The rumors have been swirling for a week or so but the news was finally official today - pitcher Hirokazu Sawamura, formerly of the Yomiuri Giants and (briefly) the Chiba Lotte Marines, signed a two year deal with the Boston Red Sox. By my count he'll be the eighth Japanese player to pitch for the Red Sox after Hideo Nomo, Tomo Ohka, Hideki Okajima, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Takashi Saitoh, Junichi Tazawa and Koji Uehara. As a Red Sox fan, I'm hoping he helps the team to another championship, just like Okajima, Matsuzaka, Tazawa and Uehara did.
Sawamura was the first round pick of the Giants out of Chuo University in the 2010 draft. He moved immediately into the Kyojin's starting rotation in 2011 and pitched well enough to make the All Star team and win the Central League Rookie Of The Year award. He remained in the Giants' rotation for the next several seasons, making the All Star team a second time in 2013, but shoulder injuries cost him about half the season in 2014 and the Giants moved him into the bullpen and the closer role. He did extremely well in that role, recording 36 saves in 2015 and a Central League leading 37 in 2016. He missed much of 2017 with another shoulder injury, only getting into nine games with the farm team that season. He's pitched almost exclusively in middle relief since then. He was traded in September of last season to the Chiba Lotte Marines for Kazuya Katsuki and pitched well down the stretch for them, posting a 1.71 ERA with 29 strikeouts in 22 games.
Sawamura made the All Star team twice (2011 & 2013) and played in three Nippon Series (2012, 2013 and 2019). He pitched for Japan in both the 2013 World Baseball Classic and the 2015 Premier 12.
Sawamura's first card was from the 2011 BBM Rookie Edition set (#059). Other cards from his rookie year include BBM's 1st Version (#240), 2nd Version (#601) and Giants (#G004) sets and Calbee's Series One (#D-09) and Series Two (#132) sets. He's appeared in at least one of BBM's flagship sets every year until last year - although he did appear in the 2020 Fusion set. He's been in BBM's Giants team set every year since 2011 and also appeared in the 2011 All Star and 2012 Nippon Series sets (BBM stopped doing those sets after 2012). He had at least one Calbee card every year from 2011 to 2018 except for 2014 but he's not had a Calbee card since then. He's appeared in the 2019 and 2020 Epoch NPB sets. He's also appeared in several Bandai and Konami collectible card game sets.
As far as I can tell, there are only four cards depicting him as a member of the Marines - his 2020 BBM Fusion card (#607) and three 2020 Epoch One cards (#405, #407 and #491).
Here's a selection of his cards:
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| 2011 BBM Tohto 80th Memorial #60 |
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| 2011 BBM Rookie Edition #059 |
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| 2011 BBM 1st Version #240 |
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| 2011 SCM #178 |
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| 2011 BBM All Stars #A70 |
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| 2012 BBM 1st Version #328 |
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| 2012 BBM Nippon Series #S03 |
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| 2013 Giants Players Card |
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| 2016 Kabaya Central League Gum #07 |
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| 2016 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-06 |
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| 2017 Calbee #T-17 |
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| 2018 Konami Baseball Collection #201810-N-G015-00 |
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| 2020 BBM Fusion #607 |
3 comments:
Sawamura is the only player that I know who has BBM Rookie Edition cards in different years. 2011 BBM Rookie Edition #059 and 2012 BBM Rookie Edition #108. Both of these cards seem to be the standard card and not some variant.
Off hand, there are at least four players who appear in both the 2011 and 2012 Rookie Edition sets - Sawamura, Yuki Saitoh, Yuya Fukui and Kazuhisa Makita. They appear in 2011 as members of the 2010 draft class (or 2011 rookie class) and in the 2012 set in the established player subset. This is not unusual. Every Rookie Edition set has included cards of established active or retired players in addition to the newly drafted players. Masahiro Tanaka has appeared in SIX different Rookie Edition sets - 2007 when he was first drafted and the 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015 sets.
There are NO players who appear as drafted players in multiple Rookie Edition sets because only players who actually signed with the team that drafted them are included - and those guys don't get drafted again.
Wow ... great info. Thanks. :-)
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