Veteran Hanshin Tigers right-hander Kenichi Nakata, a former All-Star and multiple Japan Series winner with the Chunichi Dragons and Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, will wrap up his 17-year pro baseball career this season, a source revealed Tuesday.
The 39-year-old has 100 career wins, reaching the milestone in 2018 with SoftBank, but has not seen any top-team action this season, his second with Hanshin.
Selected by the Central League’s Dragons in the second round of the 2005 draft, the Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, native recorded a career-high 14 wins in the club’s 2007 Japan Series-winning season.
He joined SoftBank in the Pacific League as a free agent in 2014, posting an 11-7 record for the Fukuoka-based club as they went on to win the Japan Series that year.
He was traded to the CL’s Tigers in 2020, going 0-2 in three games for the season. In 297 career games, he has a 100-79 record with 1,350 strikeouts and a 3.75 ERA.
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Source : Baseball – The Japan Times