I mean, to be fair, for the past 20 years or so NPB has by general consensus been probably a little bit stronger than AAA. So it's legitimately the 3rd-best baseball league in the world behind the AL and the NL. It's pretty darn good. But still, AAA hits never counted. But on the other hand, Federal League, Players' League, and American Association hits do count, and realistically speaking the gap between those leagues and the NL was probably close to as big as the gap between MLB and NPB. Heck, for it's first 10 or 15 years the AL was probably as far behind the NL as NPB is behind MLB at this point.