The NPB announced today that Masahiro Tanaka won the 2011 Sawamura Award.

Both Tanaka and Yu Darvish qualified for the Sawamura Award, but Tanaka was ultimately selected.

UPDATE @ 7:25pm - Sanspo reports that one of the Sawamura judges, Masayuki Dobashi, asked both Tanaka and Darvish to hold off from celebrating on the mound after striking batters out next season.

The committee is also thinking about separate awards for the Central and Pacific Leagues to account for the lower pitching stats in the CL since teams have a tendency to replace pitchers with pinch-hitters in order to improve their chances of scoring.

UPDATE 11/15 @ 3:10am - Sanspo has posted comments from Tanaka's press conference:

On winning the Sawamura award...

I'm very happy.  For me, it is the most prestigious award a pitcher can win.  Being able to win is definitely a confidence booster.

On why you were successful this past season...

I physically felt good.  A lot of people helped me out and things just fell into place.

Any particular game that sticks out?

The game where I struck out 18 (vs Softbank on 8/27).

Sendai was hit pretty hard during the earthquake / tsunami...

Because of 3/11, I felt a lot more strongly about this season.  The team only finished in 5th, but I'm hoping we were able to bring at least a little brightness into people's lives.

You beat out [Yu] Darvish for the award...

It's just based on numbers.  In terms of actually skill and ability, I'm not even close.

Your outlook moving forward...

I need to keep improving myself in all areas.  I need to keep changing.  My number 1 goal is to win the league and become Nippon Series champs.

Sponichi has comments from each of the members of the Sawamura selection committee:

Dobashi (committee chairman): We considered the importance of the award and selected just 1 winner.  If we were to relate this to horse-racing, it was a photo finish.  One where you really need to zoom in to see the difference.

Choji Murata: There hasn't been a year when things were as close as this.  Tanaka won 19 games and pitched right through to the end.  He also had a lot of complete games and won many of those complete games as well.

Masaji Hiramatsu: There isn't much difference in the stats.  So when I think about impressions, I think Darvish was slightly ahead.  It was really close for Darvish.

Manabu Kitabeppu: Based on my experiences, the ERA in the ones in the first half and increasing the gap to 0.17 [with Darvish] was impressive.  14 complete games in baseball in also very rare.

UPDATE 11/15 @ 5:14pm - A few additional notes:

• The voting was 3-2 in favor of Tanaka.  ERA may have been what put Tanaka over the top, in addition to leading the league in 4 Sawamura categories (WPCT, W, CG, ERA) vs Darvish's 3 (G, IP, SO).
• Darvish's father was disappointed about the results and wondered why the committee couldn't name two winners.
• Tanaka was at an onsen in Akita (for some R&R) when he found out he won the award.
• The decision took about 40 minutes.
• In addition to Tanaka and Darvish, CL pitchers Kazuki Yoshimi and Tetsuya Utsumi were also up for consideration.

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Career Stats

Sawamura Award winners through the years.

Kenta Maeda was awarded the 2010 Sawamura Award.  It seems the voters narrowed it down to Maeda, Yu Darvish, and Chihiro Kaneko and ultimately decided on Maeda for his consistency throughout the season, despite pitching for a last place team.

Incidentally, none of the three pitchers up for the award actually fulfilled all 7 qualifications for the award.

The seven categories:

1. Games - 25 or more
2. Complete Games - 10 or more
3. Wins - 15 or more
4. WPCT - .600 or better
5. Innings pitched - over 200.0
6. Strikeouts - 150 or more
7. ERA - 2.50 and under

And the totals for each pitcher:

The Sawamura Award is handed out at the end of each season to the best overall pitcher in either league.  They must also fulfill as many of the following statistical categories as possible (implemented in 1982):

Games - 25 or more
Complete Games - 10 or more
Win - 15 or more
Winning Percentage - .600 or better
Innings Pitched - 200 or more
Strike outs - 150 or more
ERA - 2.50 or less

This season the award goes to:

Hideaki Wakui (Seibu Lions)

(italics - tied in both leagues; bold - led either league)

Said Wakui, "It's difficult to get selected for this award so when I heard the news, I was sincerely happy.  I was able to rack up a fair number of strike outs and I was the only pitcher with double-digit complete games so I thought I had a chance."

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A Pacific League pitcher has won the award the last 5 years straight.

The last Central League pitcher to win it?

Kenshin Kawakami in 2004 when he was pitching for the Chunichi Dragons.

=== UPDATE 11/3/2009 @ 12:14pm JST

Other names that were up for consideration:

Yu Darvish

Masahiro Tanaka

Toshiya Sugiuchi

Kazuki Yoshimi

Dicky Gonzalez