is a Japanese professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to catch ...

for the

Hanshin Tigers The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, next to their main stadium, Hanshin Koshien Stadium. The Tigers are owned by Hanshin Electric Railway Co., ...

Nippon Professional Baseball is a professional baseball league and the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning simply ''Professional Baseball''; outside of Japan, NPB is often referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league ...

(NPB).

Amateur career

Born in Yokohama City, Shota played little league baseball in as early as first grade for the Nobahigiri Phoenix, playing mostly as an outfielder but he switched to 3rd base when he entered Higiriyama Junior High. He continued to play baseball for Tokai Sagami High where he secured the cleanup position and center field right from the start, and even got to participate in the Spring Koshien tournaments of 2018. He hit a total of 57 home runs in all his official appearances in high school. Despite gaining interest from some NPB teams, he didn't submit an application for the 2018 NPB draft and instead opted to enroll in Chuo University in Tokyo to study Finance. He still manned the outfield and was a regular in the lineup as his school participated regularly in the Tohto University Baseball League games. He got awarded best 9 in the 2019 spring season, and also got selected to play for the national team (Samurai Japan) to play in the Japan-US College Baseball Championships. He recorded a total of 36 RBIs including 9 home runs, 0.240 batting average and 0.412 slugging percentage in 78 Tohto league appearances, and got awarded best nine twice.

Hanshin Tigers

He was chosen as the Hanshin Tigers' alternative pick during the 1st round of the 2022 Nippon Professional Baseball draft (after they lost the lottery draw for Shogo Asano to the Giants). He signed a 100 million yen contract with the Tigers, plus 50 million yen signing bonus for an estimated 16 million yen annual salary. He was assigned the jersey number 1.

References

External links

Career statistics - NPB.jp
2000 births Living people Baseball people from Kanagawa Prefecture Japanese baseball players Nippon Professional Baseball outfielders Hanshin Tigers players {{Japan-baseball-outfielder-stub