The Sawamura Award is the top honor for NPB pitchers, but there are not that many players active in Japanese baseball who have actually won it.
The only Sawamura winners active in Japan are Hideaki Wakui, who won in 2009 while with the Seibu Lions, Masahiro Tanaka; a two-time winner (2011 and 2013) during his tenure with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, and the Chunichi Dragons’ Yudai Ono, the 2020 winner. The rest are either retired or in MLB.
The winners are chosen by a panel of retired pitchers. There is, however, no guarantee of that happening every year. The panel did not deem anyone worthy last year and simply did not give out the award. It was not awarded in 2019 either.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.