Overview
A hold is credited to a middle reliever who enters in a save situation (lead of 3 runs or fewer, tie game, or tying run on base), maintains the lead, and exits before the game ends. NPB officially adopted the hold as a statistic in 2005, providing a way to quantify middle reliever contributions that were previously invisible in win and save totals. The metric is directly tied to evaluating setup men who handle the seventh and eighth innings in the 'winning pattern,' and can also come into play in salary negotiations. Naoki Miyanishi (Nippon-Ham) became the first player in NPB history to reach 300 career holds in 2019, and has pushed his career total past 400 as of September 4, 2026. The single-season records are 50 holds by Noboru Shimizu (Yakult) in 2021 and 59 hold points by Takuya Asao (Chunichi) in 2010 (as of the end of the 2025 season). 'Hold points' (holds plus relief wins) are also used alongside holds, and the Best Middle Reliever title is determined by this combined metric.