NPB 2026 (M)

Japanese professional baseball reorganised in 1950 into the structure it still uses. The Pacific League had been founded in November 1949 and the Central in December of the same year, and they have coexisted without mixing much ever since: two parallel championships that only truly meet at the end.

One house's dominance marked the first half of that history. The Yomiuri Giants hold 22 Japan Series and 37 final appearances since 1950, and between 1965 and 1973 they won nine consecutive titles. In Japan that period has a name of its own, the V9, and it remains the yardstick against which any run in the country is measured.

Nothing like it has happened since. The rest of the honour roll is far more spread out, and the arrival of a playoff system in the 2000s finished off the direct link between winning the league and winning the title — the conversation that has run through Japanese baseball ever since.

The 2025 Japan Series lasted five games. The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks took it off the Hanshin Tigers and ended a long wait for a club of their size: it was their twelfth title, but their first since 2020.

The series MVP was Hotaka Yamakawa, who hit three home runs across those five games. In a championship where scores are low and games turn on one or two runs, three swings like that in five days decide an entire final; in another league they would barely make a good week.

The Tigers had come through from the Central and fell at the last step, and that defeat is what orders the following season: the champion defends from the Pacific and the runner-up leads the other league, so the two halves of the country begin the year with a score to settle that can only be settled in October.

The season opens on Friday 27 March with all twelve clubs in action. The Hawks defend the title and start as Pacific League favourites; the Tigers head the Central League previews. So far, so predictable.

What is actually being argued about in Japan before a ball is thrown is not who wins, but how much anyone will hit. Since 2022 the country has been settled into what it calls its dead-ball era: low scores, games short of runs, and an offence that will not wake up. It is the trait that separates this championship from any other at its level.

And in 2026 there are two concrete attempts to shift it: the Vantelin Dome in Nagoya and Rakuten Mobile Park in Miyagi are bringing their fences in towards the hitter. Two ballparks out of twelve, so the experiment is partial, but it is the first physical answer to four years of drought. The other question — whether the ball itself will be livelier — has no public answer.

Winning the regular season does not hand you the title, but it does not count for nothing either. After the 143 games, the top three in each league enter the Climax Series, the playoff that decides who goes to the Japan Series. The Pacific League introduced it in 2004 and the Central joined in 2007.

The mechanism has one piece that exists in no other major sport. First, second plays third, best of three. The winner then faces the league champion, best of six — and there the champion starts 1-0 up without having played. It is a win granted for having been the best over six months: it does not guarantee passage, but it forces the challenger to win four games out of six to knock them out.

The final between the two league champions is best of seven, and it keeps an eccentricity of its own: because ties exist here, a series can end 3-3-1. In that case an eighth game is played — and that one has no innings limit at all. It ends when somebody wins.