Tatsuya Imai Of The Houston Astros

Last week, the Houston Astros announced that they had signed former Saitama Seibu Lions right handed pitcher Tatsuya Imai to a three year contract.  Imai had been a star pitcher at Sakushin Gajuin high school, helping them win the 2016 Summer Koshien tournament - he was the starter and winning pitcher in the final game against Hokkai.  He pitched in all five of Sakushin's games in that tournament, striking out 44 while only only allowing five runs in 41 innings of work.

The Lions took him with their first pick in that fall's draft.  Injuries and a suspense due to underage smoking limited him to only a handful of games with the farm team for his first year and a half as a professional, but he made an auspicious debut with the top team on June 13th of 2018, starting against the Swallows and holding them to only one run in six innings.  He was the first Lions pitcher to win his ichi-gun debut since Daisuke Matsuzaka in 1999.  The rest of his outings that year were a mixed bag but he showed enough promise to make the starting rotation when the 2019 season opened.

His pitching continued to be a mixed bag for a couple seasons - he missed some time due to injuries and was demoted to the bullpen for a spell in 2020 - but he started to turn it around in 2021 and had three straight ten win seasons for a pretty weak Lions team in 2023-25.  2025 was his best season ever, going 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA and a league leading 178 strikeouts.  He threw a combined no-hitter with Kaima Taira against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in April (it's not an official no-hitter because NPB does not acknowledge combined no-hitters or no-hitters in which the losing team scores a run) and also struck out 17 batters in a game against the Baystars in June.  

TCDB lists 56 cards for Imai from his first year of 2017 but, as I've pointed out with other players, that number's somewhat inflated by parallels, autograph and memorabilia cards.  He really has only nine rookie cards that are base set cards.  His first card was #028 in BBM's Rookie Edition set and he also appears in BBM's Icons - Japan Pride (#10), 1st Version (#103), Lions (#L02) and Rookie Edition Premium (#RP10) sets.  He also appears in the "Draft Pick" subset in Calbee's Series Two set (#D-04).  His last 2017 cards are in Epoch sets - their Lions team set (#6) as well as both the Pacific League (#36) and Pacific League Premier Edition (#35).  I have seven of these cards:

2017 BBM Rookie Edition #028

2017 BBM Icons - Japan Pride #10

2017 BBM 1st Version #103

2017 BBM Lions #L02

2017 Calbee Series Two #D-04

2017 Epoch Lions #6

2017 Epoch Pacific League #36

Here's a card of him from each year of his career up until 2024 (since I stopped getting NPB cards after that).  This includes a card from his only appearance with Samurai Japan in a somewhat major international tournament - the 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship.

2018 BBM Fusion #033

2019 BBM 1st Version #002

2020 Calbee Series Two #075

2021 Epoch NPB #074

2022 Topps NPB #141

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Asian Professional Baseball Championship Team Set #SJ-11

2024 BBM Lions Collection #LC09

Looking at his cards over the years, it's obvious when he and Kona Takahashi started their "Team Long Hair"!

First Zippy Zappy-ing Of The New Year

Kenny - aka Zippy Zappy - had given me a heads up a few weeks back that there was a new envelope on its way across the Pacific to me and it showed up at my house today.  It contained two cards, neither of which I already had.  Kenny's always had a pretty good knack for sending me cards that I don't already own which is pretty impressive considering I have a LOT of Japanese cards.  In fairness, however, it's gotten a little easier over the last year since I stopped buying new cards.

Case in point this first card of Koki Kitayama from the Calbee "Pro Yakyu Spirits A" set that was just released about a month ago:

2025 Calbee Pro Yakyu Spirits A #PS-20

It was a little more of a gamble that I didn't have this Bushiroad DreamOrder card of Orlando Calixte from 2024.  But I didn't.

2024 Bushiroad DreamOrder Central League Booster Pack Vol. 4 #CBP04-D05

Thanks again for the cards, Kenny!

Card Of The Week January 4

Kona Takahashi's posting window closes this afternoon but apparently the Lions right-handed pitcher has been unhappy with the offers he's received from MLB teams as it's already been announced that he'll be returning to Seibu for the 2026 season.  I feel bad for him but, as a Lions fan, I am happy that the team won't be losing two members of their 2025 rotation with Tatsuya Imai having signed with the Astros last week.

Both Imai and Takahashi grew their hair out over the past few years and the Lions have sold merchandise for the two of them under the label "Team Long Hair".  There was a card in the 2024 BBM Lions set dedicated to it - the back explains that Takahashi is the president of the team with Imai being the vice-president:

2024 BBM Lions #L67

Here are two more cards of Takahashi - a rookie card showing his original haircut and one more recent one showing his long hair:

2015 Lions Fan Club #17

2024 Topps NPB #120

SABR Zoom Talk With Tatsuo Shinke On January 28

The SABR Asian Baseball and Baseball Card Research Committees are hosting a Zoom meeting with Tatsuo Shinke, the CEO of Mint, on January 28, 2026 at 8:30 PM EST.  Details are here.  

Shinke used to work for both Baseball Magazine (BBM) and Upper Deck and has been with Mint since 2010.  He was profiled/interviewed in Rob Fitts' recent book "In The Japanese Ballpark" - in fact, the photo of him at the above link is the same one that appears in the book.

Munetaka Murakami Samurai Japan Cards

I had mentioned when I did my "New Import" post for Munetaka Murakami that I had a lot of Epoch One and Samurai Japan cards for him.  I did a post on the Epoch One cards last week and I thought I'd do the Samurai Japan one now before I get caught up in the Tatsuya Imai and (potentially) Kazuma Okamoto posts in the next few days (neither of whom I have as many Epoch One or Samurai Japan cards for).

As far as I know, there are 17* cards of Murakami as a member of Samurai Japan, of which I have 16.  Just about half of them (eight) are US issued cards for the 2023 World Baseball Classic while the others are all Japanese issues for that tournament and assorted friendly matches.  I'm going to run through the cards in roughly chronological order.

* Not including parallels, autographed or memorabilia cards

Murakami's first appearance with a Samurai Japan team was the one that played a couple friendlies with Mexico in March of 2019.  His first Samurai Japan baseball card was from the Calbee set that was released that fall:

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-33

His next appearance with Samurai Japan and the first major international tournament that he played in for them was the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (which was played in 2021 and the baseball competition was played in Yokohama).  Unfortunately there were no baseball cards issued for that edition of the team.

Murakami's next played for Samurai Japan in the friendlies against Australia in November of 2022 (along with warm up games against the Giants and Fighters).  Topps issued 16 Topps Now singles for the team which included two cards for Murakami.  They also issued a full team set via Topps Now:

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #003

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #007

2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #SJ-22

Murakami's best known tenure with Samurai Japan was from the 2023 World Baseball Classic.  Murakami had ten cards across the ten sets/subsets that Topps did for the tournament - two of which (the Samurai Japan team set and the Japan Edition "Samurai Japan" insert set) were ony available in Japan.  I have nine of these - I'm missing his Bowman Chrome card:

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-66

2023 Topps Now WBC #WBC-69

2023 Topps Now Samurai Japan Team Set #WBCJPN-5

2023 Topps Global Stars #10

2023 Topps Global Stars #F-3

2023 Topps Samurai Japan Team Set #30

2023 Topps 2 WBC Stars #WBC-60

2023 Topps Japan Edition Samurai Japan #WBC-5

2023 Topps World Baseball Classic #84

In addition, BBM had a Samurai Japan subset in their 2023 Infinity set which wasn't "officially" for the WBC but might as well have been:

2023 BBM Infinity #25

Murakami's final appearance to date with Samurai Japan was the friendly matches they played in March of 2024 against "Team Euro", a team of players from European Union nations.  Topps again did Topps Now singles for this series (dubbed the "Global Games") although there were just eight of them this time, one of which was Murakami.  They also again did a full Topps Now team set:

2024 Topps Now Samurai Japan #1

2024 Topps Now Global Games Samurai Japan Team Set #24

Murakami is not the player that I have the most Samurai Japan/Japanese National Team cards for - he's tied with Ichiro for fifth.  I have a whopping 27 cards of Daisuke Matsuzaka with three other players - Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani and Tetsuto Yamada - tied for second with 17 cards each.  All but three of the Ohtani's cards I have are from the 2023 WBC (he had 17 in all but I "only" have 14 of them).

In Memoriam 2025

 

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #T-06

I've seen a couple posts on Bluesky and other places, giving a list of the baseball players who passed away in 2025 and I noticed that generally, they don't include any NPB players.  At least, no NPB players who didn't play in NPB.  I thought I'd try to do a quick post that listed some of the major NPB stars who left us this past year.  This isn't a comprehensive list and it's not even a full list of folks that I did Memorial posts for.  I just wanted to recognize that four Japanese Hall Of Famers died in 2025 along with some other fairly big names.  I'm not going to write anything about each player but I will link to the Memorial post I did for each of them.

February 5 - Hall Of Famer Yoshio Yoshida

2015 BBM Tigers 80th Anniversary #08

Feburary 16 - Swallows mascot Tsubakuro (obviously this was the actor who portrayed him since 1994 but I don't know his name.  And apparently Tsubakuro will return to Swallows games next season)

2013 Calbee Series Two #C-8

April 4 - Tony Blanco

2013 BBM Baystars 20th Anniversary #75

April 18 - Hall Of Famer Masaaki Koyama

2005 BBM Glorious Stars #024

June 3 - Hall Of Famer Shigeo Nagashima

2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 #185

September 22 - Yukihiro Machida

2003 BBM Sluggers #018

November 2 - Hall Of Famer Yoshinori Hirose

2009 Epoch All Japan Baseball Foundation 15th Anniversary #46

November 24 - George Altman

1975 NST #134

In addition, I also did Memorial posts this year for Hidetoshi Hakamada, Yutaka Ohhashi, Jack Bloomfield, Jitsuo Mizutani, Davey Johnson, Jim Marshall & Brian Dayett, Yoshihiro Itoh, Hiroaki Inoue, Nobuhiro Takashiro and Mike Campbell.  There were other NPB players who passed away this year that I did not do posts for - mostly because I had few if any cards of them.  I mean no disrespect to anyone I neglected to do a post for or the players I didn't highlight in this post.

2025 In Review - Everything Else (Including Korea)

I'm finishing up my review of 2025's card releases in Japan (and Korea) with everything that wasn't done by BBM, Epoch, Calbee or Topps.

Bushiroad returned this past year with updates to their DreamOrder collectible card game that was initially released in 2024.  They released a booster pack set for each of the 12 NPB teams which were released in pairs throughout the year with the Giants and Tigers sets coming out in March; the Buffaloes, Lions, Carp and Dragons getting released in April; the Hawks, Eagles, Baystars, and Swallows hitting stores in May and the Fighters and Marines getting published in June.  They also released two other sets in September - a Samurai Japan set that appears to be team set for the 2024 Premier 12 team (which furthers my confusion about the Samurai Japan license holder) and a "Heroes Of 2025" set that features some of the top players from each team.

Bandai returned with a second edition of their "Pro Baseball Deforme Card Collection", their collaboration with Namco that was distributed with packets a snack called "kaki no tane".  Like their 2024 set, this was a 36 card set featuring caricatures of players.

Epoch and the Eagles collaborated on a "comprehensive" team set for the second year in a row.  I was a bit surprised when I realized that there was only one of these sets released in 2025 since the Eagles have done two - labeled "1st Version" and "2nd Version" - almost every year since at least 2018.  As far as I could tell, this was the only collaboration between a team and card company this year - the Lions and BBM did not issue an "L Collection" set for the first time in several years.  I am sure that, once again, various teams issued card sets either through their fan clubs or with meals at the ballpark (or both) but I don't know anything about them.

TIC (or "Hits" or "Produce 216") only did a single one of their "mini colored paper" or "mini shikishi" team sets this year and it was for the Hawks.  They did, however, issue a new product called "mini folding screens".  Each "mini folding screen" is a panel about 24 centimeters (9 1/2 inches) by 13.5 centimeters (around 5 1/3 inches) which is split into three parts.  They issued three sets of eight sheets (four "base set" sheets with four "foil signature" parallels) for three teams - the Giants, Hawks and Dragons.

I think my total count of 2025 NPB sets comes out to about 77 which is a little lower than last year's total of 79 (I had listed the total number of 2024 sets as 60 in my review last year but I was counting all the DreamOrder cards as being one set rather than twenty individual sets).  This would be a count of all the "nationally" released sets (so I'm including the Epoch/Eagles team set but no other team issued sets) but not any of the on-line, on-demand Epoch One or Topps Now cards.

There were three KBO sets released in South Korea in 2025 - all by SCC.  KBO Collection was released in May, KBO Collection+ came out in August and KBO Sensation was released in September.