Mitsutaka Gotoh

Mitsutaka Gotoh of the Tohoku Rakutea Golden Eagles announced his retirement last month.  Gotoh had been released by the Eagles at the end of the season and attended the 12 team tryouts in early December but did not get any offers.  The Eagles have given him a job working with their baseball academy.

Gotoh was drafted in the tenth round of the fall 2001 draft from Kawasaki Steel Chiba of the corporate leagues by the Orix Blue Wave.  It's hard to believe but he was the last Orix Blue Wave player still active in NPB (the only other active former Blue Wave player is Ichiro Suzuki).  He played for Orix through the 2013 season.  His best seasons were 2010 when he hit .295 with 16 home runs and 73 RBIs in 143 games and 2011 when he hit .312 in 130 games (and had a 26 game hitting streak).  He was traded to the Eagles after the 2013 season for Teppei Tsuchiya and spent the past three seasons in Sendai.

His BBM rookie card was #295 from the 2002 1st Version set.  I'm not entirely sure what his first Calbee card was as there was another Mitsutaka Gotoh who played for Seibu and Yomiuri between 2000 and 2005 but I'm pretty sure it was a card from the 2002 "New Face" subset (#BN-16).  His first regular Calbee card was #181 from the 2005 set and he also had cards in various Konami, Bandai and Front Runner sets.

2002 BBM 1st Version #295

2004 BBM Blue Wave #BW90

2007 Konami Baseball Heroes 3 Black Edition #B07B092

2009 BBM 2nd Version #577

2011 Calbee Star #S-09

2012 BBM Pedigree #20

2013 Front Runner Buffaloes Season Summary #15

2016 BBM 1st Version #147