this is as close as I can get to answering your question.
Re: Nomura's hitting as a Catcher
[ Author: 20X6!! | Posted: May 5, 2006 3:33 PM | FSH Fan ]

So Mike Piazza only has a few hundred home runs or so to go at least before he's the all-time, all-world leader. And I also had no idea Nomura played for so long.

Thanks for finding the stats!
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