Sho Nakata
| Sho Nakata | |||
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Nakata with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters
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| Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters – No. 6 | |||
| First baseman, Outfielder | |||
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Born: April 22, 1989 Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan |
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| NPB debut | |||
| May 23, 2009, for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters | |||
| NPB statistics (through 2016) |
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| Batting average | .257 | ||
| Home runs | 161 | ||
| RBI | 576 | ||
| OPS | .771 | ||
| Teams | |||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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| Medal record | ||
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| Men's baseball | ||
Representing  Japan
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| 2015 WBSC Premier12 | ||
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2015 Tokyo | Team |
Sho Nakata (中田 翔 Nakata Shō?, born April 22, 1989 in Hiroshima) is a Japanese professional baseball player playing for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. He plays outfield and first base.
As a high school student, he played as a pitcher for Osaka Toin High School and his fastball was clocked at 94 mph. In 2006, he took part in a National High School Baseball Championship, but he was defeated by his opponent Yuki Saito in his second game.
Nakata was a highly hyped prospect out of high school, hitting a total of 87 home runs, a Japanese record. On November 3, 2006, during a prefectural tournament game, the 17-year-old cracked a 550' homer out of the park then over a couple houses before landing across the street. That shattered the old record for the park, 425' by future NPB regular Osamu Hamanaka. The Minnesota Twins, New York Mets and Seattle Mariners all expressed interest, with Seattle offering $2.5 million. Nakata turned all of them down to play in Nippon Pro Baseball.
He was in the first pick by Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in the 2007 draft (High School Players). He succeeds the number 6, previously belongs to "Mr. Fighters" Yukio Tanaka.
He struggled in his first spring training in 2008, and was sent down to ni-gun for seasoning. He fared well, hitting .255/.339/.464 with 11 HR in 196 AB. He was five homers behind Eastern League leader Yohei Kaneko despite missing the last two months after knee surgery.
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Wikipedia